In Brief

Publications Pictures of the Future Spring 2004

Knowledge

In a knowledge-based society, the key production factor is people’s knowledge. A century ago, some 80 % of the workforce was employed in agriculture and manufacturing. By 2020, the proportion of blue collar workers in Western industrial nations will fall to approximately 15 %. One figure in particular underlines the growing importance of data processing: in 2002, 5 EB of digital data were newly generated and stored—that’s 800 MB per person worldwide( more)
The key to staying afloat in this flood of data and information is a willingness to engage in lifelong learning. Selective knowledge—the ability to draw the right conclusions despite incomplete or excessive information—will become crucial. Computers and the Internet will play a leading role in basic and advanced training. In the future, we will learn interactively, using multimedia technology and to a large extent independently of a fixed place or time(see Trends, Interview with Prof. Christaller, and Interview with Prof. Freise)
In a survey, 78 % of companies said they lose business because they fail to make sufficient use of their in-house knowledge. For years, Siemens has been successfully managing company knowledge via its intranet. An outstanding example is ShareNet from the company’s ICN Group, which has 16,500 registered users in 70 countries(see Knowledge Management, and Facts and Forecasts)
Today, specialists can exchange information via Internet communities that deal with specific areas of knowledge. In the future, we will also see the use of Weblogs—online diaries that document projects or work processes. Information in the Internet will be easier to find, structured in a more user-friendly manner and, if authentic, awarded a kind of quality seal(more)
Data mining helps companies generate valuable knowledge and forecasts from routine data. This includes programs to recognize credit-card fraud and a system developed by Siemens to economically restock ATMs. Text mining provides an automatic computer analysis of texts, allowing users to compare documents and identify similarities(more)