Knowle is Orange (Aachener Reihe Mensch und Technik)

The present social reality is more and more characterized by complexity. Thus, all politics and economies are becoming more and more interdependent. In consequence, the complexity of all processes related to political and business activities is reaching levels hitherto unknown. Under these conditions, the ability to deal with complexity will be one of the future key competencies for business and society.
SENEKA (Service Networks for Training and Continuous Education) is a large-scale entrepreneurial and research project, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education (bmb+f). SENEKA is a network across Germany to improve regional economic stability by strategies of networking. The focus is on knowledge management among enterprises and research institutions. The goal of SENEKA is the improvement of innovation competence of small and medium-sized enterprises by co-operation and networking which includes the aim to improve the ability to deal with complexity. This strategic approach is presently becoming important as globalization of economy endangers the economic stability of entire regions and countries.
The project aims not only at improving the management of information flow and knowledge creation, but seeks to re-design processes of innovation and research as well as learning processes. The pool of participating companies in the SENEKA network consists mainly of SMEs aiming to develop their capabilities and competencies with regard to knowledge management. Approximately 30 companies, mainly located in Germany, 40 associated international partners and 6 research institutes from all over Germany are working in different fields of activities, seeking to find new methods and tools in the fields of knowledge management, networking and competence development. The SENEKA network is organized by the Centre for Learning and Knowledge Management, integrated with the Department of Computer Science in Mechanical Engineering (ZLW/IMA), RWTH Aachen University, Germany. It is a combined research and teaching facility. Its institutional aim is to design and implement new technologies and new organizational structures, with the emphasis on Human-Centred System Design. The agiplan GmbH (Muelheim/Ruhr), is responsible for the co-ordination of the industrial sub-projects of SENEKA. Corresponding to the complexity of research and development in SENEKA, all work is carried out by interdisciplinary teams integrating different scientific fields. The researchers come from engineering and natural sciences (e.g. mechanical and electrical engineering, computer science, physics) as well as from social sciences and humanities (e.g. psychology, economy, politics, education).
In this book, the outcomes of SENEKA are described. The authors have been actors within this project: they are researchers or partners in the entreprises obtaining their PhDs or createing new products out of these projects. The editing of the different contributions in this volume was performed by Georg Schöler who has been involved in the project co-ordination of SENEKA since 2001. We would like to thank Sarah Hatfield, Silke Offermann and Dietrich Brandt for their support in editing this volume.