Work communities and knowledge sharing in practice
                    Jack Whalen, Xerox PARC

Writings on knowledge management and, more generally, the role of
"knowledge capital" in organizations have tended to present abstract
epistemological models concerning types of knowledge or differences
between "information" and "knowledge," with anecdotal examples loosely
used to illustrate the ideas and their business significance. What are
missing are the concrete, empirical details of how "knowledge"
actually works in organizational life. In this talk I will sketch out
this kind of more detailed account of a knowledge-sharing system in
actual practice. The system leverages the practical know-how and
inventions of frontline employees, and was as much an experiment in
organizational change as it was in information system design. This
system and its enabling technology was developed through several
iterations using a distinctive socio-technical methodology, and is now
deployed worldwide in Xerox Corporation's service organization. I will
provide a precis of our methodology, and summarize the challenges that
were faced in bringing such a change into the corporation.

Biography

Jack Whalen is a member of the Scientific and Engineering Reasoning Area in
the Systems and Practices Laboratory at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
(PARC), working on the design and deployment of systems to support knowledge
sharing in work communities, the design and use of artificial intelligence
applications in the workplace, and understanding the problem of "documents
in action" (how the use of both digital and paper documents actually enters
into the detailed organization of practical activities) with a special focus
on mobile and home office work. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the
University of California at Santa Barbara, and joined PARC after three years
at the Institute for Research on Learning in Menlo Park, where he was Senior
Research Scientist, and eleven years at the University of Oregon, where he
was Associate Professor of Sociology and Department Head.