On Wednesday, November 19, 1997 9:26 AM, DJones@asheville.cc.nc.us wrote:
>
> The often quoted adage,
> "Knowledge is Power", is a dominant issue in
> converting human capital into
> structural capital. In my experience, knowledge
> is neither free nor
> abundant in most organizations.
Douglas,
This post was quite eloquent and I want to challenge you with a thought
(not an absolute).<g>
I hypothesize that knowledge is in fact free and abundant and that knowledge
is not power. Knowledge by and of itself is worth nothing. You stated later
in your treatise that being connected is the key and on that I fully agree.
When you connect knowledge and information--totally free in this web-driven
infrastructure we are all assimilating--then value is created. As an
organization, we should not be worried about the containment of knowledge and
information--but how it is connected and transformed into value. That is the
competitive advantage.
As you so cogently stated,
>The leadership challenge, of course, is to find ways to encourage and
>then to nuture "communities of practice" that have goals that are aligned
>with the larger organizational goals.
This is a description of connectivity and how we create value. Knowledge
processes can be protected by legal means--for awhile--but trying to
contain or protect knowledge only suboptimizes the system. At this time,
intellectual capital can be purchased or grown, I think a debate about
which one is more efficient would be interesting, but none-the-less, a
sidebar to the real issue--connectivity.
It is my feeling that the age of information has passed us by and that we
have entered into the age of connectivity. It is through how we connect
our information, knowledge and systems that will create the sustainable
competitive advantage so many organizations seek to construct. Our focus
on the individual knowledge worker is but a distraction. The knowledge
worker is being outdated with moore's law, therefore it may be prudent
that we "purchase knowledge" which is being supplied to the system at a
far faster rate than we can grow it?
Anyone who is involved in cyberculture realizes that the real time focus
of connections is leading us to value never before dreamed of as each day
we uncover new knowledge which obsoletes our present position. The power
of knowledge--I don't think so, I'll take connections any day. I try to
think of it this way. Knowledge is about the present, connectivity is
about the future--where do you want to play?
Or was that where do you want to go today?<g>
mike
--"Mike Jay" <Quarterback@classic.msn.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>