3 Top Things about a Knowledge Epistemic System

Every time I use the words Knowledge Epistemic System, I get all sorts of strange reactions.

There's actually no reason for those reactions.  Epistemic systems are actually quite simple to understand.


Here are the 3 top things you need to know about Knowledge Epistemic Systems:

1. What is an Epistemic System:

An epistemic system generates judgments of truth of falsity. 

They are used in police forensics,auditing,economy... 

2. What is a Knowledge Epistemic System:
   

   A knowledge Epistemic System is a system that identifies true knowledge (reliable knowledge).

3. Why you should about them.

The epistemic system enables the knowledge economy. 

Why you need to know about the "end of the service economy"

One of my main tasks over the past 2 years has been listening to people.  Lately, I get the impression that people are finally realizing that the "Great Recession of 2008" is very different from the "Tech Bust of 2000", or even the "Post 9-11 Slowdown." People are worried. Where should they go next?

To answer that question, it is critical to understand what is happening. The economy is going through an accelerated structural transition from the service to the knowledge economy.  We are witnessing the end of the services economy. Even though the Great Recession of 2008 was responsible for accelerating the transformation, the true culprit was technology that made outsourcing and automation possible.

To continue to grow, organizations will have to continue to reduce cost by focusing on core competencies and automation.  Before long, organizations will only employ human capital that represents their core knowlege.  At that time, organizations will have completed the transition to the knowledge economy.

The reason you need to know about the end of the services economy is because to maintain your current life style, you need to become not only a knowledge holder but a knowledge developer.

You need to be part of those responsible to adapt your organization to change and innovation. You need to stop applying the knowledge created by others.  You need to create new ideas that others (earning significantly less than you), or machines will execute.

P.S. - If you don't believe this will impact you, I think you should read this 2007 article from the Economic Research Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Did you know there are 5 million jobs vacant?

Bill Clinton was interviewed on NBC's meet the press this Sunday (09/19/10).  During the interview he made several amazing statements. One in particular caught my attention because it relates with what I have been doing for the past 2 years.

Like so many others before him, Bill Clinton has (apparently) realized that the challenges posed by the 30 million unemployed people by the 2008 Great Recession, cannot be solved with today's systems.  The sheer scale of this challenge, transcends existing Learning Management Systems (LMS).

Individuals and organizations need a new system.  A system  that will allow them to do more than acquire new skills and expertise.  They need a revolutionary system that will allow them to:

1. manages their continuous learning
2. make them easy, quick and affordable to find 
3. answer two basic questions: "What do they know?" and "How do they learn?"

To design such system has been my focus over the past two years.  In trying to answer this answer, I along with others, created Olexe.  The end result was a system that enables the knowledge economy.

P.S. You don't happen to have Bill Clinton's phone? :-)

3 Top Things you need to know about the 2008 Great Recession

Accordingly to the International Labor Organization (ILO):

1. Since the beginning of the Great Recession, 30 million people have lost their jobs. There are now 210 millions jobless people (world wide)
   
   
2. Long term unemployment is increasing. Jobs obtained following involuntary unemployment, have lower earnings, which is particular affecting highly educated people.
   
   
3. Over the next 10 years, more than 440 million new jobs will be needed to absorb newcomers into the workforce.

See Dominique Strauss-Kahn's statement (IMF Managing Director) at the 2010 Joint ILO-IMF Oslo Conference: The Challenges of Growth, Employment and Social Cohesion.  It seems "they" are waking up.



3 Top Things YOU need to know to succeed.

1. You need to know that this is NOT a slow down
   
   The Great Depression of the 1930's in the US, eliminated many farm jobs. In the decades that followed, most farmers became industrial workers. More than an unfortunate economic event, the Great Depression represented a structural change in the economy. It marked the beginning of the industrial era.  The Great Recession of 2008 marks the beginning of the knowledge economy. Like the farmers in the 1930s, most of the jobs being lost today, will be permanent.
   
   
2. Your next position needs to be about "problem solving"
   
   Automation and outsourcing have been collaborating towards transitioning our markets from the service to the knowledge economy.  We started by automating and outsourcing the industrial capacity and quickly moved onto services. The Great Recession of 2008 Services was just the final straw that accelerated the unavoidable. In this new economy, you need to be in position of research and development.  If you don't have it yet, or you are not on a path towards it, you need to start... today!
   
   
3. Learn, Document, Publish
   
   To survive in the knowledge economy, you need to find a topic about which you are passionate about, and engage in life long (continuous) learning.  As you learn, you will have to document with great detail what and how you learn, so others can easily find you and engage you.  This is the only way you will be able to compete with the other 600 million people competing for a job.

