KM Forum Archives -- The Early Days

Orignal KM Forum Participants

In this portion of the Knowledge Management Forum we have provided a series of brief introductions provided by the orignal KM Forum participants. Authors were encouraged to include links to more complete remarks or to referenced works.

The content of this page was last updated in August 6, 1996. Some links and e-mail addresses may have changed since then.

Feel free to select information on a specific individual, or browse through the thumb-nail sketches that follow.

KK Aw Herb Ayers Avron Barr
Gene Bellinger Thomas Bertels Donna Bible
David Coleman Alexander 'Sasha' Chislenko Denham Grey
Alain J. Godbout Bob Hallsworth Russell Kirchner
Eunika Mercier-Laurent Jane Millar Arthur Murray
Brian (Bo) Newman. Johan Roos Christof Schmitz
Maarten Sierhuis Cesare Sinicorni David J. Skyrme
Karl E. Sveiby Robert Taylor John Thornton
Rob van der Spek R. Gregory Wenig Karl Wigg
Who will be in the next Generation?

Aw Kong Koy (aka KK Aw)

KK Aw is a mechanical engineering by training but has spent the last ten years developing customised software. As a mechanical engineer, he was involved in tin mining projects in Malaysia, Burma, (Myanma) and Brasil. His roles include mine operator, project engineering, project management and dredge design.

KK Aw has developed software for railway design and rehabilitation work, computerisation of a power cables manufacturing company, and the mapping of a state in Malaysia among others.

Being involved in such a diverse range of activities made him realised the importance of managing knowledge. In his opinion, knowledge must be managed in a manner such that it is easily assimilated, comprehensive but without simplifying its complexities. The system must also allow for the collaborative and multi-disciplinary management of knowledge.

As an attempt to address this issue he has developed the MultiCentric Information Mapping System.

Mr Aw can be reached via kkaw@online.po.my

or via his home page at http://www.jaring.my/~online

Herb Ayers

Herb Ayers is a Certified Mental Health Counselor who has worked in a variety of settings including war zones, natural disasters, social services organizations, corporate business, mental health centers, and is presently in private practice. Herb has a strong interest in Knowledge as it is used to help people psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually. His concern is with helping facilitate change in intrapersonal, interpersonal, and group systems. His current belief is that change occurs in people and systems of people only as they personalize the meaning of what is known. Objective knowledge, it appears, does little to produce change. He believes that a critical issue is that information is personalized (become's one's own).

You can contact Mr. Ayers via ghgg12@cbvcp.com

Avron Barr

Avron Barr is an independent consultant, speaker and writer, specializing in the commercial application of advanced computing technology. He studied Cognitive Science at Stanford University, co-edited the four-volume Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, and was a co-founder of Teknowledge. For 15 years he has been a management consultant on knowledge-based systems, including knowledge-sharing solutions for call centers and help desks, focused on practical solutions to business problems. Avron's other professional interests include 1) knowledge engineering as the proper paradigm for systems analysis and business process re-engineering, 2) the use of expert systems technology in the formulation and administration of corporate and government policy and regulations, and 3) knowledge systems as a publication medium. He is currently Co-Director of the Software Industry Study at Stanford's Computer Industry Project and an advisor to several software firms on long-term trends in the industry.

You can contact Mr. Barr via barr@cs.stanford.edu

Gene Bellinger

Gene Bellinger is an independent modeling and simulation consultant specializing in the area of dynamic process modeling, generally in conjunction with Businss Process Reengineering efforts. At present he has a rather insatiable interest in the application of System Dynamics to aid in the development of an understanding of how organizations work, or for the most part don't work. He maintains a set of web pages dedicated to all facets of modeling and simulation which may be accessed below.

(Resume available)

Gene Billinger can be reached via CrbnBlu@aol.com or crbnblu@radix.net

You may also visit his Modeling & Simulation web pages at: http://www.radix.net/~crbnblu/

Thomas Bertels

Thomas came to the concept of organizational learning back in 1991. Due to the lack of German language material on the subject at that time, the idea of the Learning Organization was not very clear. As a result he started his own research in order to find out if there are any approaches to put these ideas into action. The result was a thesis for diploma which he finished by February 1993.

