The knowledge society

All countries and peoples are changing rapidly – as the market economy, democratic politics, and the international millennial’s culture spread all over the world. In the process called ‘globalization’ American management thinker Peter Drucker, memorably described this emerging social organization as the ‘Knowledge Society”.

By this Drucker meant that – in our world today – knowledge has become the basic human resource.

Unfortunately, globalization has just been severely affected by Putin’s war on Ukraine. Luckily, however, knowledge is still the basic human resource.

Value is created by productivity and innovation – both of which are the application of knowledge to work. Today, value is created primarily by intelligence – creativity – and inventiveness. The new tribe are ‘knowledge workers’ – individuals who know how to allocate knowledge to productive use.

And, for both individuals and nations, education – the systematic acquisition of knowledge – has become the ultimate ladder to opportunity!

Despite Putin’s terrible war, globalization, without Russia, is speeding up the flow of technical and scientific knowledge from the developed to the less-developed countries. Education must work to close the gap in learning between those two types of countries. In other words, globalization will intensify and broaden every country’s need to educate all its people. No longer will it suffice to educate a tiny elite that will then manage and direct the politics, the economy, and the culture of the many.

Development will require not only a corps of highly skilled individuals capable of absorbing advance technology; it will also require a minimum of scientific literacy and technological skill; it will also need the setting of professional standards, the delineation of fields of expertise, and the organization of communities of knowledge. Education can no longer afford to leave anybody behind. All young people – whether they go to college or not – will need a similar set of core competencies if they are to succeed in today’s labor markets. Government, the private sector and civil society have to work closely together to Educate the Children.

If the Philippines is to survive in the ever-changing, fast moving, technology-driven world taking shape before our eyes, the country has to position itself strategically in this new economy. The end-effort must be to secure the Philippines’s place on the right side of the digital divide the revolutions in communications, information, and computer technologies are creating. This requires a world-class workforce, something that the ICT, BPO and creative industries have been asking for. And because knowledge has become the modern economy’s central resource, we must keep in mind continuous learning has become essential. So swift is the generation and transmission of knowledge that learning has become a life-long process for every one of us.

The world is changimg, so public and corporate leadership must change too. Major structural changes such as the fourth industrial revolution and climate change are now disrupting all industries and power centers. Technologies like blockchain are replacing centralized and hierarchical organizations with decentralized, autonomous entities. At the same time, social, economic and digital inequalities are increasing.

We need leaders who are exploring largely uncharted territory, acting as trailblazers and championing concrete action to combat climate change and social injustice.

In the end, it all comes down to people and values, in the private sector and in government. We need to shape a future that works for all of us by putting people first and empowering them.

In 2022, the focus on people will drive digital transformation as companies think through returns to the office and what a hybrid workplace will look like.

What are we supposed to be involved in these days? Digitalization and innovation? To get there, we are asking ourselves how we can improve planning, forecasting, budgeting, run simulations, run plans and analytics in a very visual and intuitive manner. What tools are available? Are we making those tools available to the private and government organization? And more importantly: are we training our important asset, our people, adequately?

Luckily, detailed training is available for companies, for industry sectors and subsectors, and for government offices.

Feedback is welcome; assistance can be made available; contact me at [email protected]