Plug-n-Play Knowledge Management

Kevin Desouza of The Engaged Enterprise will present on "Plug-n-Play Knowledge Management" at the July meeting of KM Chicago. He will be located at our Loop location (Factiva) with live webcast to our Allstate location (see sidebar for details).

Date:July 12, 2005
Time:5:00 - 7:00 pm

Summary: Knowledge management agendas are most often characterized as static, one-time, and inflexible. Organizations may gather knowledge, code it, store it, and apply it. Yet, when faced with a similar problem in the future, most organizations will be forced to reinvent knowledge and move through the creating and application cycles again - a costly and ineffective proposition. One reason, for this is the lack of foresight and upfront care in devising a flexible knowledge management system. What does it mean to build a knowledge program that is flexible and agile? Mr. Desouza will highlight how one can build a knowledge program that resembles the "plug-n-play" approach. The concept of "plug-n-play" is familiar to us from the computer hardware domain. Without plug-n-play capabilities integration of seemingly unrelated and distinct hardware components will become cumbersome and unfriendly. In the presentation, Mr. Desouza will discuss what features and components are required in order to build a knowledge program that emulates the plug-n-play nature.

Biographical detail: Kevin C. Desouza is the President of The Engaged Enterprise, a strategy consulting firm with expertise in the areas of knowledge management, crisis management, strategic deployment of information systems, and government and competitive intelligence assignments. He also serves as the Director of the Institute for Engaged Business Research, a think-tank of the Engaged Enterprise. He has authored Managing Knowledge with Artificial Intelligence (Quorum Books, 2002), and co-authored Managing Information in Complex Organizations (M.E. Sharpe, 2005). He recently edited New Frontiers of Knowledge Management and co-authored Engaged Knowledge Management both books are scheduled for release by Palgrave Macmillan in early 2005. In addition, he has published over 80 articles in prestigious academic and practitioner journals such as Information and Management, Communications of the ACM, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Technology Forecasting and Social Change, Government Information Quarterly, Journal of Business Strategies, International Journal of Technology Policy and Management, Business Strategy Review, Emergence, IT Professional, Journal of Knowledge Management, Knowledge Management Review, Knowledge and Process Management, International Journal of Information Management, European Management Journal, HR Magazine, among others. He is currently serving as an associate editor of the Journal of Information Science and Technology and is on the editorial board of several journals. Mr. Desouza has been an invited speaker on a number of cutting-edge business and technology topics for industry and academic audiences.