From Information Processing to Knowledge Creation

From Information Processing to Knowledge Creation

By Jerry Cedicci, real estate developer & Robin Trehan, business consultant

The information processing view has often considered organizational memory of the past as a reliable predictor of the dynamically and regularly changing business environment. However, one cannot solve current problems with current thinking. Current problems are the result of current thinking. To solve the problems one need to create knowledge based on common sense. Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, unless it agrees with your reasoning and your common sense.

The idea that technologies can deliver the right information to the right person at the right time was valid for the outdated business but the present business model requires shifting to a more flexible "anticipation-of-surprise" model. Knowledge management technologies can store human intelligence and experience. Technologies such as databases and groupware applications store bits and pixels of data, but they cannot store the rich schemas that people possess for making sense of data bits. Moreover, information is context-sensitive. The same assemblage of data can evoke different responses from different people.

Knowledge management technologies can distribute human intelligence. The fact of information archived in a database doesn't ensure that people will necessarily see or use the information. The data archived in technological ‘knowledge repositories’ is rational, static and without context and such systems do not account for renewal of existing knowledge and creation of new knowledge.

Thus, in order to move towards Knowledge Management it is imperative for organizations to clearly understand the strategic distinction between knowledge and information. This strategic difference is not a matter of semblance, but has critical implications for managing and surviving in an economy of information overabundance and information overload.

Knowledge Management Business Strategy

Knowledge creation can be defined in other words as the achievement of the organization’s goals by making knowledge productive.