Information technology is increasingly influencing the way we work and live. Contemporary businesses demonstrate significant concerns on how increasing amounts of available information can be converted into knowledge. An increasing need for new knowledge concerning the development of new services which an organization offers to the customers in order to be competitive in the market is but an example of how important dissemination of knowledge within organizations is. The growth in the relative size of people working in the knowledge economy stresses this development. The research discussed in this paper focuses on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of knowledge exchange between knowledge workers by means of automated support so that dissemination of knowledge within organizations improves.

Our society is changing under the influence of advanced information technologies. Various authors who try to assess the influence of computer and information technology on humans, society, and organizations use metaphors like, `Being Digital' (Negroponte, 1996) and `Digital Economy' (Tapscott, 1996). It needs no further arguing that information technology has an increasing influence on the way we work and live (Negroponte, 1996). In 2003, the world produced about 800MB of information for each man, woman, and child on earth (Varian, 2005). More than 90% of information currently produced is created in a digital format, and this percentage will increase substantially in the future. At the same time, much of the existing content which is currently only available in a physical format, will be digitized soon as well (Varian, 2005). Contemporary businesses demonstrate significant concerns on how all this available information can be converted into knowledge. The importance of knowledge, particularly the dissemination of knowledge in modern society does not need any further arguing (Varian, 2005; Bommel et al., 2006). Nowadays, organizations will frequently be confronted with the need to disseminate a new body of knowledge within the organization. The need for new knowledge concerning the development of new services, which a company offers to the customers in order to be competitive in the market, is an example.

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