Over at the Times a pair of bellwether articles. First, the news that Microsoft is shelving Encarta, its CD-Rom encyclopedia. After eclipsing the bound encyclopedia that was once a major purchase of striving families, the CD-Rom has itself succumbed to the search engine and dynamic sites like Wikepedia. 

Second, the news that Facebook is going open-source with the tools it makes available to members. The weakness of any networking site is that it binds members to its location – people and ideas outside of that realm don’t exist in a networking sense. Facebook is reading the tea leaves correctly. People want flexibility in their devices and their virtual communities. 

We wonder whether organizational learning strategies are keeping up with the spirit of the times.