Lets take Merryll Lynch or any old-guard financial institution soaked in
mahogany veneer.
1. The brokers are the knowledge entities
2. Clients call the brokers for information
3. Clients decide on trading based on information
4. Clients delegate brokers to decide on their behalf within certain
knowledge thresholds
5. Different levels of *knowledge* is available based on service fees
[implicit & explicit fees]
Enter, virtual flea-market.
Now, the *knowledge* of these expensive brokers is available in the form
of web pages, database driven online graphs and instant tradeability.
Of course, the expensive Mr. Knowledge was never avaiable to everyone by
phone when panic attacks the stock-market. And the website is as clogged
as the sewage in brazilian slums. Only the mega-billionaires gets to
*communicate* with the traders in the event of a panic. Grandmother with
social-security check awaits as patiently as any poor soul in the third
world country did when the currency crashed in S.E.Asia.
The instant analysis and multiple opinions from dozens of financial
*knowledge* websites have primarily reduced decades of rhetoric called
*stock-market knowledge* to gate-keeping. Those who traded in billions
always knew that the service access & fee to trade was the $-tip to the
gate-keeper. Only the lesser mortals thought it was *knowledge*. Many
knowledge workers believed [and continue to] that they are the *knowledge
entity*, but alas their fears of obsolescence are valid, because they
never were anything more than gate-keepers. They are the *ushers* who
handled the tickets to the financial broadway musical and the ushers who
handled the exodus [like Titanic's captains who allowed only 1st class
passengers into rescue boats] when someone yelled 'fire !' inside the
theatre.
We do have a handful of icons of *knowledge* [greenspan, soros...], whose
every word [and even food habits - there was a segment about Greenspan's
sushi lunch and macro-economics] is a source for financial analysis and
are the primary gate-keepers to mass-hysteria. Who I'd categorize as the
democratically elected 'fire!'-breathing MariaCallas at LaScala.
Enter home theatre.
"Here we're now, entertain us"... or else...
<click>
Sendil ~zen~ Nathan
Information Architect
zen@iArchitect.org
http://iArchitect.org
408.247.4937
--"sendil ~zen~ nathan" <zen@iArchitect.org>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>