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Entries in Knowledge society (4)

Monday
Jun202011

Danmark som videnøkonomi ifølge en naiv hollænder

This article (in Danish) was written for the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende. Even though a professor in Management, Politics & Philosophy with the Copenhagen Business School found it an interesting column, Berlingske Tidende rejected it for publication. That's why I use my own means of publishing.


 

I Holland og andre europæiske lande har vi ligesom i Danmark også finansielle problemer. Siden parlamentsvalget sidste år, har Holland indledt en ny strategi i forhold til, hvordan de finansielle problemer skal overkommes. Indenfor de kommende fem måneder stilles danskerne også overfor valget om en sådan ny strategi.

Partierne i Danmark har hver deres strategi. Et parti vil gerne fjerne førtidspension, og et andet parti ønsker at lukke de danske grænser for at stoppe ‘misbrugere’ af det danske velfærdssamfund. Selvfølgelig udspringer alle løsningsforslag fra hver sin ideologi.

I dette indlæg vil jeg gerne fortælle mere om ideologierne fra det danske socialdemokrati, og hvordan socialdemokratiet i Danmark mener, at de kan løse de finansielle problemer. Socialdemokratiet er overbevist om, at Danmark kan komme ud den finansielle krise, hvis alle arbejder 12 minutter længere om dagen.

Ifølge socialdemokratiet bør danskerne arbejde længere. I sig selv er der ikke noget galt med dette. For eksempel har jeg snakket med mange mødre, der har omkring 10 måneder barsel efter de har født et barn. Ja! Du læste det korrekt. Sunde og unge mennesker er væk fra arbejdsmarkedet i omkring 10 måneder. Den største del af udgifterne bliver betalt af samfundet. Måske forstår jeg ikke den danske samfundsmodel fuldt ud, idet jeg kun har været i Danmark siden januar 2009, men jeg tror, at barselslængden kunne være et godt værktøj til at komme ud krisen. Lad danskerne arbejde mere, ved at skære i barselsperioden.

Nej! Jeg har aldrig hørt, at noget parti i Danmark har sat spørgsmålstegn ved denne hårdt tilkæmpede ret. Tværtimod er der to partier (S og SF), der synes, at vi burde arbejde en time mere - i et samfund der kalder sig selv en videnøkonomi. Derfor vil jeg gerne spørge: hvad betyder det for Danmark - en videnøkonomi - hvis man skal arbejde én ekstra time hver uge?

Jeg kan forestille mig, at det kunne have en effekt, hvis Danmark var fyldt med fabrikker. I fabrikken er der nemlig en produktion af varer. Hver minut kører tusindvis af varer af samlebåndene, som kan blive solgt og penge blive tjent. Men i Danmark er der næsten ingen fabrikker. Næsten hele produktionen er blevet flyttet til Østeuropa og Sydøstasien. Danmark bør fokusere på viden, og viden giver ikke afkast i samme grad som varer. Vil det derfor hjælpe Danmark at arbejde en time længere?

Det ser ud til, at socialdemokraterne i Danmark er på stemmejagt hos folk, der arbejder i varerproduktionsbranchen . Men hvem kommer det til at være i fremtiden? Giver det socialdemokraterne mulighed for, at vinde det næste valg og løse de finansielle problemer? Selvom jeg har understreget mange af de ting det socialdemokratiet står for, håber jeg ikke, at socialdemokratiet komme til magten. Jeg synes nemlig, at tankegangen bag 12 minutters ekstra arbejde hver dag er et udtryk for, at der ikke er affinitet med, hvordan et land skal udvikles, når produktionsfaktoren og motoren i samfundet er viden. Viden er ikke en genstand. Traditionel ledelsesstil med et fokus på at diktere og kontrollere kan ikke anvendes i en videnøkonomi. Videnarbejde kan ikke måles ud fra samme vilkår som industrielle produkter - som socialdemokratiet ønsker. Hvis man arbejder én time mere om ugen, vil det nemlig ikke direkte resultere i, at man tjener penge og dermed løse denne finansielle krise. Danmark er nødt til, at investere smart i en infrastruktur, hvorigennem landet kan absorbere og genbruge verdens viden. 

