Knowledge Management

While knowledge represents the height of the society today, knowledge issues not in any way symbolize men's invincibility to the possible downfalls even if he had access to it. As there are limits to everything that has been invented, there are also limits to knowledge. This means that a company or an institution can only go as far as its stored knowledge could take it. The adage that a computer can never think by itself holds true in this discourse because still, even how advanced a computer or computer-based information system can be, it only contains the data that has been inputted in it. The past has gave us the luxury of time to predict nature and increase output in order to cope with change, but the knowledge issues that have been bombarded on us these past years has not only been fast-paced but abrupt in its very essence.

Take for instance the knowledge issues on population growth. Just how much people could the livable places in earth contain? How much resources have to be consumed and extracted to feed, clothe, and shelter an entire world population? With this great number of people, how much waste generation could the earth take without leading into continental damage? This only proves that the knowledge universities, research centers, governments, and non-government organizations have been trying to generate have not, to a certain extent, been answered yet. Yet with the little knowledge that we have, it is amazing that we have drafted policies and political programs of action to alleviate common social and environmental problems, if not to eradicate them completely.

For some, technology is the answer. Information Technology, for one, has exceeded the limits of what we could only attain if not through the passing of decades. Yet even a more important component in institutions or companies these days is its investment in human resources. There is nothing that could contest the fact that innovation and creativity are still needed even in a time when every home, school, office, possibly every place on earth is linked to cyberspace. The need for a healthy learning and teaching environment in organizations worldwide has been stressed. Knowledge is the asset of today's executive. Companies thrive in it. Institutions have to deal with it strategically like never before. Armed with the proper knowledge issues, a person is said to go a long way.

Because the development of human resources alongside technological advancement is significant, it follows that organizations must look more into making up, instead of transcending its limitations. Humankind has become the most dominant life force in the earth, but there are also limitations in his ability to learn, innovate, invent, plan, predict, or reason. Some knowledge issues will always be left in a gaping loophole, even as technological progress have been remade, reinvented, and relearned through the years. For ironically, we were able to predict that databases, computer-based information systems, and media technology could make our lives better, but never were we able to prophesy the astronomical possibilities that these same beneficial inventions could also drive plant and animal species into extinction.

Such knowledge issues have to be addressed, not only in global policy-making forums, but also in localities that are becoming more and more adjusted to the ever-changing patterns of data. Sometimes, surpassing limitations are not the answer. Sometimes, viewing through the limitations does more wonders than just going around aimlessly around the limit.

Knowledge Management |