Thomas has written articles for German business magazines on the subject, a few of which are available via Internet but only in German at this time.

Thomas is enrolled in an M.A.-course at the equivalent of the Open University in Germany, The Fernuniversität Hagen. His majors are Behavioral Psychology, Sociology and Law. Thomas works for a subsidiary of Asea Brown Boveri, the global operating swedish-swiss electrical company.

(Resume available)

Tomas Bertels can be reached via tb@knipp.de

Donna Bible

Donna Bible an Information Specialist at Concurrent Technologies Corp. in Johnstown, PA. She moved there immediately after receiving her master's degree in library science from the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to her pursuit of a career in library science, she intended to become a Slavic linguist. She received her B.A. in Russian Studies from the University of Virginia and traveled to Eastern Europe. She switched to library science because she thought it more practical and could use her language skills while cataloging. As it turned out, she was drawn to the automated aspects of libraries, and loved searching the Internet and Dialog as well as other on-line services. She also discovered that the backrooms of catalogers are not as appealing as the front line of reference service. In short, she is now a corporate librarian and she loves it.

Donna Bible can be reached via bible%ndcee.ctc.com@ctcga.ctc.com

David Coleman

Mr. Coleman is the Principal Consultant at Collaborative Strategies and a recognized expert on the groupware market worldwide. His consulting in the arena of collaboration technologies, focuses on two areas. The first, the analysis of the groupware marketplace, the second, helping groupware users with planning and implementing pilot or enterprise-wide groupware or workflow projects. Mr. Coleman is also a certified and gifted electronic meeting facilitator and he works with Ventana's GroupSystems for Windows and EMS products on other platforms.

David Coleman is the conference chairman for the GroupWare conferences, editor of GroupTalk, the monthly newsletter of workgroup computing and co-editor of the 1994 GroupWare Buyer's Guide. Mr. Coleman has authored several magazine supplements and articles on groupware for Network World Magazine, Computer World, Fortune and other trade and business publications. His first book; Groupware: Technologies and Applications, was published by Prentice Hall in June of 1995. The second: Groupware for Competitive Advantage, will be a case book for business managers and will be published by Van Nostrand, Reinhold, in March, 1996.

(Resume available)

Mr. Colman can be reached via davidc@collaborate.com

Alexander 'Sasha' Chislenko

A native of Leningrad, Russia now living in Boston, Massachusetts, Sasha wants to, "understand how the world works, and steer it, and himself, into the glorious future." His interests includes things advanced and frontierish. He has written several essays, including recent ones on Cyborgs, Mind Age, and Enhanced Reality and his proposeal for a message rating system.

Mr. Chislenko can be reached via sasha1@netcom.com

Alain J. Godbout CMC

Alain Godbout is the managing partner of GCM Sherpa Inc. a Canadian management consulting firm specializing in institutional strenghteneing and management reform. Mr. Godbout is a graduate of Écoled de Relations Industrielles (Montreal) and a former professor of management at Lionel Groulx College. He has been practicing management consultancy in Canada and Europe since 1975, and during the years has developed a highly specialized expertise in the domain of information resources and knolwedge management in organizations. In 1995, he was part of a reseearch team sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency which was tasked with developing a KM framework for organizations involved in cross cultural settings.

Mr Godbout has published extensively in various journals and magazines including Optimum, International Journal of Management Consulting, Revue Organisation and Kognos.

The particular field of interest of Mr. Godbout is the strategic and programmatic management aspects of Knowledge Management.

Alain J. Godbout can be reached via godbout@magi.com

Denham Grey

Denham Grey holds that knowledge is the driver of our post-industrial economy and a more important commercial asset than land, capital or machinery. His interests cover corporate memory, intellectual capital, data mining and knowledge audits.

He further states that knowledge creation, preservation and use is an enabling and empowering paradigm shift where commitment and action overshadow prescription and process. Dialogue and cognition rather than databases and algorithms will show the way.

