Wednesday, June 17, 2009, Hotel Golf Jupiter, 16.00 - 17.30

Closing Plenary:
eKnowledge – Mobilizing Knowledge in Business and Society
CHAIR
Hans-Dieter Zimmermann, Professor
Swiss Institute for Information Research – SII, University of Applied Sciences - HTW Chur, Switzerland

SPEAKERS
Christer Carlsson, Professor & Director
Institute for Advanced Management Systems Research – IAMSR, Åbo Akademi Univer-sity, Finland

Nilmini Wickramasinghe, Associate Professor and Associate Director
Center for the Management of Medical Technology (CMMT), Stuart School of Business, Illinois Institute of Technology, United States

Rolf T. Wigand, Jerry L. Maulden - Energy Chair and Distinguished Professor of Information Science and Management
Donaghey College of Information Science and Systems Engineering (CyberCollege), Department of Information Science, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, United States

Wilfred V. Huang, Professor for Management & Director of the Alfred University Confucius Institute
College of Business, Alfred University, Alfred, NY, United States


Session Outline:
Knowledge is the main resource to further develop our world for the benefit of mankind. Societies rely on knowledge to cope with all kind of challenges, for businesses and all kinds of organizations knowledge is crucial to innovate. In order to utilize existing and newly created knowledge we need to exchange information – meaning mobilizing knowledge. More than ever information is needed to spread our knowledge across organizational boundaries. Information systems are a necessity but not sufficient. Information and communication technologies such as social media are going to revolutionize the way we create, prepare, distribute, present, retrieve, and archive information.

Some issues associated with eKnowledge are the participation of citizens in opinion making processes as well as of employees and customers in innovation and design processes. Obviously, there are a lot of technical, but also organizational, legal, and ethical challenges to cope with.

The panel will address selected issues in the realm of eKnowledge based on the findings of the 22nd Bled eConference 2009 and creating an outlook towards the 23rd Bled eConference 2010.