"Welcome to Mossy Creek the town you can count on ain't goin' nowhere, and don't want to" with these words you get the flavor of life in the small southern town of Mossy Creek. The people are fiesty, funny, sad, and loving. Each chapter is a different character's story. You learn the history of the dispute between Mossy Creek and the nearby town of Bigelow. Each chapter becomes a story unto itself while characters overlap occasionally in the tales. From Miss Ida, the guardian/mayor of Moss Creek who will go to jail rather than put up a new welcome sign outside of Mossy Creek (afterall it was written by a Bigelowan!) to Casey, an Olympic hopeful whose dreams are dashed while returning from her elopement, due to a car accident which leaves her paralyzed from the waist down, you will laugh and cry with the inhabitants of this marvelous town. Come on for the ride and enjoy a few moments in Mossy Creek. It is a fast read and powerful in its emotions.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book - lots of fun, quirky characters. Looking forward to the next in the series.

I read this book because I love Deborah Smith's work. I figured at least her stories in the book would be fantastic. I laughed so hard with the first story my husband finally asked me to share the joke. And it just got better after that. I can not wait for the next book to come out! The characters were all fun and lovable. It made me wish my small town was a wee bit smaller, Southern and full of Mossy Creekites!

Nancy Dixon has done a very good job of piecing together the experiences of those of her ancestors who came among the Palatine Germans around 1710, to upstate New York. This is not a general work of genealogy with passenger lists and lists of families, but is more specific to her own clan. This in no way takes away from the book as her history may be extrapolated to cover the experiences of many of the Palatine families who were in similar straits. Nancy knows when she can take the liberty of poetic description, and has not turned this book into historical fiction. It is a decent work of history, and if you have Palatine roots, I strongly recomend it.

A formal review of this book appears in the January, 1996, issue of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register

Nancy M. Dixon, Dialogue at Work: Making talk developmental for people and organizations (Lemos & Crane: 1998). This is an expanded, and I believe better, book based on her original Perspectives on Dialogue, published by the Center for Creative Leadership. Among the features I like are:

• Her link between talk and development

• Her integration of five perspectives on dialogue for Development (Argyris and others), and

• Some practical observations on incorporating dialogue into work practices.

An index, missing in the original version from CCL, is another reason for my recommendation.

Nancy Dixon's Fortune and Misery has won the Lousiana Endowment for the Humanities Book of the Year Award for 2000.

A new edition of this 1994 classic on organisational learning. Based round use of a variant of the Kolb cycle, it is a valuable practical and theoretical guide to enhanced organisational learning. It is extensively revised, with valuable new material.

When it was first published in 1994, it immediately became a definitive text on organisational learning. The second edition builds on the first, with five new or revised chapters and incorporation of useful case study material of successful organisational learning [I judge that the new material and additional insights fully justify buying a new copy even if you have the old.]. The last five years have seen many useful additions to the literature, but Nancy Dixon's book remains my first choice for straightforward, helpful and thorough coverage of the issues and practice.

The book is practical, illuminating and wide ranging, and with quite enough examples to give it life for those who are seeking practical solutions to practical problems. I highly recommend it to everyone directly concerned with enhancing learning in their organisation (is there anyone who is not or should not be?). Even if you have no time for reading, you should at least read the Preface and Introduction.

It is worth quoting the four main themes listed in the Preface in full:

"Learning is part of work and work involves learning; these are not separate functions but intertwined; the separation we have made of them is artificial and often does not serve us well.

Learning is not only or even primarily about obtaining correct information or answers from knowledgeable others; it is fundamentally about making meaning out of the experience we and others have in the world. Organizational learning results from intentional and planned efforts to learn. Although it can and does occur accidentally, organizations cannot afford to rely on learning through chance.

As a collective we are capable of learning our way to the answers we need to address our difficult problems. It is ourselves we must rely on for these answers rather than experts, who can, at best, only provide us with answers that have worked in the past."

For a great many organisations these principles call for a major shift from current practice and the author shows how to achieve this.

The book is well organised, well summarised, and well referenced, which makes it very accessible.

Sweet Tea and Jesus Shoes is a charming collection of stories that range from sweetly sentimental tear-jerkers to laugh out loud funny slice-of-life tales. And, best of all, there isn't a dud in the entire bunch. All of the stories were obviously written with love and each is an author's memory of living in the South. The book is broken up into three sections titled: Precious Memories, Family Portraits (wow, do these ladies have some nutty relatives and neighbors!) and Beloved Critters. Being an animal lover the "Beloved Critters" section contained some of my favorite stories in the collection. The hands down winner for me was Donna Ball's UP JUMPS THE DEVIL. It's about a big, slobbering, affectionate dog that sends an entire town into an uproar and gives one grasping old bitty her comeuppance. This story had me in stitches and will be reread whenever I'm in dire need of a good laugh. The book is a little pricey, at $14.95 for only 171 pages of storytelling, but I feel its stories are worth splurging on (or saving for).