In case you were thinking that this is too far fetch...(click the link to read the entire article).

P.S. - Unlike government, the entrepreneur community has long picked up on this topic.  New systems were already built to allow you to develop, aggregate and publish your knowledge (Olexe). All you need to bring... is a dream!

3 Top reasons you need to STOP putting money aside for college

Stop putting money aside for college

Here the top 3 reasons why:

1. Bill Gates is onboard - The internet has come of age.  Today it contains vast amounts of high quality information, including the content of many of the top colleges in the world.



Bill Gates at the Techonomy Conference on August 6 2010 (video)

2. Significant change is imminent - Between 2000 and 2006 Medicaid costs went up 62.6%. Higher Education tuition increased 63.4%. State budgets only 17.6%. Society is open to revolutionary solution(s).



Protests at UCLA about the 32% increase in CA tuitions

3. Startup community is busy at work - The education problem has been attracting many entrepreneurs (including yours truly) that see the great opportunities in this chaotic situation.



Olexe is creating the business metaphors of the knowledge economy

In summary, unless you or your kids need to go to college in the next five years, I would strongly recommend you invest the money otherwise.  If you want an advice, I would suggest you save the money for your kids' first startup. That will become your retirement supplement.  Pretty cool hey?

3 top reasons why Google killed Google Wave

It's official. As of August 4th, Google is pulling the plug on Google Wave .  Accordingly to Google that was due to lack of interest.

First things first.

Do you know what a Google Wave REALLY is?

Google Wave is a knowledge aggregator. A knowledge aggreagator is a system that records and archives reflective events (what happens when you think).  The objective of the knowledge aggregator is to establish individual or group knowledge foundation.

A knowledge aggregator is like a dam but instead of collecting water, from one or more rivers, it collects your ideas.  Instead of a large body of water, a knowledge aggregator creates a body of knowledge.

Top Three Reasons why Google Killed the Wave

Since Olexe also creates knowledge aggregators, I decided to investigate what was really behind Google's failure.

1. The product was not ready when it was announced to the world - I got my Google Wave invitation from a person that had attended the 2009 Google IO.  I was anxious to understand what Google Wave was all about.  After joining, I couldn't believe it.  The product had some "nice to haves" but was missing "deal breaker" features. One that really surprised me was the inability to get notifications of when people changed waves.
   
   
2. Google forgot to define the value proposition - Google called the Wave a 3Ps system: program, protocol, platform. Google wanted to create an ecosystem of apps developers and providers that would put the entire world into collaboration overdrive. Do you see the problem?  They didn't create a system that "would double your income in six months". People go to school because they want jobs.  People use Facebook because it's fun. Google delivered technology (the easy part) and forgot to define the value proposition (the difficult part).
   
   
3. They didn't live up to their own expectations - By the end of 2009, the blogging community had already picked on the negative vibes.  While some kept playing to the doll drums, projecting huge success, others where starting to see the obvious. When Google finally made the platform available to the general public, in May of 2010, the excitement from the previous year was all gone.  They started strong and ended in shame.

Conclusion

People don't want more technology. People want to enjoy their lives.

Even though the people behind Google Wave and Google Maps were the same, the results couldn't be further apart. Anyone gets a map. Few get a knowledge aggregator. In the end that what failed was Google inability to make a business case for the knowledge aggregator.

How immune is your organization to mass retirement?

Were you born between 1954 and 1964?  

• YES - move to paragraph after the graphic.
• NO -  continue here.

Those born between 1945 and 1964 are named "baby boomers" (boomers) and they represent 76.4 million people. In case you don't know, every eight seconds, there's a new boomer who turns 60. Chances are he/she works in your organization. 

When talking about boomers, our brain often makes huge mistakes.  The biggest of them is to think that all boomers are people that know nothing about computers and/or the benefits of social networks. Let's face it.  Steve Jobs was born in 1955.  He is now 55!

Generations from 1900 to 2000+

As the generation that took us to the Moon, and invented the internet, retires, those staying behind need to resolve an emerging problem. How will organizations exchange knowledge from those that have it (knowledge holders) to those who need it (learners), in an easy and affordable way?

After the 2008 recession, many stopped worrying about this problem.  However, organizations cannot underestimate the seriousness of the situation, because most of their institutional knowledge is undocumented.

It was to solve this problem that we have been working for the past 2 years on a knowledge exchange.  We call it Olexe - Open-Learning EXchange Engine.  Who said retirement would be boring... or just golfing?