This is Internet On The Air, I'm Todd Mundt. In a moment, details on new plans to teach users the language of the information economy.

Funding Credit: Internet On The Air is a production of the University of Michigan School of Information and Michigan radio, made possible by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Information networks like the World Wide Web and corporate intranets can influence the way we work. These networks provide users in distant places the opportunity to collaborate on projects...and give them access to specialized knowledge.

Organizations that have the ability to use that knowledge effectively may be at a competitive advantage in the years to come. Interestingly, it is the management of people...not so much the technological changes...that may determine whether an organization succeeds in making the best use of knowledge on-line. The field of "knowledge management" involves making changes in organizational structures to help this process...and teaching people in a wide variety of jobs the strategies that researchers and librarians use to find specific information.

Lois Remeikis is the Director of Knowledge and Information Management for Booz, Allen and Hamilton, an international management and technology consulting firm. Remeikis says knowledge management asks people to perform four unnatural acts. The first is "sharing"...which may come as a surprise to people who have spent their careers competing with each other. The other acts involve "using" analyses, frameworks or tools developed by someone else..."collaborating" with others...and always "improving" the base of knowledge.

Remeikis says top management at her firm supported the new concepts and changed incentive systems to encourage teamwork. To learn more about "knowledge management" and to listen to an interview with Lois Remeikis, visit our web site at www.iota.org. For Internet On The Air, I'm Todd Mundt.