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A two-year study shows that up to 70 percent of workplace learning is accomplished on-the-fly, calling into question the value of formal training programs that are presented in their own good time and costing as much as $50 billion annually.

In an open, knowledge-based organization, interdepartmental cooperation and collaboration must become an integral part of the daily routine. Teams will not be appointed; they will form naturally in a knowledge-friendly environment through the free flow of information and ideas, leading to common goals that are dependent on the interaction of skills, knowledge and resources of cross-functional groups (not teams).

While knowledge networks are forming naturally in such a positive environment, the systematic management of networks will be essential if all this energy is to be productively directed toward the goals and objectives of the organization.

Transaction cost economics suggests that the costs and difficulties associated with market transactions sometimes favor hierarchies (or in-house production) and sometimes markets as an economic governance structure. An intermediate mechanism, called hybrid or relational, between these two extremes has recently emerged as a new governance structure .

In his report, Band says that rapid adoption of Web 2.0 technologies is not just a critical factor, but a generational one as well, noting that "22 percent of adults now read blogs at least monthly, and 19 percent are members of a social networking site like Facebook or LinkedIn. Even more amazingly, almost one-third of all youth publish a blog at least weekly, and 41 percent of youth visit a social networking site daily."Band also suggests that the true 2.0 shift has been about control and power. "'Web 2.0' began as a user-focused revolution," he writes, "remaking the consumer Web into a landscape that is easy to use, efficient to navigate, populated by self-generated content (versus institutional publications) and driven by ad hoc and established communities of people with similar interests. In a Web 2.0 world, power moves from institutions to consumers because they can now rapidly connect and digitally converse among themselves about the products and services they buy."