Innotecture

It would be very tempting to say that I am the sole visionary with something to say about combining learning and knowledge for Performance Enhancing. However that would be completely untrue. In researching and writing the book, I found that I was far from alone.

• The Internet Time Alliance come at this terrain from a training and elearning background. I found myself nodding vigorously as I read Charles Jenning‘s articles. Jay Cross‘s Informal Learning is basically about good knowledge management as far as I am concerned.
• Marcia Connor has been exploring similar territory for some time although she has joined the Altimeter Group.
• Victor Newman* has been looking at knowledge and learning through the lens of strategy and innovation for the past decade.
• Coming from more of a KM perspective, Nick Milton and Ron Young have both written about the links between organizational learning and knowledge management from a practitioner perspective.
• Academics such as Mary Crossan, Davide Nicolini and Mark Easterby-Smith have been writing about the links between organizational learning and knowledge management since the 1990s.
• The APQC has also reported on organizations that care combining knowledge management with training activities.

Nevertheless, many organizations do not see the connections between knowledge and learning issues. We need to move beyond traditional course-based training and document repositories if we are to get more bang for our buck.

*Since my wife has been exposing me to more day-time TV, I have discovered there is another Victor Newman.

When I tell them about the book, people ask me: “What’s it all about then?”

There isn’t just one answer to that question but here are a selection of contenders for your consideration:

• It’s about getting more bang for your buck. Organizations spend a lot of money on training and knowledge management. They often get some benefit from these activities but it is my belief that they can get more. The book is a plea for organizations to tackle knowledge and learning issues in a holistic way in order to do them better.
• It’s about mixing of practice and theory. It wouldn’t pass muster as an academic tome but I’m actually quite happy with that. There are plenty of examples and case studies to illustrate points but there’s also some references to the the theoretical background concerning learning and knowledge issues in organizations.
• It’s the book that I wished that I had had when I started out in knowledge management back in 1999. I would probably have made as many mistakes as I actually did – but possibly more interesting ones.