What is shaping the knowledge society?

If you look at:

1. current economic, management and employment trends, and
2. levels of interaction in human interaction and groupware,

you find some common trends as we move from the industrial to the knowledge society.

Level	1	2	3
Society	Industrial	Information	Knowledge
Sharing in human interaction	resources	information	creativity
	Money and time transactions	Help each other, service for service	Collaborating on something bigger/new
Groupware	communicate	understand each other	shared mental models
	e-mail, HTML pages	computer conferencing	group editing, mediation systems
Key factors	capital, labour	data, technology	know-how, creativity
Cost of communication and co-ordination	high	low inside organisation	equally low outside
Location	near resources	near customers	globalised or virtual
Management	hierarchical, "scientific" control	quality management teams, delegation	learning organisations, empowerment
Responsiveness to change	slow	efficient on routine tasks	handles rapid change
Marketing	mass	direct	relationship
Communities modelled as:	anonymous individuals	mailing lists of people with same interests or location	groups working and playing to common purposes

Given the need for rapid response to external changes in business and society:

• Rigid procedures fail to adapt, lead to bankruptcy
• Hierarchical management overwhelmed by information on changes
• Hence empower workers, set up quality management programs, re-engineer businesses (not just processes), split up organisations, create learning organisations.
• So need more co-operative work in groups and teams, and
• continual innovation (both experimental creativity and planned critical implementation and evaluation).

If this does not describe an ordinary workplace, what does it describe? You might consider your relationships in communities, and volunteers working in community organisations.