Re: Information Workers vs. Knowledge Workers

[Beth Agnew <bagnew -at- INSYSTEMS -dot- COM>]

Wayne Douglass [wayned -at- VERITY -dot- COM] wrote:

> I must need that panel discussion because "information workers"/"knowledge
> workers" strikes me as a distinction without a difference.
>
> --Wayne

These are the new buzz words in the industry. Information workers manipulate
data and facts; knowledge workers manipulate ideas and intelligence. It's
kind of a "give someone a fish; teach them how to fish" difference.

Granted, it's still pretty murky in most people's minds. That's because the
press isn't as precise about usage as we disambiguation engineers. So we
have business leaders throwing the terms around without really
differentiating between them.

It's part of the information age evolving into the knowledge age. Without
giving you the entire text of *my* STC Conference paper, <grin> suffice to
say that knowledge working is making sense of the information glut, and
providing a context for the data that enables a person to capitalize on that
information immediately, without having to reframe it. In a way, some of the
thinking is already captured by the presentation of the information.

--Beth

Beth Agnew
Senior Technical Writer, InSystems Technologies Inc.
65 Allstate Parkway, Suite 100  Tel: (905) 513-1400 ext. 280
Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 9X1        Fax: (905) 513-1419
mailto:bagnew -at- insystems -dot- com    Visit us at: http://www.insystems.com

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