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Jan 1, 1440
Gutenberg invents the Printing Press
Johannes Gutenberg Invented his Printing Press in 1440, and by 1450 it was operational. His Printing Press used moveable type made up of hundreds of different words and letters. Whilst Printing Books like this was Common in East Asia from the year 1377, this was the first it had been pioneered in Euroupe and because of it, The Printed Book was the first means of Mass Communication. -
Period: Jan 1, 1440 to
History Of Information and Knowledge
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John Locke Defines "Knowledge"
Locke defined ideas as Simple or Compound, A simple Idea having one attribute e.g The sea is wet. And a c ompound idea being two or more simple ideas. Locke further defined knowledge as "Intuitive Knowledge": Knowing something for certain e.g a cat is different from a laptop. "Demonstrative knowledge": Knowledge gained by logic, e.g 2 is greater than 1, 3 is greater than 2, 3 must be greater than 1. And finnnaly "Sensitive Knowledge" Knowing something because you can sense it e.g I can smell it. -
Fritz Machlup defines types of Knowledge
Machlup argues that Knowledge is a commodity, and that as a commodity is can be Bought and Sold. He also believed there were 5 type of information: "Practical Knowledge", "Intellectual Knowledge", "Pastime Knowledge", "Spiritual or Religious Knowledge", "Unwanted Knowledge" -
Michael Polanyi creates Tacit Knowledge
Polanyi was a scientific chemist before he defined what Tacit Knowledge as Knowledge that can only be demonstrated rather than spoken. For example, he described it as you picking an image of your mothers face from a pile of thousands. Your not sure how you did it, but you did. -
Marshall McLuhan makes a theory on the future.
McLuhan creates the theory that in the future, that society would change due to the technology of new media. He theorised that there would be four Tetrad Effects: "Enhancement or extend": new media provides improved performance over the old.
"Obsolescence": new media renders previous models passe.
"Retrieval": new media contains existing elements from the cultural inventory.
"Reversal": we tend to overdo the new until we run out of benefits and into detriments. -
Peter Drucker expands on the future
Drucker also theorised, like McLuhan, that information would shape the future and that people would become "Knowledge Workers" who would obtain knowledge; he assumed that companies would appreciate their workforce as the most valuable part of the machine. And that a company would continue to educate the work force to keep standards high. -
Danial Bell: Post Industrial
Daniel Bell created the concept of the Post Industial World, or the Information Soceity in which he theorised that people who worked hard labor would become decreasingly usefull in a society that values the Tertiary (service) sector alot more than the Primary (raw matireals) and the Secondary (Manufacturing) sectors. -
Alvin Toffler
Alvin Toffler understood Daniel Bell's research and started to created his own timeline of when certain periods of information history started. He summarised his views with 3 "Societies": Agricultural Society - the First Wave, that started in 2,000 B.C. Industrial Society - the Second Wave, starting in 1750 A.D. Information Society - the Third Wave, starting in 1950 A.D. -
John Naisbitt & Patricia Aburdene
Aburdene and Naisbitt theorised that whilst we move from an Industrial age to an Information age; there will be 10 megatrends:
Industrial Society to Information Society
Forced Technology to High Tech/High Touch
National Economy to World Economy
Short Term to Long Term
Centralization to Decentralization
Institutional Help to Self-Help
Representative Democracy to Participatory Democracy
Hierarchies to Networking
North to South
Either/Or to Multiple Option -
HyperCards
HyperCards were invented by Bill Atkinson who worked for Apple in 1987. The HyperCard was used to navigate around a computer with a non-linear fashion; in which users could access any piece of data in a database with ease. It's creation sparked the creation of Javascript and HTTP -
The Internet
in 1964, the U.S Goverment created ARPARNET; a computer network that would survive a possible nuclear disaster which used "Packet Switching" to send data.
in 1971, Ray Tomlinson created the First E-Mail program.
in 1985, NSFNET was created for education and scientific data to be stored on as a computer network.
And in 1991, CERN created the Internet as we know it today using Hypertext which was enabled using Apple's HyperCard system. -
Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger
Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger created the concept that whilst information lies within talking to others in your community, Innovation comes from talking to other communities -
Nonaka and Takeuk
Nonaka and Takeuk's ModelNonaka and Takeuk theorised that the creation of Knowledge happened through 4 basic principles which are: Externalization - Create information by using Models and Metephors.
Combination - Looking for relationships between information.
Internalization - Learning by doings, Riding a bike for example.
and Socialization - Telling others about your experiences. -
The Navigator
Karl-Erik Sveiby whilst working at Skania developed the "Navigator" which detiremined an estimate at the true value of a company due to the fact that a Company may vary wildly from it's Market Value to it's Book Value. It helped detirmine what the "Interlectual Property" of the company was, and how that affects the Market Value. Ofcourse these statistics are sometimes altered by using the number of female workers at a company as "Interlectual Property". -
Tapscott: The Old and New Economy
Tapscott said that whilst moving from the old Industrial to the new Information soceity these will be the themes that define the new age: Knowledge is everything, Digital not analog, Virtual, Molecularization, Internetworking, Disintermediation, Convergence, Innovation, Prosumption, Immediacy, Globalization, Discordance -
Thomas Davenport and Laurence Prusak:
Davenport and Prusak's Velocity and Viscosity ModelDavenport and Prusak introduced the concept of Velocity and Viscosity in their book "Working Knowledge" (2000) Velocity - the speed with which knowledge moves through an organization.
Viscosity - the richness or thickness of the knowledge transferred. And here linked is their Model that describes the two terms.
