- The new Boeing 777 airliner, designed entirely with com-
puters, is powered by petroleum; more than half the cost of finding
and extracting petroleum lies in the information required to per-
form these tasks. - A typical automobile, powered by petroleum, has more
microchips than spark plugs. A car’s electronics cost more than the
steel to build the vehicle. - It used to require three to four hours of labor to make a ton
of steel. Now it can be done with sophisticated computer programs
in forty-five minutes. The intellectual or knowledge component
has grown, and the physical component has shrunk.^2
The ChallengeIn today’s global and technological economies, knowledge is being
made available to people at exponential rates. While the best
processes and mechanisms for capturing and distributing knowl-
edge are still being debated, there is another aspect to the issue
that has yet to be discussed. To pose it in the form of a question: Is
it possible to efficiently organize and categorize knowledge that
is being made available to us in order to facilitate decision
making regarding its use? Asked another way: Can we develop
methods to help people determine both if a particular piece of
knowledge is useful to them and, if so, where in their respective
organizational systems it would have the most application and
impact? If methods could be developed to deliver on that capabil-
ity, the drive for faster, better, and cheaper might suddenly shift
into high gear.
Herein lies the meat of our chapter. We’re suggesting that it is
possible to develop such a method, and although the one we will
propose is by no means a final solution, our intent is to stimulate
the dialogue that is required for innovation to occur. It is in this
process that we hope others will step forward to expand on the
ideas and knowledge presented and to move this discussion to fur-
ther application and development.
KNOWLEDGEMAPPING 115