The Knowledge Activist's Handbook: Adventures from the Knowledge Trenches - Softcover

Newman, Victor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 184112320X ISBN 13: 9781841123202

Publisher: Capstone, 2002

Synopsis

The role of the knowledge activist is to be unreasonable, to identify and combine those small grains of truth that have the potential to become pearls.

The Knowledge Activist's Handbook demonstrates through the medium of storytelling how individuals can combine emotion and reflection to create their own knowledge.

Victor Newman, Pfizer's Chief Knowledge Officer, attacks the conspiracy of tedium around KM literature. The Knowledge Activist's Handbook is provocative and counter-cultural. It turns ideas on their heads and entertains while telling stories that offer insights and concrete strategies for improving knowledge and its use in any organization.

This is a book for busy people who want to cut to the chase and have some fun at the same time. Being a knowledge activist means deciding to make thinking about knowledge a personal activity. The Knowledge Activist's Handbook encourages individuals to consider thinking their own thoughts about knowledge by reflecting on their own experience. Each chapter includes stories from the author's consulting experiences and ends with five immediate action points.

About this title

About the Author

Victor Newman is Chief Learning Officer of the European Pfizer Research University based at Sandwich, England. His background in business integration and knowledge mean that he is a passionate advocate of pragmatic solutions that connect knowledge across the drug discovery and development process to deliver global best-practice.

He is the inventor of the "SuperKnowledge" "Barefoot", and "Predator" and knowledge management systems.

Victor is a board member of two knowledge management publications and has a monthly feature comment article, The Knowledge Angle, in Knowledge Management

From the Back Cover

A consultant friend worked for an international corporation. For the first three years he worked very hard, introducing lean production techniques into the business. This meant introducing measurement systems, benchmarking methodologies and eliminating waste in many forms through involvement and empowerment. He also made recommendations that led to new information systems whose implementation he led. The arrival of the interest in the learning organization allowed him to integrate everything he had laboured over into a coherent whole. When the knowledge revolution began to grow, he was convinced that what he had been doing had been part of that revolution. But one day, after three years of hard work across the corporation's plants around the world, he was allowed a glimpse of the real business knowledge that drove the organization. And to his initial sense of disbelief, this 'real' knowledge had nothing to do with efficiency, utilization or the involvement of large numbers of people. This 'real' knowledge turned out to be about knowing when to get into a market, when to get out; how to create value in that market and manage its decline. This knowledge was shared between three key individuals and by being allowed to see it, my friend was being invited to participate in a very privileged game. The question he kept asking himself, was: how could he have missed the real knowledge for so long? How could he have confused what turned out to be minor tactics with a strategy?

Victor Newman
(Excerpt from The Knowledge Activist's Handbook)

From the Inside Flap

Being a knowledge activist means choosing to think about knowledge, how we use it and how it works, with a definite attitude. And doing something about it. The role of the knowledge activist is to be unreasonable, to identify and combine those small grains of truth with the potential to create a pearl.

The Knowledge Activist's Handbook demonstrates through stories of Victor's personal consulting experiences, how individuals can combine emotion and reflection to create their own knowledge. These narratives are entertaining but at the same time offer insights and concrete strategies. They attack the conspiracy of tedium around the KM literature. Newman is provocative and counter-cultural.

The Knowledge Activist's Handbook is for busy people who want to cut to the chase. Each narrative is thematically bundled, with a sequence of 3 to 5 action points at the end of each piece. These helpful 'implications' will help you to work out exactly how you can apply your new activism.

"Victor Newman transforms the grand and sometimes arcane concepts knowledge management into a compelling personal call for change in how we create, use, spread and increase knowledge. Great work, colleague!" - Hank McKinnell, Chairman and CEO, Pfizer Inc

Edition details

• Publisher: Capstone
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 184112320X
• ISBN 13: 9781841123202
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256