What is Emergent Knowledge

Anytime and all-the-time access to electronic resources, artifacts and community have changed learning practices in the workplace as surely as it has changed the workplace itself. Learning today is measured not by what we know, but by how successfully we tap into our network to find the information we need in the moment we need it. The business environment now demands anytime and just-in-time answers at all levels of the organization. In response to new expectations within the information-rich workplace, the organization must look to a new practice of comprehensive design for a shared knowledge architecture that can leverage the digital tools, methods and effective practices now available. To understand not simply technology but the affordance (Norman, 1988; Carmean & McGee, 2008) and effective use of each technology now available, a new design practice is needed. Current digital learners seek practices, resources and help in navigating the shared knowledge flow and have little training or support in understanding the network of information available. If anytime, anywhere, and from any source is a new e-learning paradigm in the digital workplace (Cross, 2006), then the challenge for a new breed of designers will be to help the digital learner to find, understand andcreate the shared knowledge embedded within local and global networked resources.