Information Research Weblog

Like Robert, I suspect that this distinction:

"The difference in a knowledge worker and a traditional worker is the main resources he or she is using to perform his or her job."

Would not hold up, in spite of Toffler and the rest - unless we equate 'knowledge' and 'information'. Consider any physical labour - say someone ploughing a field with a team of horses. Ploughmen differ in their skills, which are based on the knowledge they possess, not only of the lie of the land, the nature of the earth being turned, the habits of their team, the modes of control, etc., etc. How would we measure how much 'knowledge' versus how much 'physical labour' is involved? Can one measure the two on a single scale? Can we form some judgement as to the 'value' of the person's knowledge verus that of his physical performance?

When we remember, however, that the term 'information worker' has been used almost inter-changeably with 'knowledge worker', we have a clue to what is really meant. The proposition, in fact, is that work today, of almost any kind, needs a greater information support than in the past. Both 'information worker' and 'knowledge worker' are short-hand terms for "a person who needs information support in order to do their job effectively."

The rogue element is once again the abuse of the word 'knowledge' - as Frank Miller says if we were constrained to say 'what we know' instead of 'knowledge', 'knowledge management' would be revealed for what it is - nonsense.

Tom