Denham believes that the hard tasks are motivating people to share their insights, helping colleagues make their personal heuristics explicit and capturing sufficient context to allow others to evaluate our contributions.

Mr Grey is with GreyMatter, Inc., Knowledge Management Consultants in Oakmont, PA.

Denham Grey can be reached via dgrey@telerama.lm.com

Bob Hallsworth.

Mr. Hallsworth is an experienced consultant within the ICL Enterprise Consultancy - UK based, but a European and World Wide Enterprise. He works mainly in the areas of Process and Knowledge Management - Facilitating Managers on Business Issues. His various management assignments have developed skills in Knowledge /Information Management, Planning & Organising, Developing People and Teams, Training and Project Management.

He has experience in introducing new Organisational Structures, Processes, and Knowledge Management Systems to support Business Strategies (Which is where he feels it should always start.) Included in that work has been providing Knowledge Management infrastructures to support Flexible Working (Hot Desking, etc.)

Mr Hallsworth can be reached via fw98@dial.pipex.com

Russell Kirchner

Dr. Russell Kirchner's background includes Datanbase (Integrated) Marketing, Innovation/Knowledge Management, and Entreprenueurship. Over the past ten years, Russell has consulted, published research, and taught college-level courses on database marketing and consumer behavior. He co-authored a book on Database Marketing. His dissertation topic was on Marketing Information Technology's effect on new business strategy. He has also helped three Fortune 1000 companies develop processes and strategies for Knowledge Exchange that have resulted in enhanced innovation capabilities in R&D and Marketing. At age 21, Kirchner started his first company that is still in business today and employs eight persons. His current company helps his clients find new qualified prospects and achieve a greater state of Knowledge Exchange.

Dr. Russell Kirchner can be reached via RKirchner@us.teltech.com

Eunika Mercier-Laurent

Eunika has provided us the following bio:

I'm an electronic engineer (Polytechnic of Warsaw Poland), I've got my Ph.D. in INRIA and University of Paris 7 and later AI specialization at Paris 13 University. My thesis was on hardware natural language access to data bases. After thesis, I have been working on Kayak project (similiar to Xerox Star machine, grand grand mother of McIntosh) in INRIA too. In 1982 I have joined Bull International Computer Company first working on computer design and expert system for diagnosis. Later I have joined Artificial Intelligence Department, working on industrial tools like general purpose expert system generator, diagnosis applications generator based on "cause to effect graph" knowledge representation, constraint programming and knowledge modeling tool called Open KADS. In 1985 we have started to develop innovative internal applications and in 1987 customer applications. Our team have developed over 100 applications worldwide. I have also worked on Eureka European Project definition in KM.Last year I've decided to leave Bull and start my consulting activity. I'm working with associates experts and senior profesionals mainly from industrial domains.

I organize also seminars to explain to deciders, that knowledge management in company is very important and strategic, especialy in this crisis period, when many experts in Europe are loosing jobs because of age (=>50). I've conceived a seminar on Knowledge Management for Institute for International Research (Tools, methods and Applications). I organise also "Discover a Knowledge technology" seminars on Case -Based Reasonning, Knowledge modeling, constraint programming, virtual reality and knowledge sharing, discover Knowledge in groupware environment or surfing on Internet(using knowledge model). For instance my activities are in France and I'm extending to other European countries.

I teach "Strategic Knowledge" at University of Versailles and at 2 Engineer's Schools : CNAM and ISERPA I've published more then ten papers, last for Expersys conference in SF last november about Diagnosis system for airplane engines and second Methodology for problem solving using AI approach.

I'm member of Institut Fredrik R.Bull (multi disciplinary group), AFIA (French Association for AI- Board) and AAAI.

Eunika Mercier-Laurent can be reached via eml@diamant.ens-gestion.uvsq.fr

Jane Millar

Jane writes: I am currently working as a Research Fellow in Knowledge Management at the Open University Business School (OUBS). As one aspect of the OUBS strategic research initiatives into the management of intellectual capital and knowledge, I am part of a team embarking on a three year research project (funded by the Design Council) into the management of knowledge sharing among networks of organisations involved in product design.

