Knowledge and Discourse Matters

FOREWORD

Many years ago, the company I worked for had just been bought by IBM as one of the basic elements of what was to become IBM Global Services. I had been a part of it for well over a decade, rising from a developer working on decision support systems through to general management and to a leading role in strategy. The GENUS program I put together combined Rapid Application Methods, Legacy System Management, and Object Orientation in a synthesis that had sufficient novelty to win marketing awards against Microsoft’s latest release of Windows and was also credited with being a significant part of the turnaround of the company that made us attractive to IBM in the first place. Freed by the acquisition into a free-floating do whatever interests you role with some important top cover, I had a chance to go back to my origins in decision support and pick up the reins again with the emerging disciplines of Knowledge Management. That led to my joining Larry Prusak in the Institute of Knowledge Management, working on counterterrorism before and after the tragic events of 9/11 and eventually into complexity theory and the newly formed Centre for Applied Complexity at Bangor University in my native North Wales.

Now, I tell that story, not just to set a context for what follows, but also because it tells some of the story of knowledge management over the years, a story that continues in fits and starts, but continues nevertheless. Lesley’s book, to which I am honored to write ...