Using Blogs for Personal KM and Community Building (640KB)
Blogs are the next “big idea” in the business press, receiving plaudits from Fortune, Business Week and in recent months, Harvard Business Review. But what do blogs offer KM specialists? Here William Ives and Amanda Watlington discuss how blogs can aid communities of practice, collaboration and team learning.

Frontline blogging and KM at The Advocacy Project.(230 KB)
William Ives describes a KM initiative using blogs to better connect human rights groups in the field.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (180 KB)
Book review. Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, Blink, may change the way we think about decisions.

The Executive’s Role in Knowledge Management (120KB)
Book review. Carla O’Dell has been a leader in knowledge management throughout its life cycle and I have enjoyed her previous books. This book continues her practice of writing extremely useful practical guides. In this case the primary intended readers are senior managers who want their investments in knowledge management to be successful and provide real business value.

Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce (120KB)
Book review. David DeLong makes an impressive case for the high cost of losing intellectual capital in his new book. Thankfully, he follows it with a comprehensive set of chapters on how to design, evaluate and implement an array of knowledge retention strategies.

New tools to link the changing workforce (280KB)
Engaging generations with Web logs and social networking
There’s no avoiding it. The mass retirement of baby boomers, today’s largest workforce, is looming. And to properly estimate the challenges this unique demographic poses, we need to understand the characteristics of each current workforce generation, the nature of work and knowledge transfer in today’s economy, and the new collaborative tools available to meet these challenges.

What’s the Big Idea? Creating and Capitalizing on the Best of Management
Thinking (180KB)
Book review. This latest book by Tom Davenport and Larry Prusack provides some very practical advice
and useful case examples on putting ideas to work. The central theme is the symbiotic relationship of the gurus, who generate ideas, and the idea practitioners, who enable sustained business impact from ideas.

Building a foundation for innovation at Sainsbury's (270KB)
In 2000, Sainsbury's launched a business transformation program to move the supermarket chain toward a “faster, simpler, and together” approach to customer service. In this article, a team from Sainsbury's and Accenture describe how Sainsbury's has used knowledge management and a new portal, Connect, to reduce the time to market for new products, help employees discover new possibilities for collaboration, and allow staff to respond more flexibly to customer needs.

Mastering enterprise knowledge management (300KB)
Although grassroots efforts are popular these days for KM because of shrinking budgets and competing priorities, many organizations are realizing the benefits of cross-company KM efforts. These are far easier said than done, however. Here, Kasper De Boer and William Ives explain how to get the most out of taking your KM efforts global.

Realizing the promise of portals (460KB)
Companies have long looked for ways to increase the amount and quality of information flow to improve employee performance. Certain technologies, including intranets and portals, have enabled that flow. But the concept of workspace portals takes the idea of an interface one step further – that is using workspace portals to bring about workforce transformation. Here, Peter Cheese and William Ives explain the possibilities and give you a concrete plan for how to derive value from portals and improve employee decision–making. Includes a sample workspace portal for a call center and a diagram of a framework for implementing portals.