We have initially defined knowledge management somewhat broadly to include the identification, access, interchange (or transfer), coordination, transformation (involving assimilation and appropriation), communication and protection of design knowledge (no sequential linearity intended).

My background spans cognitive science, economics, science and technology policy and graphic design. I have particular research interests in learning, creativity and innovation.

Jane Millar can be reached via janemi@pavilion.co.uk

Arthur J. Murray

Arthur J. Murray is president of Telart Technologies, a company he founded in 1993 for the purpose of helping organizations to manage their corporate knowledge. He is currently leading the development of a knowledge library for the Agility Forum that will use the Cogito(TM) sentient system to capture and manage the concepts of agility. Agility Forum members will have access to the system via the Internet, making it one of the first on-line knowledge libraries in the country.

Dr. Murray has over twenty years professional experience within the government, private sector and academia. He has led numerous R&D projects in information and knowledge-based systems, including a case-based reasoning tool for DOD software reuse, a prototype expert system to support arms control treaty compliance monitoring, and a distributed AI test bed for mission planning. He is the NIST industry representative for an advanced technology program for modular organizations, and a member of the Agility Forum's Agile Virtual Enterprise Development Group. He has lectured internationally on the subjects of knowledge management and virtual organizations. He is a professorial lecturer in The George Washington University School of Engineering and Applied Science, where he has taught at the graduate level for over ten years. He holds the D.Sc. and M.E.A. degrees from The George Washington University and the B.S.E.E. degree from Lehigh University.

Dr Murray can be reached via amurray@seas.gwu.edu.

Brian (Bo) Newman -

Founder, Host and Moderator of the Knowledge Management Form

Brian (Bo) Newman is an independent consultant offering services in Knowledge Management and Project Management. He has been recognized in the field of Knowledge Management and is a certified Project Manager with more than 27 years of experience in knowledge management, project management, proposal development, quality assurance, and computer systems management.

As a Senior Project Manager skilled in the application of modern project management practices, Mr. Newman concentrates on the development of information and knowledge management systems. Through these efforts, he helps organizations understand the value of knowledge within the organization, improve the relevance and appropriateness of the knowledge they use, improve the productivity of their knowledge workers, and develop meaningful knowledge related performance measures.

(Resume available)

Mr. Newman can be reached via bo.newman@km-forum.org.

Johan Roos

A Professor at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Lausanne, Switzerland, Johan Roos is an expert on how companies become, and remain healthy enough to keep adapting. Related areas of expertise include: manage knowledge, strategy processes, and cooperative strategies. Professor Roos has consulted widely on these issues for both U.S. and European corporations and associations. Prof. Roos is currently involved in several research projects in close cooperation with companies, including: how to drive the strategy process through good conversations (action research in media firm); how to stimulate knowledge development throughout the company (ongoing dialogue with manufacturing company); how to manage different managerial perceptions of strategy development in the company (argument mapping in pharmaceutical firm), and how to chose between different ways of knowing in various situations (concept and model development). These issues are partly studied through the use of relatively unknown theoretical lenses, including complex adaptive system theory, autopoiesis theory, and organizational epistemology.

He is the author, or co-author, of a range of publications, a partial list of which can be found in the KM Forum Bibliography and Review section.

Before joining IMD as a Professor of Strategy, he was Associate Professor of Strategy at the Norwegian School of Management and Research Associate at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Prof. Roos is Swedish. He was educated at the Stockholm School of Economics where he was awarded a Ph.D. degree in international business, and The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences where he earned a MSc degree in agriculture.

Johan Roos can be reached via roos@imd.ch

Christof Schmitz

Dr. Schmitz is a management consultant and the owner of Corprorate Pragmatics, located in Zurich, Switzerland. His firm consults with companies on how they can multiplicate and develop their intelligence.

His major major focuses are on Change Management, Process Management and Knowledge

Management. He sees these three issues as coming together in many cases. Each supporting the others; especialy Knowledge Management helping accelerating Change Management.

