Biographical sketches of authors

Cynthia F. Kurtz IBM Global Services Lotus Development, 1 Rogers St., Cambridge, MA 02142 (ckurtz@us.ibm.com). Ms. Kurtz is Principal Researcher for IBM's Cynefin Centre for organizational complexity. She received her B.S. degree in biology from Clarion University of Pennsylvania in 1986 and her M.A. degree in ecology and evolution from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1990 (after completing five years of Ph.D.-level graduate work studying the evolution and complexity of social behavior). From 1992 to 1998 she co-owned a small software business, and is the co-creator of two internationally distributed and widely referenced environmental education simulators on plant growth, soil science and evolutionary design. In 1999, she joined the Knowledge Socialization Group at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where she carried out pioneering work on narrative in organizations, including the creation of an XML schema for describing stories and storytelling contexts. She moved to the Institute for Knowledge Management in 2001 to work on both narrative programs and complexity programs before helping found the Cynefin Centre in 2002. She is currently leading work on the use of narrative and complexity-informed techniques for gaining multicultural perspective in decision environments, and is mainly responsible for the development of narrative database technology.

David J. Snowden IBM Global Services, 79 Staines Road West, Sunbury-on-Thames, TW16 7AN United Kingdom (snowded@uk.ibm.com). Mr. Snowden is the director of IBM's Cynefin Centre shortly to be based in Cardiff University, Wales. He received his B.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Lancaster in 1975 and an M.B.A. degree from Middlesex University in 1986. His early career was in the specification of decision support systems for international companies, progressing to general management and strategic marketing positions in Datascience prior to its acquisition by IBM in 1996. He was a director in IBM's Institute for Knowledge Management before founding the Cynefin Centre in 2002. He is an adjunct professor of knowledge management at the University of Canberra, an honorary fellow in knowledge management at the University of Warwick, and has received several awards for his work in knowledge management, including one from the Academy of Management in 2001 for his original contributions to the field.