Technology has allowed us to accumulate more data than we need and more information than requested. Only knowledge can get us out of this saturation, if managed properly.
The interest in knowledge, its acquisition and its use is an old theme. It has to do with intelligence and knowledge. It takes a lot of information to create small amounts of true knowledge. Historically, it was philosophy that was in charge of theorizing and explaining everything related to knowledge and wisdom, and there are modern areas of it, such as epistemology, that deal with the validity and limits of knowledge and cognitive causes.
After years of producing, handling, storing and transmitting information of all kinds, a saturation level known as “Information Glut” has been reached. Not only has it generated a new discipline, "Cognitive Science", but knowledge management is also related to technological creativity, innovation and the competitiveness of companies, because by adopting strategies based on knowledge, companies can be created more profitable and much better in terms of human relations.
Digital technology, as is well known, arises for data management and calculations. The data in turn constitute the basis of the information. The latter is the basic component of knowledge. A concatenation widely publicized, simplistic and used over and over again, which, however, serves to point out that it was logical to come to give importance to knowledge after years of production, handling, storage and transmission of information of all kinds.
Years in which more data than necessary has been accumulated and more information has been generated than requested simply because digital technology, computers and, later, telecommunication networks and the Internet, allowed it. And not only in that is the key to the current importance of knowledge, but in the existence of very powerful means for managing it. Without them Knowledge Management would not have been possible.
Since from a certain moment science gave rise to special knowledge and today there is a multitude of different types of knowledge, there has been a need to confront the phenomenon of human knowledge through very disparate disciplines. Knowledge Sciences: Psychology, anthropology, education, linguistics, neurology, artificial intelligence and, of course, philosophy itself, form today, all together, what is known as "Knowledge Science" (Cognitive Science ).
And it is not just a name, but with such a denomination there are faculties, university degrees, institutes, research centers and formal work groups in most of the universities of the United States and England. The origin of this new interdisciplinary science is usually located in the 50s of the last century, when researchers from different fields of knowledge began to develop theories of the human mind supported by complex graphic representations and calculation procedures (algorithms).
As direct predecessors of the concern for information and knowledge, it is possible to point out well-known figures from the 20th and late 19th centuries, such as Fritz Machlup (1902-1983), C. P. Snow (1905-1980), Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) and Alfred Marshall himself (1842-1924).
Knowledge and Innovation: There is perhaps another reason for the importance of knowledge today, which is closer to the world of business and management. It is about the concern for technological creativity, product research and development, and innovation. For years, too, the company has based much of its potential for success on these activities and has eagerly sought out among its employees those with skills related to them. The same can be said of those endowed with talent for management, for sales, for negotiation or for the formulation of strategies.
Many companies today practice knowledge management, while others prefer to talk about talent management. They are both similar. The first emphasizing the formal knowledge accumulated by certain people, their experience and their wisdom and criteria; and the second on the innate abilities of others. The formal concern of American companies for something called "Knowledge Management (KM)" arose in 1992 from a report by Giga Information Group based on data collected at the end of 1998.
Competitiveness Factor: Said report confirmed the existence of panic among American businessmen because they had heard that something called “KM” would from then on be the only element of the company capable of generating competitive advantages. According to one of the basic books on the subject, "The Knowledge Management Toolkit", American managers then began to ask their "IT" departments for advice on the subject and to demand that the information be more related to knowledge
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