If you didn’t have the good fortune of meeting Ed Friedrichs before his passing in 2021, here are a few high-level facts: Ed was a visionary architect and firm leader. He played a pivotal role in shaping Gensler into the global design practice it is today. He joined the firm in 1969, founded the Los Angeles office in 1976, and served as Gensler’s President and CEO from 1995 to 2003. Under his leadership, the firm grew significantly in scale, sophistication, and ambition—while also codifying many of the cultural principles that still define it.
But for me, Ed’s legacy began long before I launched Knowledge Architecture—before I even knew what knowledge management was.
I first met Ed in 2005 at a conference called Firm of the Future, hosted by ZweigWhite. The conference brought together forward-thinking leaders to explore where the AEC industry was headed in the next 10, 15, 20 years. It was a fantastic premise, and it launched me on the path I’ve been walking ever since.
That event introduced me to firms that were being intentional about how they managed knowledge. These firms were investing in research, building systems for innovation, sharing what they learned internally, and connecting people across offices and disciplines. No one at the conference was using the term “knowledge management”—at least not that I can recall—but that’s exactly what they were doing. They were trying to make better use of what they knew.
Ed was one of the speakers at that conference. I attended his talk, then stayed afterward to ask questions. I later found him at a meal and sat next to him, eager to learn more. He was generous with his time—patient, encouraging, and deeply thoughtful.
What I didn’t fully realize until recently—when I went back and reviewed the old conference program—is that Ed didn’t just speak at the event. He chaired and designed it. He was the one who brought those people together. He shaped the experience that set me on this path.
Looking back, it all makes sense. The connecting thread running through the entire conference—the idea that architects and engineers shouldn’t only design buildings and infrastructure, but should also design their firms to be smarter—was Ed’s idea. His point of view gave the event its energy, its distinctiveness, and its sense of possibility.
That conference was the moment I first began to see knowledge management as a tool you could use to design a better business.
A few years later, I encountered Ed again when he facilitated a leadership retreat for the architecture firm I worked for. By that point, he had left Gensler and was consulting. Once again, he made a big impression—both in how he facilitated the retreat and how he took the time afterward to offer support and encouragement to me personally.
When I founded Knowledge Architecture in 2009, Ed was one of the first people I called. I wanted his advice on how to build a company that served architecture and engineering firms. I wanted to go deeper on his ideas around connecting people and knowledge. And I wanted to hear how he thought about product design and positioning for this industry.
He was all in. He offered support, ideas, and introductions. He wrote one of the first blog posts on our website. He spoke at our second KA Connect conference in 2011. And he kept showing up—not just as a speaker, but as a presence. A regular lunch companion. A mentor. A friend.
Two Degrees of Separation
At KA Connect 2011, Ed introduced a concept that has stayed with me ever since: two degrees of separation. The idea is simple but powerful. In a firm of any size, employees should never be more than two connections away from the knowledge or expertise they need.
(Not six degrees, like Kevin Bacon.)
Two degrees. You can easily find the person who can help you, or find the person who knows the person who can help you.
Once you see it that way, you start to see all the places in your organization where the connections are broken, where knowledge is stuck in silos, or where people don’t know who to ask.
“Two Degrees” became a kind of north star for us. It helped us see our work not just as software development, but as network and community design—a way to democratize knowledge. And it gave us a practical, measurable goal for what a connected AEC firm, or a “Connected Practice,” as we called them at the time, might actually look like.
The Half-Life of Knowledge
Another idea from that same talk still echoes in my head, and in many ways, it was even more foundational. Ed told a story from the early days of Gensler, when a business professor visited their office and told them something that changed how they thought about expertise: the half-life of knowledge is ten years.
In other words, half of what you know today will be irrelevant—or wrong—within a decade. And the punchline: you don’t know which half.
That was in 1971. By 2011, Ed figured the half-life of knowledge was closer to three years. And in 2025, I think it’s even shorter.
And we’re not just dealing with shorter half-lives—we’re also creating and consuming more knowledge than ever. So there’s more and more knowledge and the half-life is shrinking.
That insight reframes the entire premise of knowledge management. If the half-life of knowledge is shrinking, then KM isn’t about archiving static content—it’s about creating living systems that support ongoing dialogue, continual learning (and unlearning), and quick access to what’s current. The goal isn’t just to capture knowledge. It’s to keep it alive and relevant.
Put a Name on It
One of the most specific—and practical—pieces of advice I ever got from Ed was this: every piece of knowledge should have someone’s name on it.
That stuck with me. It’s such a simple idea, but it’s rarely done. So when we were designing Synthesis 6, we made sure every page included a contact block by default. We introduced employee blocks and made it easy for editors to associate people with content. And we also decided to display the name of the person who last edited the page—and when they edited it—right at the top.
This was a design decision rooted in Ed’s belief that knowledge without attribution is incomplete. When you know who’s behind a piece of knowledge, it becomes more trustworthy. More actionable. More human.
Adding employee names to pages also supports the principle of two degrees of separation—it gives you a direct line to someone who knows. And the edit date helps you manage the half-life of knowledge by signaling whether the information is still current. These small details are part of a much bigger system: one designed to keep knowledge alive, connected, and credible.
How Ed Influenced Our Approach to AI Search
When we launched Synthesis AI Search in 2024, three years after Ed passed away, his influence took on a new form and became even more impactful.