Tuesday
May242011

What is a Knowledge Society according to Joseph Stiglitz

In many interviews and articles Joseph Stiglitz has strongly criticized the European policy regarding the management of the financial crisis. That is also why he was in Denmark: to tell what his vision is of how Denmark and other European countries need to reduce their budget deficit.

According to Stiglitz, the European approach is inaccurate and only focused on a short-term thinking (how to come out of this crisis as quickly as possible). The recipe is simple: put the knife in spending and start saving. In the long term, Stiglitz believes that these operations will turn out negative. Countries should be investing properly in order to ensure future growth. 

Stiglitz says that the investments will have to go to three areas: education, infrastructure and technology. Education has a special need, because Stiglitz argues that there are fewer young people who are graduating in countries like Denmark & the Netherlands compared with the global competition. 

In addition, he also sees an other development within education. Countries such as India and China have ambitious goals in terms of quality of education. China's aim is to have ten universities of top/world quality in the next ten years. In order to reach this objective China is already investing heavily in the future of education. As a result, Stiglitz believes that the landscape of where knowledge comes from will change. Therefore, if you want to compete, you must invest in education, but also in for example research. Research fosters the development of new technologies. 
  
Denmark - and the Netherlands - will not so anymore become the heart of where knowledge is produced. These countries should therefore have first-class technologies in order to absorb knowledge. Denmark and the Netherlands should excel in these technologies and the infrastructure for this in order to get knowledge elsewhere. Such a technology and infrastructure is the Internet: which is a kind knowledge economy. Technology is therefore crucial to invest in as a country so that the country can easily become a part of a knowledge economy. 

We must therefore not miss out the opportunity we no have in the world: first-class infrastructure and technologuy. The image below shows the advantage North America and Europe has. This image shows the amount of Internet users in the world. Europe is very well represented here. But for how long? This image represents the scene of 2001 and because we all know that especially the development of technology is growing rapidly, we should not waste time. It took for example Google only ten years ago to become so important for the public as it is now. 

Territory size shows the proportion of worldwide Internet users who lived there in 2002 via  www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=336

Friday
Nov192010

What are knowledge workers in a knowledge society?

One of the recurring themes when talking about the discipline knowledge management is the knowledge society. This type of society marks a difference between its predecessors 'the industrialised society' and 'the information society'. I refer to it as predecessor, but have we already passed the information society? I believe we have not. So are we talking about an information society when talking about a knowledge society, and vice versa? Perhaps we do. And perhaps also something to blog about at a later stage. Right now, I just want to emphasise on a part of a knowledge society and that is its knowledge workers.

As factories move away from Europe, because labour is becoming too expensive, European organisations are focusing (or in some instances 'should be focusing') on innovation. Becoming innovative means opening new doors and entering new territories. To understand these new territories you should have the latest knowledge and therefore organisation should consist of knowledge workers. And this is where among other things knowledge management kicks in. In order to shift the paradigm within organisations to knowledge workers, there should be a good guidance on both the organisational structure and culture to create a space where knowledge workers can work, because these workers need to assimilate themselves to new abilities.

Some of the abilities that are required as knowledge workers are:

  • they should be flexible in adapting to change
  • open to multiple tolerated failure or in other words the apprentice model (because over time you develop better by making lots of small mistakes) - Thanks to Dave Snowden's latest keynote at KMWorld
  • adaptive capacity

These abilities will assist organisations to becoming more innovative on the basis of emphasizing on knowledge workers. Dave Snowden highlights this in a great anecdote between a chef and the recipe book user. He states that "how many knowledge management programmes are being run on the basis of making recipes, rather than on the basis of creating chefs". And a chef is a knowledge worker, because out of deeply generated experience over time, he or she can adapt to any situation and still prepare the best dish, where a recipe book user should have the requirements mentioned in the book before getting close to prepare a recipe successful. 

Link this with best practice and good practice programmes, and you know why most of the time knowledge management programmes failed to show its value