Frontier Journal (FJ) Since the introduction of Knowledge Worker by Intel in 1960s, What has been changed in the definition of Knowledge Worker in today's Attention Economy as opposed to the old days?

Tom Davenport (TD): I think Peter Drucker invented the concept, or at least made it popular. Unfortunately, however, there has never been a clear definition around which the world has coalesced. Different people use the term to mean all sorts of things. My definition is that knowledge workers are people with high levels of education or expertise for whom the primary purpose of their jobs is doing something with knowledge-creating it, distributing it, or using it. That definition seems to work pretty well.

FJ: There are two kinds of knowledges that could be created from massive information generated during business operation, namely Commodity Knowledge and Star Knowledge (Non-Commodity Knowledge), the latter we may also call it as Intellectual Property (IP). What are the key challenges for a business to create more Star Knowledge (IP), say from business leaders' point of view, and from Knowledge Workers' point of view?

TD: The key challenge for organizations is to define what their knowledge objectives are. What knowledge do we need to excel at offering our traditional products and services to our customers? What knowledge, if we had it, would make it possible for us to enter into new markets? Most organizations don't know the answer to these types of questions, so they can't really determine what knowledge would be of high value. If organizations did have these answers, then individuals could begin to determine what was their place in the overall knowledge strategy of their organizations.

FJ: From Business Process Innovation point of view, whether Re-engineering, Optimization or Creation, how shall the traditional business process be turned up to for a business to survive in Knowledge-powered Attention Economy through creating more Star Knowledge?

TD: In my book Thinking for a Living I have a good bit to say about knowledge work processes. It's difficult to combine knowledge work and a process orientation, because knowledge workers don't like to be told what to do in a detailed process. So if you want to improve such knowledge-oriented processes as new product development or marketing, you have to take a more subtle approach. One technique is to involve knowledge workers in the design of the process. Another is to observe them carefully before undertaking any major changes. A third is to think about other ways to improve the process than simply redesigning its flow-e.g., giving a knowledge worker an internal customer. That's what IBM has done for its researchers, for example.

FJ: In today's Attention Economy, how could a business generate maximum valuable attention with minimum efforts to achieve the most favorable ROI? Or in other words, how shall we rethink about marketing nowadays?

TD: Marketers are increasingly concerned with whether their advertisements, promotions, and campaigns are getting attention. The media that are thriving-the internet and the Web, and to a lesser extent TV, can be tracked in terms of whether anyone actually sees the marketing content. The media that aren't doing well, such as print, are very difficult to track from an attention standpoint. Of course, it isn't just a question of "eyeballs," though they are very important. You have to ensure that the attention is converted into purchase behavior. But if there is no attention, there is no chance of influencing your customer.

FJ: What's your perspective on balancing the marketing efforts between online marketing and off-line marketing in today's Attention Economy?

TD: Since everyone is living in an environment of only partial attention to any specific medium, you need to employ multiple media, both online and offline, in order to get significant attention. I don't believe that most online marketing is very attention-getting, but as I noted above, what attention it does get is easy to measure. If we had something like click-throughs that we could easily measure on television, it would be a much more popular medium-because it is inherently more attention-getting than web ads. It conveys more information, is more dynamic, and is more likely to elicit emotion. Of course, that will change as online marketing gets more sophisticated, and Internet bandwidth increases.

FJ: What would the next generation enterprise system look like when ascending from Backward-thinking to Forward-Thinking? E.g., the accounting sub-system in any modern ERP system not only servers for book keeping purpose, but also for operating decision making and investing decision making purposes.

TD: This has long been a big problem for organizations. They put in accounting and bookkeeping systems first, and then think much later about how to use that information to make decisions. It's often not true that the backward-looking information is very useful for forward-looking decisions. To look forward often requires information about customers and markets, and that usually isn't included in transactional systems. I do think that it's important for companies to think earlier and more often about what information they need for decision-making, but I don't think it's practical to start from scratch.

FJ: From the leadership point of view, how to transform a knowledge-oriented learning organization to a IP-oriented innovation organization, say from the point views of CEO, CIO and CKO, respectively?

TD: You raise a good question in that many organizations today are very interested in rekindling their innovation capability. From the standpoint of the CEO, the key is to identify what knowledge is critical to strategy, and to the innovative new products and services the organization wants to develop. From the CIO's standpoint, how can the company's existing data be analyzed and summarized to describe new and existing markets? And if the organization has a CKO-most still don't-that executive should be responsible for facilitating the creation, distribution, and application of key knowledge. Most CKOs today only focus on distribution, but for purposes of innovation, knowledge creation is probably a more important issue.

FJ: In today's Knowledge-powered Economy, how shall Human Resource be redefined in terms of evaluating an employee's performance being a Knowledge Worker?

TD: It is important for knowledge workers to be evaluated in different ways. The old industrial-age criteria of how much time you put in at the office doesn't make sense for knowledge workers. What does make sense is evaluating them on what they produce in terms of knowledge, ideas, new products, and so forth. It's usually fairly easy to evaluate the quantity of outputs, but organizations also need to devise ways to measure quality. In many cases that will require subjective judgments by others-e.g., ratings of the value of a marketing plan or a new product idea.

FJ: What's your interpretation of Virtual Organization under today's globalization and Internet ubiquitity impacts?

TD: If by virtual organization you mean ones in which geography is irrelevant, I don't really believe that's true in most cases today. Yes, there are many business relationships in which people have never met each other, and these can sometimes be effective. But I see many other cases in which misunderstandings and lack of trust arise from the absence of any face-to-face contacts. The highest bandwidth networks are still face-to-face. What we have to do is to learn when face-to-face contact really matters. I don't think very many of us have a good sense of that today.

FJ: Generally speaking, how to run a Flawless Business in today's Knowledge-powered Attention Economy, say from the point views of fundamental business principles, core operating values, and personal management philosophy, respectively?

TD: I don't think any businesses are flawless. The key is to make mistakes-as everybody does-and learn from them. You just want your mistakes to be on a small scale if possible. One related aspect of a successful business, I believe, is to run a large number of experiments. These might involve marketing, human resources, or even mergers and acquisitions. If an organization learns from every experiment, it will become very successful very quickly. For example, Capital One, a large bank in the U.S., conducts over 60,000 experiments a year-mostly involving marketing. It has rapidly become one of the dominant providers of credit cards. Harrah's has become the world's largest gaming company also in large part because of its experiments. Its CEO says that employees can get fired for not using a control group.

FJ: You were ranked top 25 consultants worldwide in 2003, how to become a Flawless Consultant?

TD: Despite getting that recognition, I don't really consider myself a great consultant. I have always been more of a researcher, writer, and educator than a consultant. I do think that it's important for consultants not only to do good work with their clients, but also to create thought leadership in books, articles, and websites. I have had the luxury of being able to spend most of my time on thought leadership issues.

FJ: What's your business advice for startups aspiring to be Stars in Knowledge-powered Attention Economy?

TD: Find a knowledge need that some significant part of the economy has, and meet that need. