I-Space as a portfolio of knowledge assets

The I-Space allows us to represent an agent's knowledge as a portfolio of knowledge assets that evolve over time, both through acts of individual or collective learning, or through transactions with other agents. The portfolio, like a more conventional strategy portfolio – i.e., that of the Boston Consulting Group or Arthur D. Little's – allows one to establish a knowledge asset's attractiveness to its owner, as a function of its degrees of codification and abstraction, as well as its competitive position relative to other knowledge assets as a function of how diffused it is.


Unlike a conventional strategy portfolio, the I-Space depicts knowledge assets as linked together to form a complex adaptive system (CAS). In such a system, moving a single, heavily connected knowledge asset in the I-Space can trigger system-wide effects.