Open the cover of this book and prepare to enter the real South. Through this collection of short stories the authors have given us snapshots of how life is viewed by real Southerners--that is mostly with a sense of humor and always with heart. I loved this book from first page to last. Filled with love and family, quirky characters and just plain folks it's a great way to spend a relaxing afternoon. One more thing, no matter what part of the country you're from you will recognize people you have known and loved, because some things are universal.

"Sweet Tea and Jesus Shoes" is a book of short stories. The kind of stories that family and close friends tell at reunions. The kind of stories in which truth is stranger and funnier than fiction.

You'll walk to Bible School with children in the depression. You'll wait at home with the women while the men folk go hunting. You'll see both sides of the long standing feud between a southern woman and her in-laws. You'll meet a mixed breed black dog named Lucifer who went to a picnic and a revival.

Get a glass of sweet tea, and sit in a rocker by the fireplace. Rock your way back in time with five southern women storytellers as your tour guide. You're sure to end each story with a smile on your face and a contented sigh.

Published May 2000 by BelleBooks, authors Deborah Smith, Donna Ball, Nancy Knight, Sandra Chastain, Debra Dixon, Virginia Ellis.

Nancy Dixon's new book gives 5 knowledge transfer methods that result from the interaction between the intended receiver (similarity of task and context), the nature of the task (how routine & frequent) and the type of knowledge (explicit vs. tacit) being transfered.

Serial transfer: Same team, same task, different settings. After action reviews, learning histories and set meetings, open diaglog, local facilitation.

Near transfer: Explicit knowledge of frequent & routine tasks moved across organizational boundaries. Electronic dissemination, supplemented by personal interaction, 'push', best practices are shared where context is not an issue.

Far transfer: Tacit knowledge is moved by coaching and consulting, same task different context, reciprocal exchange, peers travel to assist.

Strategic transfer: Infrequent and non-routine, complex system, knowledge is gathered by specialists, multiple 'voices' are synthesized mostly in realtime.

Expert transfer: Explicit knowledge is pulled from forums, summarized and recorded in terms of solutions, rules and distinctions. Context is the same but the task differs, e.g. technical questions to 2nd level helpdesks.

Somehow the whole notion of knowledge transfer does not sit too well with me, feels too much like an object is being exchanged rather than an individual or group learning experience! Are we starting to see greater clarity and the emergence of some KM theory here? I'm thinking of Dixon's transfer types, KM models from Don Mezei, Bo Newman and others, knowledge validation practices from KMCI, ontologies and classifications of tool sets, KM strategy options.....

Task characteristics and knowledge sharing:

Nancy uses, how routine the task is, not in the sense of similariry, but how easily the task can be expressed in terms of explicit steps and the frequency. These are important attributes for knowledge transfer (along with an appreciation of key changes in context). I'm not so sure these are the best task characteristics when we look at learning and knowledge sharing, which are important aspects of to consider when looking at transfer in a holistic (ecosystem) perspective. Here I tend to favor the generic task ontology developed by Chandrasekaran and colleagues: e.g. classification, diagnosis, problem solving and others.

Transfer & learning:

There is little attention to reciprocity, dialog and generative knowledge exchanges in Nancy's categories. I get the feeling Nancy favors knowledge transfer as passing objects and only recognizes transfer resulting in greater than the parts in "far transfer" (tacit exchange). Seems in true knowledge sharing there is always some measure of reciprocity, knowledge creation and learning on both sides. One of the most effective ways to share knowledge is to take time to share meanings, surface assumptions through constructing ontologies, practicing deep dialog and crafting distinctions.

I missed FAQs, co-location, yellowpages and boundary spanning between communities as alternative promising ways to share. Knowledge travels via relationships and I think this aspect could have received more attention in the book. Knowledge transfer goes far deeper than just passing information and Nancy's treatment of context and absoption potential was new and through. It is encouraging to see an entire book devoted to this key knowledge practice, think this is an important text, deserving of a place alongside Brown and Duguid's "The social life of information".

Use of simulation and cases, in particular, Time-Revealed Senarios (TRS) are recent advances to assist with knowledge sharing: TRS as used in Wisdom Tools.

Dixon does indeed explain HOW companies thrive by sharing what they know. (She apparently agrees with Derek Bok, former president of Harvard, when responding to irate parents after a tuition increase: "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.") In her Introduction, she identifies three myths (or assumptions about the idea of knowledge sharing: (1) build it and they will come (the so-called "Field of Dreams Syndrome"), (2) technology can replace face-to-face, and (3) first you have to create a learning culture. "Many of the organizations I studied started with one or more of these assumptions and then had to make corrections to get back on track." She then explains why each myth or assumption is either wrong or inadequate. After that, she observes: My major goal in writing this book is to broaden readers' thinking about how a company might share knowledge. Therefore I discuss many ways in which real companies have successfully transferred knowledge....Another goal is to help readers figure out which of these many systems [subsequently analyzed] would be most effective in their own settings -- how to tell whether BP's Peer Assist would be more effective than Ford's Best Practice Replication." All this in the Introduction (!) which serves as the first of the nine chapters within which her material is organized.

