Saturday 18 April 2009


Sean McPheat's 4 fundamentals



An interesting blog post by Sean McPheat, where he suggests four fundamental things to remember about knowledge

  • Knowledge is never scarce. Knowledge is abundant. In many cases it is just waiting to be discovered.
  • The best thing you can do with knowledge is share it. Hoarding knowledge is useless.
  • People are the most valuable resource you can have on your side. They’re the ones that hold all the knowledge you’ll ever need.
  • Knowledge is gained through experience and learning.

These for me are refreshing and valuable. The only one I would edit would be the second - I think the best thing you can do with knowledge is seek it out, and re-use it (bearing in mind that re-use requries some evaluation and adaptation - not just slavishly copying*).

Also on the 4th point - Knowledge is gained through experience and learning, and shared knowledge is gained through shared experience and shared learning. Learning is a social activity, and sharing experience in the first step to sharing knowledge.

* Mind you, sometimes slavish copying is the best thing you can do. Remember the value Intel delivered through their "copy exactly" program?

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