KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT –IS THERE ANY KNOWLEDGE

TO MANAGE???

DR. RAJU M. MATHEW

IT AND MANAGEMENT

• We can encounter hundreds of old and new studies, research works and even text books on ‘Knowledge Management’ in Information Technology and Business Management. They talk about Implicit, Explicit or Tacit Knowledge, with diagrams, mathematical models and equations. Then they are confused to end every thing in Data or Information without telling much on ‘Knowledge’.

KM IS REDUCED INTO DATA MANIPULATIONS

• KM (Knowledge Management) is a confused field of study without much difference between Data, Information and Knowledge. The term ‘Knowledge’ stands not for ‘Domain Knowledge’ but for Data or Information.

• If we analyze the contents of KM, we are forced to tell that it is nothing but Data Management or Information Management. There is no ‘Knowledge’ to manage in KM!

WHERE IS KNOWLEDGE?• In the internet and smart phone dominated society or economy,

even in the midday light, let us hope that Socrates will not come bearing a touch in search of ‘Knowledge’ in the midst of Data or Information.

• Everybody is talking about ‘Knowledge’ without knowing what knowledge is, but mistaking Data or Information for ‘Knowledge’. In reality, ours is a Data Dominated Society or Economy in which everybody manipulates Data or Information in banks, government offices, schools and universities, farms and factories.

• ‘Knowledge’ is far away from us without much practical use, for we attributed ‘Divinity’ to ‘Knowledge’. When knowledge is treated as Divine, nobody can use it but to worship or treat it holy and everybody is happy with Data.

SEARCHING IN THE NET AND SITTING IN LIBRARIES

• Searching in the net , sitting and reading in libraries , and attending classrooms or conferences or working and learning are the limited options for acquiring knowledge. Is it desirable to spend such long hours and great energy just for searching ?

• Here everybody, starting from nursery students to university professors, laymen to top level experts or rulers, is a seeker of ‘Knowledge’ rather than a user of knowledge.

• Finally what is getting is fragmented and undependable or even confusing information or knowledge and nobody has any time or energy to grasp or absorb and apply ‘Knowledge’.

• With regard to seeking ‘Knowledge’ we are just like the primitive hunters who might have spent over 90% of their time and energy just for searching and hunting, without much time or energy for enjoying the food , taking rest or entertainment. There is no justification to spend such long years and big money in schools and universities for such a fragmented and even unusable Knowledge or Expertise rather than acquiring qualifications.

IT – TECHNOLOGIES FOR DATA PROCESSING AND DELIVERY

• Information Technology, as the name indicates, is just Data Processing and Data Delivery Systems or Technologies and not ‘Knowledge Processing and Knowledge Delivery’ Systems or Technologies. They make us believe on ‘Data’ for ‘Knowledge’, frequently using the term ‘Information’ and finally everybody treats ‘Data’ as Knowledge or even greater than ‘Wisdom’.

SEARCHING AND SEARCHING• Everybody is busy in searching the net or some times libraries. If you are

an expert, just by spending 30 minutes, you can download truck load of data or information or information about information. One has to spend at least 3 hours to scan the downloaded materials and to eliminate the unwanted. By spending another 30 hours, we can organize the information into some pattern and extract very little ‘knowledge’.

• In effect nobody has much time or energy to consume ‘knowledge’ rather than searching for it, just like the country hen or cock conditioned for searching food from early morning to evening without filling its stomach. In schools and universities, libraries and internet centers, everybody is taught to make searches for information or knowledge without the art or technique of consuming it, other than manipultions.

THEN WHAT IS EDUCATION?• Education has been reduced into an art of searching information and

manipulating data or information for getting marks or grades and finally qualifications in terms of diplomas or certificates.

• The real Causality of Education is ‘Knowledge’ or Skill or Expertise, the back bone of economic or social or cultural development and the facilitator of innovation or entrepreneurship. Great innovators or entrepreneurs are either drop outs or little educated people.

• With data or information dominated education, no development can be made. Men or women with too much data with too little knowledge and wisdom are responsible for the present global economic crisis. Unless education becomes Knowledge-Intensive, instead of Data-Intensive, nobody will be there to solve the basic problems of the Humanity.

DO WE NEED TO SPEND SO MUCH TIME AND ENERGY FOR EDUCATION?

• In spite of all scientific and technological advancements, education is delivered in a most crude and primitive way. No true educational technology has been developed so far other than copying down so many incompatible methods and technologies.

• There is no justification in spending such a long years and big money for so little ‘Knowledge’ ‘ Skill” and ‘Expertise’. It is time to develop new technology to deal with ‘Knowledge’ and thereby bring Revolutions in Educations so that by spending one fifth time, energy and money, we can attain a ten fold efficiency and effectiveness in Education.

FATE OF THE LITTLE CHILDREN• Those who make experiments on little children with ‘smart phones,

tablets or laptops’ and thereby conditioning or programming their brains to process ‘Data’ or ‘Information’ without ‘Knowledge’ are doing a crime against the children. It is Knowledge that alone makes sense or meaning or relevance to Data or Information.

• Nervous brake down, including the inability to dream or visualize or innovate or lead healthy family life, is the fate of such children as the human brain is designed not to deal with too much ‘Data or Information’ but with large amount of ‘Ideas, Concepts or Knowledge’.

• Little children needs nursery rhymes, fairy tales, Aesop or Thousand and One Night or ‘Panchathantra’ stories and a lot of play and fun to develop their brains and body. Let them play, dream, visualize, innovate or explore too to create a better world so that they can create or make use of new technologies to solve human problems when they are grown up.

