Knowledge, Learning, Collaboration

As promised, William Cabán's thoughtful second e-mail concerning The Jenius' original question: Does the phrase "Learning Economy" have more power than "Knowledge Economy"?

William wrote:

"Now I just look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_system
Economic system is a mechanism which deals with the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in a particular society. The economic system is composed of people, institutions and their relationships. It addresses the problems of economics like the allocation and scarcity of the resources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning
Learning is the process of acquiring knowledge or skill through study, experience or teaching. It is a process that depends on experience and leads to long-term changes in behavior potential. [snip] Education is the conscious attempt to promote learning in others.

Based on this I will say that most probably for a sociologist "Learning Economy" is the part of an economy directed to the Education of a particular society.

So probably what I defined in my first email I might call it "adaptive knowledge economy" and I might define it as: a knowledge economy which depends on the mutation of itself based on new knowledge, whose changes are driven by the newly acquired knowledge of it components. (This new knowledge is again acquired from research and development)."


The Jenius thanks William for defining his terms, a rare quality whose value is all-too-often ignored. For readers interested in My definition of knowledge economy, you can find it here.

So what do We have? "Knowledge" economy seems to be inner-driven, emerging from individual or group information. "Learning" economy is more about the process of acquiring knowledge, so the terms are not mutually exclusive, and in fact, one may argue that either could include the other.

Kevin Shockey suggested a new term: "Collaborative Economy." [And Note: SNAP Platform is ranked 3rd--3rd!--in SourceForge's worldwide rankings of open source projects. Sit up and take notice: THIRD.] For those who read The Jenius from way back, you might remember an earlier post that lead to Dave Pollard's definitions of coordination cooperation and collaboration. Note how Kevin's "Collaborative Economy" defines a much broader and yet also more specific type of economy.

Upshot? A simple question placed among bright minds leads to a brief discussion that helps polish concepts We have already accepted as important. If you think that's a waste of time, then maybe you're not really "getting" what a Knowledge, Learning or Collaborative Economy is all about.

Your loss.

The Jenius Has Spoken.