Posted by John Tieso on July 13, 1998 at 14:45:53:

In Reply to: Re: Information, Knowledge & Wisdom: addition to constructs posted by Jay Reay on April 14, 1998 at 18:15:00:

I might argue that wisdom is a personal and not a corporate asset. The organization can have those with wisdom employed for a time. However, when and if they go away, a particular segment of knowledge that has been imbued in an individual also departs. In that respect, wisdom becomes the ability to use knowledge in an agile way and retain it for extended periods of time.

Some of that may seem to be something that could be formed by technology. That is true. However, there is a point beyond which technology cannot go.

By example, I knew a man who was literally a world-known expert on earthen dams. Much of his knowledge could be captured in an Artificial Intelligence-type system. However, one question would always remain:

What do you do when nothing in all of your experience seems to work?

His answer: "I just pick up some dirt, feel it a bit, smell it, throw it in the air, and somehow, I don't know why, I get an answer that seems to work."

Try programming that.

His wisdom waspersonal--innate--based on long years of experience that are lost to the organization if no one is being educated to replce him--and the replacement can never be complete.

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