This document discusses issues with knowledge management and proposes solutions. It argues that current approaches to knowledge management confuse data and information with knowledge. It suggests knowledge is different in nature and proposes a new field called "Knowmatics" to facilitate mass production, delivery and consumption of knowledge through technological means. This would enable the development of a true "Knowledge Industry" and economy where knowledge is treated as a product.

1. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT –
METHDOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
AND SYSTEM SOLUTIONS
DR. RAJU M. MATHEW

2. IT AND MANAGEMENT
• We can encounter hundreds of old and new
studies, research works and even text books
on ‘Knowledge Management’ in Information
Technology and Business Management. They
talk about Implicit, Explicit or Tacit Knowledge,
with diagrams, mathematical models and
equations. Then they are confused to end
every thing in Data or Information without
telling much on ‘Knowledge’.

3. KM IS REDUCED INTO DATA
MANIPULATIONS
• KM (Knowledge Management) is a confused
field of study without much difference
between Data, Information and Knowledge.
The term ‘Knowledge’ stands not for ‘Domain
Knowledge’ but for Data or Information.
• If we analyze the contents of KM, we are
forced to tell that it is nothing but Data
Management or Information Management.
There is no ‘Knowledge’ to manage in KM!

4. WHERE IS KNOWLEDGE?
• In the internet and smart phone dominated society or
economy, even in the midday light, let us hope that
Socrates will not come bearing a touch in search of
‘Knowledge’ in the midst of Data or Information.
• Everybody is talking about ‘Knowledge’ without knowing
what knowledge is, but mistaking Data or Information for
‘Knowledge’. In reality, ours is a Data Dominated Society
or Economy in which everybody manipulates Data or
Information in banks, government offices, schools and
universities, farms and factories.
• ‘Knowledge’ is far away from us without much practical
use, for we attributed ‘Divinity’ to ‘Knowledge’. When
knowledge is treated as Divine, nobody can use it but to
worship or treat it holy and everybody is happy with Data.

5. SEARCHING IN THE NET AND
SITTING IN LIBRARIES
• Searching in the net , sitting and reading in libraries , and attending
classrooms or conferences or working and learning are the limited options
for acquiring knowledge. Is it desirable to spend such long hours and
great energy just for searching ?
• Here everybody, starting from nursery students to university professors,
laymen to top level experts or rulers, is a seeker of ‘Knowledge’ rather
than a user of knowledge.
• Finally what is getting is fragmented and undependable or even confusing
information or knowledge and nobody has any time or energy to grasp or
absorb and apply ‘Knowledge’.
• With regard to seeking ‘Knowledge’ we are just like the primitive hunters
who might have spent over 90% of their time and energy just for searching
and hunting, without much time or energy for enjoying the food , taking
rest or entertainment. There is no justification to spend such long years
and big money in schools and universities for such a fragmented and even
unusable Knowledge or Expertise rather than acquiring qualifications.

6. IT – TECHNOLOGIES FOR DATA
PROCESSING AND DELIVERY
• Information Technology, as the name
indicates, is just Data Processing and Data
Delivery Systems or Technologies and not
‘Knowledge Processing and Knowledge
Delivery’ Systems or Technologies. They make
us believe on ‘Data’ for ‘Knowledge’,
frequently using the term ‘Information’ and
finally everybody treats ‘Data’ as Knowledge
or even greater than ‘Wisdom’.

7. SEARCHING AND SEARCHING
• Everybody is busy in searching the net or some times libraries. If
you are an expert, just by spending 30 minutes, you can download
truck load of data or information or information about
information. One has to spend at least 3 hours to scan the
downloaded materials and to eliminate the unwanted. By
spending another 30 hours, we can organize the information into
some pattern and extract very little ‘knowledge’.
• In effect nobody has much time or energy to consume
‘knowledge’ rather than searching for it, just like the country hen
or cock conditioned for searching food from early morning to
evening without filling its stomach. In schools and universities,
libraries and internet centers, everybody is taught to make
searches for information or knowledge without the art or
technique of consuming it, other than manipultions.

