Today when most executives consider the intellectual capital of their organization, they focus on the present. They seek tools and techniques to exploit their organizational knowledge for some immediate gain. There is an emerging shift in thinking that will provide a lasting competitive advantage the shift is from the present to the future. This book is unique in that it focuses on what executives should be doing now (or soon) to ensure the next generation of organizational leaders know what we knew. In other words, are we creating organizational memories today, which will be useful to the next generation of leaders? Will today s baby-boomer based practices pass the test of time? Are our current processes the most relevant ones for the next generation of organizational leaders? To answer these questions the book is divided into three parts. Part 1 is introductory in nature and provides a concise overview of knowledge management: its genesis, the theory of knowledge, and the types of knowledge that exist. Part 2 builds on this foundation and highlights some of the successes and failures during the past two decades as baby-boomer executives struggled to develop effective ways of sharing what their organizations know. A review of projects suggests that many first generation knowledge management projects were based on collecting and classifying information. Second generation knowledge management projects shifted the focus to codifying tacit knowledge and combining explicit knowledge to create new knowledge. Part 3 focuses on emerging ideas that show great potential. Today we are seeing some very promising results from third generation knowledge projects, which focus on connecting people and facilitating collaboration. Some pioneering organizations are now reaping the benefits of using social media tools such as wikis for collaboration and commercial social networking tools, for connecting people. These emerging tools and techniques provide flexible, agile, and intuitive solutions for connecting people with people and facilitating coordination, communication, and collaboration.
John Girard is an associate professor of management at Minot State University where he teaches graduate and undergraduate management courses. John is researching the relationships existing between information anxiety, organizational memory loss, and contemporary knowledge management theories. John is co-founder and Chief Knowledge Strategist of Sagology (www.sagology.com), a firm dedicated to connecting people with people to facilitate collaboration, learning, and knowledge sharing through keynotes, workshops, and consulting.
After 24 years as an officer in the Canadian Forces John, his wife JoAnn, and their two dogs moved to Minot, ND. Throughout his military career, John had the pleasure to serve in a variety of command and staff positions in Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany, gaining experience as a leader, trainer, policy officer, human resource manager, and project manager in the Public sector environment. In 2004, whilst acting as Director of Knowledge Management at National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa, he accepted an Associate Professorship at Minot State University, retiring at the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
John is a graduate of TUI University, where he completed a PhD in Business Administration and an MBA, and of the University of Manitoba where he achieved a BSc with a Computer Science major. In addition, John is a graduate of Canadian Forces College, Toronto and the Royal Military College of Science in the United Kingdom.
John speaks regularly on subjects such as knowledge management, social media, transformation, and innovation. He has spoken in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America at such events as KM World, APQC's Knowledge Management Conference, the World Congress on Intellectual Capital, KM Australia, InfoVision India, KM Asia, and many other events. John has undertaken training and consulting assignments for clients such as the Department of National Defence, Canadian Forces College, Canadian International Development Agency, US Department of Labor, Job Corps, Ark Group Australia, Success Steps Saudi Arabia, Saline Water Conversion Corporation, High Commission for the Development of ArRiyadh and the Dubai Municipality.
John is actively engaged in research, having written more than twenty articles and chapters for peer-reviewed or trade journals and books. John's first book, an edited volume entitled Building Organizational Memories: Will you know what you knew?, was published by IGI Global in March 2009. John is the lead author of A Leader's Guide to Knowledge Management: Drawing on the Past to Enhance Future Performance, published by Business Expert Press in June 2009. At present, John is working on a follow-on book entitled A Leader's Guide to Knowledge Management: Social Media Strategies for Building Real Competitive Advantage, which will be available from Business Expert Press in 2010.
Prior to returning to his passion of teaching, John gained experience as a university administrator and demonstrated his ability in a variety of senior positions including: Dean of Enrollment Management, Director of Enrollment Services, Chair of the Business Information Technology department, and Director of an Executive Management Program.
The City and Guilds of London Institute awarded John their Insignia Award for his research into the application of robotic technology and subsequently appointed him a member of the City and Guilds Institute (MCGI). In 2003 John received the Chartered Manager (F. CIM) designation from the Canadian Institute of Management. In 2004 John earned the Best Academic Paper award at 7th Annual World Congress on Intellectual Capital and Innovation.
For more information, please see www.johngirard.net and www.sagology.com
