Second, e-Knowledge Tools Enable the Reinvention of Processes and Relationships. e-Knowledge has a fundamental characteristic in common with e-business. The core principle of e-business is to change the way that enterprises conduct business, whatever that business may be. This translates into reinventing and transforming core processes, relationships, and cultures. Similarly, e-knowledge is about the use of technology to transform processes and relationships pertaining to the creation, nurturing, and management of knowledge. Over time, e-knowledge will create a breed of knowledge-sharing processes, relationships, and cultures that are much more than just more efficient versions of existing practices.

If we apply knowledge to tasks we already know how to do, we call it productivity. If we apply knowledge to tasks that are new and different, we call it innovation.

Peter Drucker, 1999

Third, e-Knowledge Transforms Value Chains into e-Knowledge Value Nets. The traditional view of the value chain follows the linear progressions of an Industrial Age product cycle. But the Knowledge Age has been changing all that: disaggregating and disintermediating traditional value chain relationships and reintermediating new relationships between market players. Don Tapscott (2001) introduced the term polymediation to herald the emergence of entirely new business entities and opportunities enabled by “digital capital.” The richness in relationships combines vertical and horizontal supply chains to create what Patrick McElroy (2002) characterizes as a “value net” in referring to the e-knowledge space. This metaphor of a value net aptly captures the multi-dimensional, multi-directional opportunities for value creation, knowledge enhancement, and sharing in our e-knowledge future.