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Katalina Groh, Larry Prusak: Some of the world's leading thinkers |
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Knowledge
is not information
Let’s start with the success factors and focus on what works. And I am going to rank order these, from my perspective, on importance, on what’s really important when you do knowledge work. It’s somewhat in parallel to the previous speaker. I mean, I don’t disagree with anything she said. Information is a great tool for efficiency, and information technology (IT) is a great tool for managing information, but I’m not interested in IT or in information. I’m interested in knowledge and innovation, and in knowledge and effectiveness. And they are different subjects – related but different. And I think it might help you sometimes to think that way. Again, this isn’t Fermat’s Last Equation. There’s not one single answer. There’s no dogma. |
| I mean, I sometimes speak
forcefully as the previous speaker did, but again, I think that when you
talk about effectiveness and innovation, I agree you should get on a horse
going in that direction. I agree that it’s a lot easier to go in that direction.
But sometimes the direction in many firms, and in many agencies, is just
wrong. And you want to change the direction. Certainly, Jack Grayson (APQC)
is going to talk about education, and a number of speakers are going to
talk about things that I think have gone in the wrong direction, and we’re
trying to change them, including at the World Bank, which is very credibly
changing its direction in terms of strategy. Of course, there’s a
big debate about the nature of development. And in some of the other public
sector agencies.
If you want innovation or effectiveness, knowledge is a really interesting thing to play with. If you want efficiency, knowledge is useful, but I would surely agree that information and IT are surely easier to work with. It’s an easier thing to do. I would agree with that too. |
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| Books and videos on storytelling *** In Good Company : How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work by Don Cohen, Laurence Prusak (February 2001) Harvard Business School Press *** The Social Life of Information, by John Seely Brown, Paul Duguid (February 2000) Harvard Business School Press *** The Springboard : How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations by Stephen Denning (October 2000) Butterworth-Heinemann *** The Art of Possibility, a video with Ben and Ros Zander : Groh Publications (February 2001) |
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