The objective of Dixon's study of ten organizations (ranging from Bechtel to the U.S. Army) was to understand why some knowledge transfer systems are effective...and why others are not. Eventually, she concluded that "These organizations know a great deal about how...but much less about why." Moreover, "Organizations like the ones I have written about in this book, that are on the leading edge of knowledge transfer have been learning on their own, primarily through trial and error." To which I presume to add, that we must understand how to learn if any knowledge (about anything else) is to be gained. Moreover, there are also quite specific skills required when helping others to learn what we know. In her book, Dixon provides a wealth of information which includes cases and examples, a "synthesis that retains the separate voices of the examples", "stories" which preserve the emotions and values of people involved. general principles derived from the cases, and an "articulation" of the reasoning behind the various categories (eg absorptive capacity) inorder to reveal the WHY behind the categories. Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline and his more recent The Dance of Change.

This is the best book available on knowledge transfer. Based upon the author's deep understanding of organizational learning theory and her careful examination of the practices of major corporations, it offers clear definitions of five types of knowledge transfer, along with criteria, design guidelines, business drivers and potential barriers for each. Examples of each transfer type (from teams reviewing their actions in order to perform better together in a new setting to strategic learning and sharing of expert knowledge) are employed less to bolster a thesis than to illustrate how classifications were evolved and tested. Intelligently crafted categories based upon similarities of tasks and contexts, the nature of tasks, and knowledge type provide a framework for organizations to build a system for employing "common knowledge" for business objectives. Written with clarity and grace, this volume explores the power of metaphor and of the values of sharing, listening and trust, while developing our most practical guide for integrating effective knowledge transfer into organizations' strategic architecture. Highly recommended.

Being from a small town in Georgia myself, I completely bonded with the characters in both Mossy Creek books. These authors have done a wonderful job continuing these delightful stories and I look forward to reading more.

I have waited for the new mossy creek book very much, but I was a bit dissappointed. It was great meeting the old wonderfully exentric characters of the first book, but the reunion was laced with pain and hurt. The book concentraed around the question who burned Mossy Creek's old high school 20 years ago? The question unearthed secrets from the town's past. Some of the stories were really great like the love story between shy Josie M. and bigfoot, but while the first book was all along touching and fanny and a just a little bit sad, the second one had too much hurt people in it. But still I want to hear about the residence of mossy creek so I will buy the next book, I just hope it will be uplifting as the first.

With the twenty-year reunion at Mossy Creek, Georgia coming soon, Creekites wonder who burned down the town's high school back then that has forced locals to attend nearby rival Bigelow High School? Apparently the arsonist is taunting the Creekites by having sent to the town the ten cent fortune telling machine used during that homecoming day when the fire changed so many lives.

Though not even born yet, wallflower Josie McClure knows the impact of the fire because her mother was the homecoming queen who never celebrated her victory and forced her to compete for the Bigelow High School Homecoming Day Queen, which she humiliatingly lost. Rainey Ann Cecil thinks back to that fatal day in 1981 when she was twelve and with Robert Walker and Hank Blackshear believed they caused the fire. Amos Royden is now the sheriff and would like to solve the case that his now deceased father always felt blemished his law enforcement record. Other are impacted by either the fire or the upcoming reunion. Will the reunion complete the destruction of the Creekites or refurbish the civil pride of being a Creekite?

Written as a series of vignettes tied together through the reunion, the story line is humorous and sad focusing on how a pivotal event can change lives forever. Though an ensemble, the characters come across as genuine leaving readers to understand their pain, loneliness, and their need to belong. Fans will enjoy tremendously REUNION AT MOSSY CREEK and want to read the previous slice of small town southern living, MOSSY CREEK. Both novels colorfully and cleverly illustrate small town southern living.

Harriet Klausner

I really liked this book. the only reason i gave it 4 stars waz because i wanted to know what happened to a few characters that weren't mention in these books. But all in all, i liked this book and would reccomend it to all kids between the ages of 8 and 14.

When Carson Drew is invited by his friend, Henry Wilcox, to visit him in Alaska; Nancy and George are delighted to join him. But everything turns sour when Wilcox is accused of smuggling ivory and Nancy is asked to investigate. Henry's son Steve has a grudge against Nancy which she can't figure out and George has fallen for him. When George is kidnapped, Nancy has to work harder, and faster, to find the smuggler before George's time runs out! Another Nancy Drew - must I say anymore?