TABLE OF CONTENTS We are not in the product business; we are in the knowledge business.
Ralph Larsen, chairman, Johnson & Johnson [1]
The Internet is simply a library, instant access to everything, good and bad. The Internet is the telephone, the Internet is a circle of friends, the Internet is billboards, the Internet is radio, the Internet is television, the Internet is books, the Internet is journals, the Internet is discussion in a bar, the Internet is a church bazaar. The Internet is anything. It s nothing but a medium.
George Lundberg, editor-in-chief, Medscape [2] website
While the core of this book focuses on practical issues related to Web-enabled knowledge management (KM) implementations (from custom developed to very sophisticated corporate portal platforms), we think it is important to understand some of the big picture drivers of corporate portals and KM implementations. To facilitate such understanding, in this chapter, we discuss a number of important trends that are making corporate portals an essential tool to conduct business:
The emergence of the Networked Era.
The role of knowledge in business.
New organization models in the Networked Era.
With this background in mind, we then link the discussion with the solutions provided by the corporate portal (CP) platforms in a section called The Role...