8. THEN WHAT IS EDUCATION?
• Education has been reduced into an art of searching information and
manipulating data or information for getting marks or grades and finally
qualifications in terms of diplomas or certificates.
• The real Causality of Education is ‘Knowledge’ or Skill or Expertise, the
back bone of economic or social or cultural development and the
facilitator of innovation or entrepreneurship. Great innovators or
entrepreneurs are either drop outs or little educated people.
• With data or information dominated education, no development can be
made. Men or women with too much data with too little knowledge and
wisdom are responsible for the present global economic crisis. Unless
education becomes Knowledge-Intensive, instead of Data-Intensive,
nobody will be there to solve the basic problems of the Humanity.

9. DO WE NEED TO SPEND SO MUCH
TIME AND ENERGY FOR EDUCATION?
• In spite of all scientific and technological
advancements, education is delivered in a most
crude and primitive way. No true educational
technology has been developed so far other than
copying down so many incompatible methods and
technologies.
• There is no justification in spending such a long years
and big money for so little ‘Knowledge’ ‘ Skill” and
‘Expertise’. It is time to develop new technology to
deal with ‘Knowledge’ and thereby bring Revolutions
in Educations so that by spending one fifth time,
energy and money, we can attain a ten fold efficiency
and effectiveness in Education.

10. FATE OF THE LITTLE CHILDREN
• Those who make experiments on little children with ‘smart phones,
tablets or laptops’ and thereby conditioning or programming their
brains to process ‘Data’ or ‘Information’ without ‘Knowledge’ are doing
a crime against the children. It is Knowledge that alone makes sense or
meaning or relevance to Data or Information.
• Nervous brake down, including the inability to dream or visualize or
innovate or lead healthy family life, is the fate of such children as the
human brain is designed not to deal with too much ‘Data or Information’
but with large amount of ‘Ideas, Concepts or Knowledge’.
• Little children needs nursery rhymes, fairy tales, Aesop or Thousand and
One Night or ‘Panchathantra’ stories and a lot of play and fun to
develop their brains and body. Let them play, dream, visualize, innovate
or explore too to create a better world so that they can create or make
use of new technologies to solve human problems when they are grown
up.

11. DATA AND KNOWLEDGE
• The building blocs of data are bytes – 1s or 0s without any meaning. Data
is one dimensional; structure of data is linear and static. Information
Technology is built upon Algorithms based on data structure and not on
knowledge structure.
• The building blocs of ‘Knowledge’ are concepts with independent
meaning. Knowledge is multi-dimensional with non-linear and dynamic
structure. It is knowledge that gives meaning or relevance to data or
information.
• If the print out of the total data stored in the brain of an adult is limited
to few hundred pages where as that of Knowledge is extended to
thousands of pages.
• People find it difficult to recollect a two hundred page telephone
directory whereas they can remember at least the content of a five
hundred or ten thousand page scripture or classic literature like the
Bible, the Quran , the Vedas, or Ramayana or the works of Homer,
Kalidasa or Shakespeare. Human Brain can easily process knowledge
rather than data.

12. DATA ECONOMY,
NOT KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY
• The so called ‘Knowledge Economy’ that is
discussed in books, seminar halls, class rooms
and electronic channels is nothing but ‘Data
Economy’ in which large amount of data is
produced, transferred and used or applied.’.
Most of the social activities, including
Education, Governmental Administration,
Decision-Making have become ‘Data or
Information’ intensive without much
‘Knowledge’.

13. GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS AND
DATA MANIPULATIONS
• The global economic crisis or the financial melt
down is the result of Data Manipulation, making
strategic decisions with undigested data without
sound ‘Knowledge’ of Economics, Business,
Commerce, Intentional Trade, Science and
Technology. Everybody talks on the basis of
fabricated data or information. It is men and
women with sound knowledge alone can find out
solutions, can innovate and can live as
entrepreneurs or even productive workers.

14. KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY –
WHAT IS IT?
• In a Knowledge Economy, ‘Knowledge’ is produced,
marketed, delivered and consumed on a massive scale. It is
Knowledge Industry that brings out value added Knowledge
Modules, Packages and Solutions for the entire sectors of
the economy by using the latest technology. Every social
production process becomes ‘Knowledge – Intensive’ rather
than ‘Data or Information Intensive.
• In a Knowledge Economy, knowledge is treated as a product
or commodity for mass production, consumption and
delivery. Knowledge is made accessible to the entire people
irrespective of literate or illiterate, educated or uneducated,
men or women so that everybody is empowered and
capable of making use of knowledge that they absorbed.

15. KNOWLEDGE INDSUTRY MISTAKEN!!!
• ‘Knowledge Industry’ is the most mistaken or confused
industry so that Information Technology, Higher
Education, Scientific Research and etc. are clubbed or
designated as ‘Knowledge Industry’ without knowing the
meaning of ‘industry’.
• For an industry, there must be mass or industrial
production, marketing, delivery and consumption of
products. For example, chemical industry is related to
chemical technology and chemical products.
• Accordingly, ‘Knowledge Industry’ must be related to
‘Knowledge Technology’ and ‘Knowledge Products’ rather
than ‘Information Technology’ and ‘Data Processing and
Delivery’. Without knowledge, no education or scientific
research is made possible.

16. TECHNOLOGY FOR MASS PRODUCTION
AND DELIVERY OF KNOWLEDGE
• Without sound theories and methodological tools, it is not
possible to treat ‘Knowledge’ as a product for mass production,
delivery, marketing and consumption and to develop Knowledge
Industry. That is why; we don’t have genuine Knowledge Industry’
other than IT or IT Enabled Industries. Before the birth of
Industrial Revolution and Information Technology, there were
Universities and Scientific Research activities that cannot be
designated as ‘Knowledge Industry’ in a sensible way.
• As a solution, as early as 1984, Mathew formulated two theories
of ‘Consumption’ and ‘Production’ of ‘Knowledge as a Product or
Commodity’ . In 2005 he pounded ‘Knowmatics’ ,mathematics and
engineering of ‘Knowledge’, that forms the basis of Knowledge
Industry to facilitate mass production, marketing, delivery and
consumption of knowledge for ensuring knowledge accessibility
to the entire humanity, crossing the barriers of education, culture
and development.

17. THIRTY YEARS OF
STUDY AND RESEARCH
• For the last thirty years, I have been conducting study and research on the
Nature and Structure of Knowledge, Technology for Knowledge Processing
and Consumption, Production and Marketing of Knowledge.
• On the basis of my book published from England and the USA on Economics
of Knowledge and Libraries in 1981, I was nominated as the youngest
member for the 12 member FID Committee on Research on Theoretical Basis
of Information Science in 1982 with Prof. A. I. Mikhalove, father of
Informatics, as Chairman.
• The USSR Academy of Sciences in 1985 published my two theories on
Knowledge Consumption-Production for the FID Committee. Now they are
known as ‘Mathew’s Theories of Knowledge’ and they become an area for
doctoral research on Skill Acquisition and Scientific Prodctivity.
• After guiding or supervising nine Doctoral works on Knowledge dealt in the
Bible, Quran, the Vedas and Upanishads, Ayurveda and Tribal Medicine,
besides the Possibilities of Internet, Theoretical Foundations of Information
Technology, Industrial Development Pattern and etc., in 2005, I propounded
Knowmatics.

18. MY RECENT WORKS
• ‘Knowmatics- A New Revolution in Higher Education’
is my work jointly with Ranjit Mathew, published in the
Journal of the World Universities Forum 4,1,2011:1-11.
• It elaborates Mathew’s Theories of Knowledge,
Knowmatics and Application of Knowmatics in Higher
Education and how a revolution can be made on
knowledge accessibility.
• My other works can be found in the net Under ‘dr. raju
m. mathew’ or , www.slidehare.net/drrajumathew .