A knowledge base consisting of design cases has been structured into an organizational memory, which has been supporting a community of novices to learn information system (IS) for six years. The paper discusses why the organizational learning process, which is taking place, can be described as a genetic system that evolves towards the best quality attainable, and by means of a simulation examines the role of some components of this socio-technical system (i.e. features of the organizational memory, teacher ability and memetic processes in the community) in steering this evolution. Some indications for the design of socio-technical systems supported by design memories are pointed out.