Urban Land Institute (ULI)

Problems Solved: Obsolescent Need to Extend Communities of Practice.		Strategic Focus: Crafting and Executing Strategy; Fostering Innovation and Creativity, Nurturing Communities of Practice.
Thought Leader and Project Manager: Donald Norris, Monica Dignam, Rhea Blanken, and Phil Taylor

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) is an international think tank serving 18,000 members in the real estate development industry.  Its publications and published materials are the gold standard for explicit knowledge in its industry.  Even more importantly, ULI brings together the major figures in real estate development, to share tacit knowledge yielding precious insights on what will work in urban land development, in particular settings and contexts, tomorrow.  Strategic Initiatives and its partner organizations have been serving ULI for nearly ten years, providing a range of strategic thinking, research, and marketing services.  Most recently, Dr. Norris led a project team that analyzed and mapped ULI’s knowledge ecology.  This is the combination of infrastructures, processes, events, activities, relationships, and culture that enable ULI to create and leverage the combination of tacit and explicit knowledge that provide indispensable value for their members.  ULI’s knowledge ecology combines value and values in a way that encourages members to create knowledge resources that money cannot buy.

This mapping enabled ULI to understand its sources of value and plan to extend its operations internationally in a way that will build upon and leverage its knowledge ecology, not jeopardize it.  A case study based on ULI’s knowledge ecology can be seen at http://www.scup.org/eknowledge/case_studies_f.html.