Ken you wrote>>>
In my view, a system cannot contain knowledge. It can record or document
what human
beings know in the form of information about knowledge.
====================

It is true that system records the knowledge, however, if the recording is
made in a most generic form, it can be very powerful.
Generic capture/recording form means separating the rules and
decision-making from its raw data.
Just like in object oriented systems, we capture an "object", which can
respond to "who I am."  Knowledge systems predicts and derives new systems
from its decision-making tree.

A knowledge-based system (KBS) can be considered as a battery of objects,
which together respond to what system "you are trying to redesign or
recreate"

KBS has rules, knowledge and Decision making built-in. The system is
regenerative -- has the knowledge about all family of design and its
gyrations.. Once a new set of data is passed on to KBS, it can create the
new artifact, a new design, a new configuration, which could be much
different than what (knowledge) we initially put in.


Hope it answers your questions,

Brian Prasad
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Friedman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 8:45 AM
Subject: Knowledge or information ?


> Dear Brian,
>
> Thanks for the notes and thanks for this good web site.
>
> I will raise one distinction that is central to my view of knowledge
> management.
>
> Knowledge exists only in human beings. Only a knowing or conscious
> agent may be said to know.
>
> The kinds of systems that are sometimes labeled "knowledge-based
> systems," are what I label knowledge support systems. No knowledge is
> contained in these systems. These systems contain information. Human
> beings use this information to support their knowledge.
>
> Only human beings possess knowledge. (It seems to many, and I am one,
> that some animals know and act on their knowledge. I do not address
> this issue here. Most knowing animals are far too intelligent to work
> in corporations or teach at universities. What they know is therefore
> irrelevant to this discussion.)
>
> Knowledge is only knowledge when it is embodied in a human being.
> While it remains within a human being, it may constitute both
> explicit and tacit knowledge, and knowledge can exist between and
> among human beings in different ways.
>
> Once human beings record and externalize what they know, it is no
> longer knowledge. It is information. Information becomes knowledge
> again when human beings internalize it and make it their own.
>
> This has many important implications. Later this week, I will put up
> a few notes on these issues. The key issues that distinguish between
> information and knowledge are consciousness and agency. Enacting what
> we know effectively and well constitutes wisdom. Enacting what we
> know badly or enacting the wrong things constitutes foolishness.
>
> The material on your site is genuinely exciting. I see the importance
> and value of these kinds of systems. At the same time, I distinguish
> between knowledge and what any system can contain. In my view, a
> system cannot contain knowledge. It can record or document what human
> beings know in the form of information about knowledge.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Ken
>
>
>
>
> -snip-
>
> Brian Prasad wrote:
>
> I like what you talked about in Knowledge Management article.
> However, in design research (DR), knowledge management (KM) is one of
> its (DR) enabler. Just like Data Management deals with Data-bases; KM
> deals with Knowledge-bases. In DR, we require more than
> Knowledge-bases. We need to capture elements of knowledge bases in a
> form so that it is easy to capture, distribute and reuse. Such
> processing of knowledge is called Knowledge-based engineering (KBE)
> or knowledge-based design (KBD). KM is good for storage and
> management of knowledge-bases. KBE is good for processing and
> manipulation of knowledge entities or sets belonging to
> knowledge-bases.
>
> Knowledge-based Systems (KBS) are software programs designed to
> capture and apply domain-specific knowledge and expertise in order to
> facilitate solutions of problems. Languages can be used as means to
> build KBS. Knowledge-based Engineering (KBE) deals with processing of
> knowledge. There are many ways to capture knowledge to control its
> processing. KBE is a process of implementing knowledge-based systems
> in which domain-specific knowledge about a part or a process is
> stored along with other attributes (geometry, form features, etc.).
>
> You may find details of the KBE techniques from the web site
>
> www.spec2market.com
>
> -snip-
>
>
> --
>
> Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
> Department of Leadership and Organization
> Norwegian School of Management
>
> Visiting Professor
> Advanced Research Institute
> School of Art and Design
> Staffordshire University