DATA AND KNOWLEDGE• The building blocs of data are bytes – 1s or 0s without any meaning.

Data is one dimensional; structure of data is linear and static. Information Technology is built upon Algorithms based on data structure and not on knowledge structure.

• The building blocs of ‘Knowledge’ are concepts with independent meaning. Knowledge is multi-dimensional with non-linear and dynamic structure. It is knowledge that gives meaning or relevance to data or information.

• If the print out of the total data stored in the brain of an adult is limited to few hundred pages where as that of Knowledge is extended to thousands of pages.

• People find it difficult to recollect a two hundred page telephone directory whereas they can remember at least the content of a five hundred or ten thousand page scripture or classic literature like the Bible, the Quran , the Vedas, or Ramayana or the works of Homer, Kalidasa or Shakespeare. Human Brain can easily process knowledge rather than data.

DATA ECONOMY, NOT KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

• The so called ‘Knowledge Economy’ that is discussed in books, seminar halls, class rooms and electronic channels is nothing but ‘Data Economy’ in which large amount of data is produced, transferred and used or applied.’. Most of the social activities, including Education, Governmental Administration, Decision-Making have become ‘Data or Information’ intensive without much ‘Knowledge’.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS AND DATA MANIPULATIONS

• The global economic crisis or the financial melt down is the result of Data Manipulation, making strategic decisions with undigested data without sound ‘Knowledge’ of Economics, Business, Commerce, Intentional Trade, Science and Technology. Everybody talks on the basis of fabricated data or information. It is men and women with sound knowledge alone can find out solutions, can innovate and can live as entrepreneurs or even productive workers.

KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY – WHAT IS IT?

• In a Knowledge Economy, ‘Knowledge’ is produced, marketed, delivered and consumed on a massive scale. It is Knowledge Industry that brings out value added Knowledge Modules, Packages and Solutions for the entire sectors of the economy by using the latest technology. Every social production process becomes ‘Knowledge – Intensive’ rather than ‘Data or Information Intensive.

• In a Knowledge Economy, knowledge is treated as a product or commodity for mass production, consumption and delivery. Knowledge is made accessible to the entire people irrespective of literate or illiterate, educated or uneducated, men or women so that everybody is empowered and capable of making use of knowledge that they absorbed.

KNOWLEDGE INDSUTRY MISTAKEN!!!

• ‘Knowledge Industry’ is the most mistaken or confused industry so that Information Technology, Higher Education, Scientific Research and etc. are clubbed or designated as ‘Knowledge Industry’ without knowing the meaning of ‘industry’.

• For an industry, there must be mass or industrial production, marketing, delivery and consumption of products. For example, chemical industry is related to chemical technology and chemical products.

• Accordingly, ‘Knowledge Industry’ must be related to ‘Knowledge Technology’ and ‘Knowledge Products’ rather than ‘Information Technology’ and ‘Data Processing and Delivery’. Without knowledge, no education or scientific research is made possible.

TECHNOLOGY FOR MASS PRODUCTION AND DELIVERY OF KNOWLEDGE

• Without sound theories and methodological tools, it is not possible to treat ‘Knowledge’ as a product for mass production, delivery, marketing and consumption and to develop Knowledge Industry. That is why; we don’t have genuine Knowledge Industry’ other than IT or IT Enabled Industries. Before the birth of Industrial Revolution and Information Technology, there were Universities and Scientific Research activities that cannot be designated as ‘Knowledge Industry’ in a sensible way.

• As a solution, as early as 1984, Mathew formulated two theories of ‘Consumption’ and ‘Production’ of ‘Knowledge as a Product or Commodity’ . In 2005 he pounded ‘Knowmatics’ ,mathematics and engineering of ‘Knowledge’, that forms the basis of Knowledge Industry to facilitate mass production, marketing, delivery and consumption of knowledge for ensuring knowledge accessibility to the entire humanity, crossing the barriers of education, culture and development.

THIRTY YEARS OF STUDY AND RESEARCH

• For the last thirty years, I have been conducting study and research on the Nature and Structure of Knowledge, Technology for Knowledge Processing and Consumption, Production and Marketing of Knowledge.

• On the basis of my book published from England and the USA on Economics of Knowledge and Libraries in 1981, I was nominated as the youngest member for the 12 member FID Committee on Research on Theoretical Basis of Information Science in 1982 with Prof. A. I. Mikhalove, father of Informatics, as Chairman.

• The USSR Academy of Sciences in 1985 published my two theories on Knowledge Consumption-Production for the FID Committee. Now they are known as ‘Mathew’s Theories of Knowledge’ and they become an area for doctoral research on Skill Acquisition and Scientific Prodctivity.

• After guiding or supervising nine Doctoral works on Knowledge dealt in the Bible, Quran, the Vedas and Upanishads, Ayurveda and Tribal Medicine, besides the Possibilities of Internet, Theoretical Foundations of Information Technology, Industrial Development Pattern and etc., in 2005, I propounded Knowmatics.

MY RECENT WORKS

• ‘Knowmatics- A New Revolution in Higher Education’ is my work jointly with Ranjit Mathew, published in the Journal of the World Universities Forum 4,1,2011:1-11.

• It elaborates Mathew’s Theories of Knowledge, Knowmatics and Application of Knowmatics in Higher Education and how a revolution can be made on knowledge accessibility.

• My other works can be found in the net Under ‘dr. raju m. mathew’ or , www.slidehare.net/drrajumathew .