Smart Business: How Knowledge Communities Can Revolutionize Your Company
by By Botkin, James W.
Category: Business & Economics , Management

Knowledge is most productive when it is shared by all. This simple but profound insight, long accepted in the academic, scientific, and medical communities, is about to radically transform business. Our economy has become inundated with information, yet often businesses are unable to use and exploit it. How can managers organize their workplaces to effectively exchange, expand, and exploit knowledge?  Dr. Jim Botkin, one of the world's leading knowledge consultants, sees a tidal wave of information swamping the old ways of doing business. The knowledge economy, he argues, is not just for Silicon Valley startups; it touches every company, in every industry. We ignore Dr. Botkin's experience at our peril; the new breakneck speed of change demands that we all capture and capitalize on knowledge, or die. As he puts it, "You better not be in the same business five or ten years from now that you are in today."  Smart Business is the first knowledge-age book to give practical advice on how to organize and make use of knowledge -- how to turn knowledge into wisdom. Botkin argues that we must build "knowledge communities" -- groups of people with a shared passion to create, use, and share new knowledge for tangible business purposes. When we do, we will experience a transformation that powers our business and inspires new models of networked management.  Botkin draws on the experiences of dozens of companies -- and includes testimonials in an appendix from managers at such organizations as Xerox, Marriott, Saturn, and Los Alamos labs. He shows how AT&T formed six knowledge communities in order to radically transform their selling strategy. How the postal service of Sweden transformed itself from the oldest state monopoly to one of the largest successful private companies in Scandinavia. How Motorola is using knowledge to transform its legendary Motorola University from classroom curriculum to catalyst for change.  With examples like these, and practical advice on how every organization can benefit from knowledge communities, Smart Business is the knowledge book for the new millennium.