Knowledge as a Key Driver of the Economy

As a purveyor of information about a high technology industry -- the clinical lab industry and lab software -- I have a special interest in the creation and communication of knowledge in support of this business sector. I came across an insightful essay by Nick Schulz about the role of knowledge as a key driver of our economy (see: Our Most Powerful Engine of Production) that resonated with me. Below is an excerpt from it:

Stanford economist Paul Romer [has been an advocate of the principle that knowledge is] both an input and output of production...Thus instead of land, labor and capital--the traditional inputs of economic theory--it was "people, ideas and things" that mattered, driving technological change and entrepreneurial creativity....New knowledge constantly trumped old, and the law (rightly) gave ideas only limited property-protection. More and more, economists came to see that it was knowledge that made the difference in modern societies--e.g., in software, drugs, industrial processes, biotechnology and other parts of the economy where the upfront costs were large, the payoffs enormous and the benefits widespread. Economists inevitably turned their attention to the institutions or invisible structures--constitutions, customs, property rights, cultural sentiments (like trust)--that help to generate knowledge and sustain its effects.

Both this blog and the annual lab software conference that I manage, Lab InfoTech Summit, serve as what I will refer to here as knowledge engines for the clinical lab industry. The inputs for this blog come from various articles and idea that I am able cull from the web. The conference faculty members hatch new ideas and perspectives (i.e., their own inputs) working in various capacities in both clinical service and research. Conference outputs from faculty consist of the formal lectures. Knowledge outputs also include exhibitor interactions with registrants as well as registrant interactions with each other, each of whom bring their own professional knowledge and experience to the conference.

The constituency for the blog and conference are primarily lab professionals who work in various capacities in industry or hospital settings. They have a pressing need to acquire new knowledge about the rapidly changing clinical laboratory industry which, ideally, they can then apply to the real-world problems they face on a daily basis. I have come to the conclusion that the two most desirable qualities of this knowledge transfer process is focus and efficiency. Focus can be restated to mean that the blog and the conference provide specific and practical solutions for one's daily work challenges. Efficiency, to return to the input-output analogy, is the ratio of the output to the input of the knowledge transfer (i.e., teaching) systems.

Comments

[Adam Peters]

Two concepts that have been covered during my IT Management Master's education are Knowledge Management and Knowledge Value Assessment (also referred to as the KV Added method). Knowledge Management is a growing field of study concerned with how knowledge, as opposed to data or information, is transferred between individuals, groups and organizations. Wikipedia has a good page on the subject. If you search further on the subject, you may want to focus on scholarly articles as there are a lot of consultants advertising their services whose views may be slanted to fit their profit margin.
I doubt that the Lab Info Tech Summit has a great volume of new information to offer. However, as you mention, these meetings allow for a focused, efficient means for the information and knowledge to be transferred from those creating the knowledge to those that are most in need of it. Journals and the internet are great at transferring and holding information, but interactions and experiences do a much better job at transferring knowledge.
The latter concept, KVA, is an alternative financial management scheme that measures inputs and outputs based on knowledge. An investment or a process can be measured by Return on Knowledge rather than ROI. To illustrate, a automated hematology analyzer requires less knowledge to operate than manual methods (decreased input), but delivers that same results, or knowledge, as a manual method (same output or greater if the process is faster). This is a positive ROK. There are obviously many more factors in the equation but they are all accounted for. For more info see work done by Thomas Housel and Arthur Bell.
Hope to make it to the conference,
-Adam