Ben Flanagan
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drrajumathew
As a person who conducts detailed study and research on Knowledge, Information Technology, Knowledge Economy and Knowledge Industry, I would like to point out that there exists a lot of confusion between Data, Information and Knowledge.
Information Technology is built upon Algorithms based on Data Structure which is linear and static. Knowledge structure is non-linear and dynamic; the building blocs of Knowledge are concepts and that of Data is bits which have no meaning.
Information is not a substitute for Knowledge which alone adds value or relevance to Information. Information Technology is an incompatible Technology to deal with Knowledge.
All the above noted discussions and news item are based on Data or Information and they have nothing to do with Knowledge.Information Economy is quite different from Knowledge-Intensive Production processes and Knowledge Economy.
Over dependence on half-baked Data or Information is the basic reason for the present global Economic Crisis which came out from wrong or erratic Projections, Forecasting, Analysis and Decisions.
friendlycanadian
What is profit? Simplistically it is the difference between revenue and expenses. For the investor in a public company, accurate Profit and Loss statements allow for intelligent decisions about their investment. If sales/revenues are down, but profits are up; what does that mean? If sales/revenues are down but profit is up; what does that mean? Transparency is not an option for a public company's investors. When this transparency is compromised (as it was in some of the top American companies in the mid-2000's) the company can fail. These failures caused International Chaos. When the truth is ignored, decisions are worse that guesstimates. The impact is far-reaching. People lose confidence in both the company and the industry they are in. (And remember just because a company chooses to ignore the facts, does not mean the facts go away.) If one moves these observations from the private (public companies) to the government of any country, the need for transparency is vital to long term stability of the country, as well as the confidence of private investors that everyone is "working on a level playing field". As I read this article, I became increasingly skeptical of the "profit" figures announced for the companies. If these are for internal consumption only, who cares. However, internationally these figures give no credibility. Government bail-outs are not performance.
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