His work includes performing audits of Knowledge Flow Management through projects designed to optimize the use and multiplication of knowledge and optimize the development of knowledge through innovation processes and improving the sharing - the flow - of knowledege in business processes.

He also provides consulting service to help companies improve their competencies for change projects and optimize their structures and processes under the goal of getting a better professional know how-company..

He is speaker and writer on selected management issues, Co-editor of "Managerie", a yearbook for systemic thinking and acting in management and published recently, together with Betty Zucker, a book called: "Wissengewinnt. (Knowledge wins) Knowlege Flow Management.", Metropolitan-Verlag, Düsseldorf.

Christof Schmitz can be reached via corprag@dial.eunet.ch

Maarten Sierhuis

Maarten Sierhuis has been working in the area of knowledge modeling and knowledge-based systems for 10 years. He is currently working as a member of technical staff in the Work Systems Design group at NYNEX Science & Technology. His current research interests are in the development of methodologies for the analysis and design of Computer Supported Work Systems. He is pursuing a PhD. in this area.

Maartien Sierhuis can be reached via sierhuis@nynexst.com

Cesare Sinicorni

Ceasare is a mathematician, with 27 years of experience in computer science as it applies to management consulting, has worked 20 years with one of the Big Six Audit/consulting companies, has formed an italian company (now 200 people), and recently joined another global consulting company where he leads an important part of the italian operations.

He is curious and sensible to the peolple side of the problems. Cesare would like to spend part of his energy to let individuals, companies, and society to reach better result with effective models and tools. It is his opinion that KM context is not only within the company but it goes outside to Clients, consumers, vendors, financial institution..., this can provide new ideas and new processes can be added to KM .

Mr Sinicorni can be contacted via sinis@mbox.vol.it

David J. Skyrme

David Writes: I run my own management consultancy whose principle activities include research, consultancy and publishing on information and knowledge networks. Main areas of activity include telework (location independent work and telecommuting), the Internet (as a collaborative technology for business) and (just emerging) Knowledge Management.

My interest in knowledge management started when I created the Market Intelligence Services (MkIS) group for the UK subsidiary of Digital Equipment Corporation. We developed processes for gathering external information, integrating it with internal data and from the blend creating intelligence for senior management decision making. This became a model that was later replicated in many Digital subsidiaries throughout the world. Later as DEC's UK Strategic Planning Manager, we wrestled with the notion of competencies, at all levels and of organisational memory. VAX Notes provided an early technology exemplar of how sharing and information and knowledge could be used for a variety of professional and management work.

Since leaving Digital in March 1993, I operate as a 'virtual corporation' with other specialists and networks, including the ENTOVATION network, whose founder Debra Rogers (also a member of this forum), based in Boston, has refined many of the concepts we worked together with in Digital.

I have published several papers on topics related to Knowledge Management - including one on Knowledge Networking and another on Global Intelligence Networking. I have affiliations with the Oxford Institute of Information Management at Templeton College, Oxford, and the Institute of Innovation, Creativity and Capital at the University of Austin, Texas.

Further information (including notes and articles) will be found at my Web site http://www.hiway.co.uk/skyrme

David J. Skyrme can be reached via david@pop3.hiway.co.uk

Karl E. Sveiby

Karl is presently visiting research fellow at Queensland University of Technology in Australia and principal of his own consulting company. He is formerly Executive Chairman and co-owner of Ekonomi+Teknik Foerlag, one of Scandinavia's biggest publishing companies in the trade press and business press sector. Among the publications are Sweden's most prestigious business weeklyAffaersvaerlden and the country's only technical weekly Ny Teknik.

In 1994 He sold the company and formed his own consultancy business around his concept of "The Knowledge Organisation"

Karl has researched management of knowledge organizations since the early 1980s, which probably makes him a bit of a veteran in this emerging research field. He has published many books and numerous articles on the subject in Swedish language, several translated into other languages also English.

