New ways to think about work.

• Author: Holland, Michael E.
• Position: Book Review

TITLE: Thinking For a Living: The Coming Age of Knowledge Work

AUTHOR: Kenneth A. Megill

ISBN: 3-598-11638-1

PUBLISHER: K.G. Saur

PUBLICATION DATE: 2004

LENGTH: 193 pages

PRICE: 78 [pounds sterling] about $148 U.S.

SOURCE: www.saur.com

Thinking for a Living: The Coming Age of Knowledge Work is the latest in Ken Megill's growing number of books on records, document, and information management written over the last decade. Megill describes himself as both a "published professional philosopher" and a "transformer of organizations and people." Much of the inspiration for this book comes from Megill's work with the U.S. Air Force and, in particular, Col. Terry Balven, USAF Ret. The Air Force project that brought Megill and Balven together was directed to "align process change, investments in information technology, and change how people think about work in order to deliver transformational improvement in how the Air Force and the Department of Defense (DoD) acquire weapons systems."

Thinking for a Living is rationally organized and logically structured from the sectional and chapter perspective. It makes a contribution to the literature by producing working definitions for "knowledge management," "communities of practice," and "knowledge work."

The author is a tireless definer and theorist of the relationships between labor, work, and thinking. His attempts to show how work is changing and how organization of work must change from an industrial mode to a modern technological environment are largely successful. However, this contribution could have been made in a much shorter monograph or perhaps in a long journal article.

Megill's writing style and textual organization are serious problems for the practitioner or want-to-be practitioner of knowledge and information management. It is better suited to either a consultant providing advice or to an applied philosopher than for a practitioner of knowledge management.

Much of Megill's language and structure come from his academic training in philosophy, and while abstract reasoning is a satisfactory means of setting a background or tone for the real work at hand, the book never quite gets to the practical application of knowledge management.

The text is at times pedantic and academic, a deadly combination when the topic is as dry and abstract as organizational structure and dynamics. Some of the presentation more closely resembles a PowerPoint presentation than a linear and compelling argument. The...