Keeping Up With Knowledge: What Is the Best Way to Build and Manage a SAN?

Today, people must regenerate knowledge in innovative ways on an ongoing basis, and people must become a critical resource of creating, maintaining and making knowledge and information available.

• 08/01/2000

According to GE Chairman Jack Welch, an organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive business advantage.

No technology in history has grown as quickly as the Internet. Backbone bandwidth demand has been doubling, not every 18 months as with Moore’s law, but every 3.5 months. That’s 1,000 percent a year.

With it has come a complete change in who we communicate with, the way we communicate with them, how we work, and, worst of all, how long we work. While life in the Silicon Valley is akin to working at the edge of disaster, we like to believe that the rest of the country – in fact, the globe – is in the same state of chaos.

When I went to college eons ago, we sat in a classroom, listened to the instructor, took copious notes and regurgitated the information onto a test. With two degrees, I set forth to conquer and change the world. Unfortunately, I didn’t change the world: Technology changed the world. The rapid changes in technology are so prolific that it has forced us to become lifelong learners. Rather than rigidly structured processes, learning is becoming a self-directed process.

There has been more information produced in the last 10 years than during the previous 5,000. A weekday edition of The New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come in contact with in the last century. The change has been the Internet, as well as the value of and how we use information.

To understand how quickly life is changing, consider a recent study regarding e-mail, conducted by Forrester Research and John Carroll University:

According to a recent issue of BusinessWeek, every day 10,000 new Web sites are added to the Internet. All of this has forced technicians to broaden their knowledge areas and has compelled people to deal in a rapidly changing environment of uncertainty.

In his book, Post Capitalism Society, Peter Drucker notes that an estimated two-thirds of U.S. employees work in the service sector. Knowledge is becoming one of our most important products. This calls for a different type of worker, because a degree and technical experience are far less important than the prevalence of business skills.

No one can say what technology platforms will dominate the next century, or what lies beyond the Web and enterprise resource planning. As a result, corporations and educational institutions must adapt their training programs to prepare workers for unseen changes. Experts who track technically-based career development and training see some trends emerging, including:

Many organizations have begun to identify core business competencies for technical professionals and make learning them mandatory. Increasingly, they have to learn communications skills, budgeting and finance, strategic planning, as well as project and performance management. Firms are rapidly adding on-the-job training by matching people with appropriate learning tools. Online video-on-demand courses, workshops and seminars are required for people at all levels and of all disciplines. Some firms have gone so far as to establish required courses, electives and degree certificates.

While selected technical skills in almost every organization continue to be in critically short supply, organizations also understand that they must help employees understand larger business issues, including finance and marketing. However, GartnerGroup reports that corporate technical staff skills will shift from 65 percent technology to 65 percent business and management skills by 2002. While technical skills will continue to be important, much of that work will be outsourced and key internal personnel will be involved in business and technical management.

Because of the growing supply versus demand problem, traditional business schools are beginning to shift to competency-based education.

For example, the governors of the 14 Western states and CEOs of major corporations created the Western Governors University (WGU) in Salt Lake City two years ago. The University enables students to earn credits toward a diploma by taking skill assessment tests, rather than courses. The goal was to respond to business and industry needs by providing a means of certifying job ability, rather than simply proving that he or she has a diploma.

GartnerGroup predicts that training delivery will shift from 25 percent technology and 75 percent instructor-based to 50/50 by 2002. Video-on-Demand and Web-based training will grow rapidly over the next two years. Organizations of all sizes are beginning to view training not as a cost, but rather as an investment in key members of the organization.

For many, the accelerated pace of technology changes over the past 10 years is straining their ability to keep up. Fortunately, our Generation X workers view skill development quite differently. For them, ongoing learning is a reality and part of the cost of participating in the world. They have become very adept at gathering, processing, analyzing and interpreting information – retaining and discarding data as needed. It is all part of the "normal" day.

Employees who are planning their future in an uncertain environment have to realize that just as they need money for food, rent or mortgage and utilities, they also need to have money for education. When firms "reengineer" themselves to become "lean and mean," they reduce their training programs. As a result, those who plan on being productive realize that they must invest in themselves.

While some may disagree, we feel that the shift is healthy. Today, employer and employee loyalty is dead. As a result, employees don’t have to feel obligated to pay back the organization for the training, since the individuals are paying for tomorrow’s training on their own.

Now that we have entered the 21st century, traditional technical workers will have to expand their business skills, while other office workers will have to become more proficient in their understanding and use of technology. People will need to not only know how the applications work, but what the data means.

Increasingly, the lines between technology and business practices will blur.

Good management skills will be more valuable and more respected as we move into the new century, because they are a combination of courage and a strong, genuine care for individuals, the company, society and the customer. Good management skills are based on the individual, and how he or she executes programs. As a result, they are more difficult to acquire than course-taught capabilities.

In today’s global business environment, business skills – knowledge of your company, its mission, the industry and your competitors – are becoming vital survival skills which change with every tick of the clock.

Today, everyone is under pressure to leverage knowledge and information in everything that they do. People must diligently leverage knowledge in innovative ways on an ongoing basis, and people must become a critical resource of creating, maintaining and making available knowledge and information.