Ynez Delgado —
Chief Knowledge Officer,
American Society for Training and Development, USA

Ynez Delgado is the chief knowledge officer at the American Society of Training and Development, the world’s premier professional association and leading resource on workplace learning and performance issues. ASTD's membership includes nearly 70,000 people, working in the field of workplace performance in 100 countries worldwide ASTD provides information, research, analysis and practical information derived from its own research, the knowledge and experience of its members, its conferences, expositions, seminars, publications and the coalitions and partnerships it has built through research and policy work. Its members work in nearly 20,000 multinational corporations, small and medium sized businesses, government agencies, colleges and universities.

Since joining ASTD’s staff five years ago in 2002, Delgado has presided over a transformation in the use of knowledge at ASTD, which has influenced best practices at thousands of enterprises in which its members work. This transformation has been shaped by ASTD’s notion that “ambient” knowledge describes the emerging e-knowledge environment. Like oxygen, this pervasive, constantly available resource serves you on demand in whatever context is most effective.

Exemplary Transformed Elements

• Ambient knowledge combined with artificial intelligence to create “ambient e-intelligence”
• “Input Once, Use Anywhere”
• Expeditionary development of applications platforms
• Cost accounting for the cost and price of knowledge
• Users Group became community of practice in ambient e-intelligence

Ambient e-Intelligence. Delgado has engaged ASTD’s senior leadership and member leaders in taking this principle to the next level. Specifically, they have merged e-knowledge with artificial intelligence, to create the next generation of collective intelligence. This so-called “ambient e-intelligence” has created a parallel consciousness that serves the organization by constantly learning, growing and gathering intelligence through the dynamic interactions of its members and sensors. In the emerging Knowledge Economy, this knowledge infrastructure among the most valuable organizational assets it enables measurable and radical increases in personal and organizational productivity.

Input Once, Use Anywhere. ASTD partnered with Knowledge Media, Inc. (KMI) to develop the knowledge infrastructure that would enable ambient e-intelligence. From the start, this infrastructure was based on the vision of just the right content, to just the right person(s), at just the right time, on just the right device, in just the right context, and for just the right environment. KMI’s motto of “input once, use anywhere” was reflected in the development of reusable knowledge objects through manual, automated, and real-time indexing and tagging. These knowledge objects can be repurposed and reused in a wide range of ASTD products, services, and experiences.

Expeditionary Development of the Applications Platform. ASTD did not reach this plateau of performance overnight. Rather, ASTD and KMI worked in an expeditionary manner to progressively incorporate new standards, technologies and practices into its enterprise applications infrastructure and solutions. Some of the accumulated milestones that enabled Delgado to discover the emerging practice of ambient e-intelligence included: