Required Reading: The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations

The Springboard: How storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations

By Stephen Denning

KMCI Press, 2000

ISBN 0-75067-355-9

$21.95, Paperback

Sophisticated information storage and retrieval systems notwithstanding, companies still drown in information while thirsting for problem-solving knowledge. At issue is how knowledge moves from one person's words, spoken or written, to another's mind. This book says what usually goes unspoken: that presentations rarely work and the blame often falls on audiences if they fail to grasp the presenter's meaning.

The Springboard tells how Denning discovered storytelling as the missing link in the communication chain and exactly how he used it in working at the World Bank to create hundreds of successful cross-functional, geographically dispersed communities of practice. Knowledge managers who read it will find insight into creating stories that help businesses to share collective knowledge.--Jan Wyllie