You'll find html-versions of the English works and a more comprehensive CV on his web site

Mr. Sveiby can be reached via karlerik@eis.net.au

Robert Taylor

Robert Taylor is a management consultant specialising in a project-oriented approach to tackling novel client situations, especially in the areas of knowledge and decision-making.

(Resume available)

Mr. Taylor can be reached via 100606.3047@compuserve.com

John Thornton

John Thornton, an independent consultant living in Texas, once studied Innovation & Creativity at the graduate level while producing research for the world's largest publisher of information technology magazines and market research. While many would assume that such a successful journalistic multinational cultivated and harvested knowledge with remarkable ease, Thornton suspected otherwise and, in 1994, developed his thesis by surveying a subset of this paradoxical organization. Long since addicted to the subject, he continues to search for meaning amid the voluminous (and often conflicting) jargon of information technology gurus and organizational theorists. In the past Thornton has written for information technology and reengineering periodicals, occasionally daring to review books and interview authors. He's looking for relevant consulting work and doesn't mind travel,

Mr. Taylor can be reached via 70673.3526@compuserve.com

Rob van der Spek

Drs. Rob van der Spek graduated at the department of Social Science Informatics at the University of Amsterdam in 1987. Since 1988 he has been manager consultancy at the Centre of Excellence CIBIT. He was responsible for projects in the area of Knowledge Management and Knowledge Based Systems.

He was consultant for the Dutch Navy, a Life insurance company, Ministery of internal affairs, various banks and Nynex (USA). He was program chair of the Dutch congress on applications of

knowledge engineering in 1992,1993 and 1995. He is a member of the course team of a MSc course in Knowledge Engineering in cooperation with Middlesex University of Londen.

Since 1990 he has been a member of the advisory board of the Knowledge Management Network, a cooperation of Universities and CSC Europe for commercial projects in the area of knowledge management. He participates in advisory boards on knowledge management within the health care domain and agricultural domain

He has published in various Dutch and International journals about knowledge management and the application of knowledge based systems.

Mr van der Spek can be reached via RVDSPEK@cibit.hvu.nl

R. Gregory Wenig

Dr. Wenig has been working for over ten years in knowledge management. His diverse knowledge sets (information technology, organizational behavior, & training/learning) allows him to understand situations from different perspectives and apply a convergent, synergistic systems approach in developing and implementing innovative solutions to difficult problems. Thsee solutions include the creation of several award winning full size knowledge based systems. As a consultant to universities, government agencies, and private companies, he has helped develop and use knowledge management approaches to improve performance. Dr. Wenig is teaching courses in expert systems & AI, organizational behavior, DSS, and logic. With a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, his multidisciplinary program included Organizational Behavior, Management Systems Research, and Psychological Research & Measurement.

Dr. Wenig can be reached via rgwenig@aol.com

or visit his Web site at http://members.aol.com/rgwenig/homepage.htm.

Karl Wigg

Karl Wiig is the chairman and CEO of Knowledge Research Institute, Inc. and focuses on management of knowledge on the organizational level. He has authored four books and over 20 articles on Knowledge Management, is co-founder of the International Knowledge Management Network, and has been an invited keynote speaker on six continents. He works extensively with client organizations to assist them in building internal Knowledge Management capabilities -- focusing on business-related issues with senior management; management-related issues with middle management; and hands-on KM issues and methods with knowledge professionals. He was trained in Mechnical and Instrumentation engineering, has been a technical and management consultant for 35 years, was Director of Applied Artificial Intelligence and Systems and Policy Analysis at Arthur D. Little, Inc. and a management consulting partner with Coopers & Lybrand. He is listed in Who Is Who in Science and Who Is Who in Science and Engineering.

Mr. Wigg can be reached via karlwiig@onramp.net or 71117.1427@compuserve.com

Information on additional participants will be added as available ...

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Material in this section is under copyright by the author unless otherwise noted. As a collective work, (c)1996, 2002 The Knowledge Management Forum and Brian D. Newman. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Unauthorized copying strictly prohibited. Please address comments about this page to WebMaster@KM-Forum.org Last updated -- 8/3/2002