AI Search doesn’t just return answers to your questions—it tries to understand the people connected to the knowledge. It looks at structured data from the employee directory—but it also scans the intranet for signals like contact blocks, page location, and contextual mentions. That means when someone searches for “Revit families,” or “project management standards,” or “toxic chemical avoidance,” the system doesn’t just deliver information. It suggests the right people to talk to.
That feature traces directly back to Ed. In fact, as I was leading the design on Advanced Employee Search, Ed’s advice was ever-present.
It’s one thing to remember a mentor’s words. It’s another to realize that their ideas are living on in your software and that their voice is still shaping product decisions more than a decade later.
Ed believed that systems should bring people closer together. That knowledge should lead to connection. I think he’d be pleased to know his fingerprints are still on the work we’re doing today.
Context Is Everything
One of Ed’s core beliefs—and one that has stuck with me—is that delivering knowledge isn’t enough. You have to deliver context.
Context means going beyond the what and explaining the why. It’s not enough to say, “Use a 30–50% window-to-wall ratio.” That’s just a number. What people really need to understand is why that ratio is recommended. When should it be closer to 30%? When should it push toward 50%? What trade-offs are we managing? What conditions change the answer? How do we know this works?
And just as important: Who can someone talk to if the situation isn’t straightforward?
That’s the kind of knowledge that moves a firm forward—not just rules, but reasoning. Not just information, but explanation. Ed believed that’s where real learning lives.
It turns out, that’s also the kind of knowledge that AI is hungry for. AI thrives on context. The richer and more nuanced the material, the more accurate, helpful, and relevant the AI becomes.
Whether it’s for a human or a machine, the goal is the same: deliver knowledge with depth. The kind that supports understanding, not just recall. The kind that can be used with confidence.
Getting Smarter Together
In preparing to write this piece, I went back through all my old emails with Ed—and I found something I had completely forgotten.
In his presentation at Firm of the Future, the conference in 2005 I mentioned earlier, Ed talked about the importance of having a shared reading list. A curated set of books that everyone in the firm could read together—not just to learn, but to align around a shared vocabulary.
That idea stuck with me so deeply, I didn't even remember that I had learned it from Ed.
Over the years, we’ve carried it forward at Knowledge Architecture. We’ve held book clubs inside the company and hosted them within the broader KA community.
Our company values and approach to organizational health were born out of shared reading experiences. So was our Client Success program. Our embrace of Blue Ocean Strategy. Our decision to remain a bootstrapped “small giant.” Even our approach to product development was shaped by Competing Against Luck and the Jobs to Be Done framework, which helped us focus on the real problems our clients are trying to solve.
Ed understood that firms don’t grow wiser when employees learn in isolation. Real transformation happens when learning becomes collective—when firms get smarter together.
Smarter by Design
Ed was a designer. Not just of buildings—but of organizations.
He probably wouldn’t have used the term, but Ed was also a knowledge manager. He understood how ideas moved through a firm. He understood how culture shaped behavior. He understood how structure created clarity—or confusion. And most of all, he understood that a well-designed business could learn, adapt, and grow with purpose.
When I look back, I think Ed was the mentor who set me on the path that led to knowledge management in AEC—and ultimately, to founding Knowledge Architecture.
The spark he lit in me at Firm of the Future, nearly twenty years ago, was the simple but radical idea that a business could be designed to be smarter.
That the most intelligent, innovative, agile firms don’t get there by accident. They get there because they’re built that way.
They’re structured to move information quickly. To create new knowledge. To turn that knowledge into better services, better projects, better decisions, and better cultures.
Smarter firms have better continuing education programs. Better mentorship. Better internal communication. Better reward systems. And yes, better intranets.
Ed’s legacy, at least for me, is the idea that business and work and knowledge are all design problems. And if we’re thoughtful and collaborative and willing to challenge assumptions, we can make our firms smarter.
Not just by effort or luck.
But by design.
Go Deeper
You can watch Ed’s KA Connect 2011 talk, Two Degrees of Separation, where he introduces the idea of two degrees of separation and reflects on what it takes to build a culture of connected expertise. It’s thoughtful, funny, and full of practical wisdom.
And if you’d like to go even deeper into his thinking, I highly recommend Ed’s book, Long-Cycle Strategies for a Short-Cycle World. It’s written for AEC leaders navigating a fast-moving world, and it’s packed with timeless lessons on how to design a resilient business.
Part Four of the book—“Nurture Networks”—is especially relevant to this conversation. It includes three chapters that are deeply rooted in the principles of knowledge management:
Build “real-time” connectedness
Nurture “two degrees of separation”
Commit to continual learning
The whole book is worth reading, but if you’re looking for a practical framework for building a smarter, more connected firm, that section is a great place to start.
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Smarter by Design is a biweekly newsletter about how AEC firms are rethinking knowledge, learning, and leadership in an era of rapid change.
Drawing on 25 years in the industry, Christopher Parsons shares stories, insights, and practical strategies from firm leaders and knowledge champions who are scaling learning, growing expertise, and designing more resilient organizations.
This isn’t just about AI (though that’s part of the story). It’s about how firms become learning organizations—places where knowledge flows, people grow, and insights compound over time.
If you care about the future of knowledge and leadership in the AEC industry, this newsletter is for you.