Read the article in the course pack for last week’s class, ("In Search of the Perfect Market") and the four articles for this class in the course pack, pp. 79-138.

We will begin the class with a presentation and discussion with George Hathaway of Fidelity on E-commerce. We will then move to a discussion of knowledge management.

Be prepared to present your full answers to the following:

1. What is "knowledge management"?
2. Do you have experience or information on knowledge management systems or efforts to develop them? What has been the success? Why have they worked or not worked in your experience, or from what you have heard?
3. From your experience and knowledge of business, do Drucker’s predictions of the organization of the future seem to be occurring? Note particularly his predictions about the levels of hierarchy, the rise of specialists, and the need for "information responsibility", and the "special management problems" listed on packet page 100.
4. What is a "critical success factor"? What perennial problem for IT systems design does it help to solve? Devise a list of three to five interview questions that would help determine the data elements for an executive’s personalized information system (decision support system or management support system or executive support system).
5. What connections are there among CSF’s, balanced scorecard, the "information-based organization", and knowledge management? If an organization were trying to build a Drucker- like "information-based organization," how might it do so using the CSF and balanced scorecard tools and the knowledge management philosophy and systems?