The IT industry claims to be a
‘knowledge based’ industry. Is that true? Or if that is true does it mean other
industries are not knowledge based? I refrain from answering these questions
now.
Every society places a premium on
knowledge. Or that is what we were told. In our society lot of us place
‘Saraswati’ (Goddess of knowledge) on a higher pedestal than ‘Lakshmi’ (Goddess
of wealth) though much of our adult life is a constant chase for Lakshmi. For
long we all believed in the dictum ‘knowledge is power’. That seems to be
losing heft.
Bulk of our education was
focused on imparting knowledge. Sure, that in itself was a noble thing; and
pursuing knowledge was a noble thing too, particularly in an era when the mediums
of knowledge were too personal, localized and slow. In ancient India the one
who knew Sanskrit was treated as ‘pandit’ and in Europe the one who knew Latin
was part of the aristocracy.
Knowing is not same as learning.
Few schools taught students how to learn. Learning was optional while knowing
got rewarded as examinations aimed at knowledge reproduction on paper. Much of
the training too remained knowledge based for long. This is probably one reason
why bulk of our Engineering graduates remains unemployable. Bulk of what we
consider knowledge today is mere information or data. Long before the
‘Information Age’ Albert Einstein said that ‘information is not knowledge.’
When access to knowledge becomes
near universal and almost instant having knowledge is no more power. There is growing realization today
on the need to progress from knowledge to learning and from learning to
application. Those who are capable of focusing on critical aspects of knowledge,
those who learn what is useful and convert that into practical application
become successful faster. There is no wonder the ‘app- making’ geek who doesn’t
care about English grammar made his millions while his English grammar teacher
struggles for livelihood.
This is not to say that knowledge
lost all its value. It is probably the opposite. Knowledge needs to be treated
much more carefully than casually. Curate knowledge to create value. This is a
difficult task in the age of information deluge. When you get 700 WhatsApp
messages a day there is no time to think and pick the useful ones. Or when you
have 30000 Google links on a subject who will go past the first 20? And what
guarantee that the best is among the first 20? One is at the mercy of lady luck.
If Ravan had 10 heads, the modern day ‘Saraswati’ has a million heads. Which
one to smile at? Herbert Spencer said, ‘When a man’s knowledge is not in order,
the more of it he has the greater will be his confusion.’ That appears a
reasonable prognosis of the ‘smart world’ we all live in today!
Now, let’s come back to the
questions we started with. I would tend to think that most industries are based
on application of knowledge and more importantly on the ignorance of potential
customers and competition. And, what knowledge to apply depends on experience
or imagination and often a combination of both.
What do you think?
People who build their tool kit (information, blind learning) without using the tools (application of information) are condemned to carry a heavy burden without knowing the application (knowledge). Thus more than the size of the toolkit, it is knowing the usage of tools which is knowledge.
ReplyDeleteMore importantly knowing which part of the machinery needs to be attended (Domain) is a knowledge which is different from knowing the tool. Thus not knowing the machinery is the bigger failure that our education does.
The complete annihilation of the innate curiosity everyone is born with unfortunately passes of as education.
Very well put Mr Balu. I liked your analogy!
DeleteJJ, Thanks for the blog. I have been asking myself many of these questions, without getting an answer. A very relevant topic for me.
ReplyDeleteFor me "Knowledge is power" still holds true, just that what we call knowledge in different context have different meaning. Knowledge now is more about knowing right things at the right time and apply at the right occasion. For instance on job front, to know which companies are doing well, the hot technologies, domain, who is hiring help the active job-hoppers! Similarly, within a job, the smart ones who have the key knowledge do make their place up the ladder.
ReplyDeleteGreat POV JJ, in the era of information tsunami (which btw is getting intensive everyday) faculty of judgement is critical. Picking relevant information for the context is key.
ReplyDeleteextending the thought. Another way to look at it is, speed of learning is much higher considering appearance of varied context is much more rapid, on top availability of information is almost free an boundary less generating much higher exposure in shorter period of time. Leading to insights and leaning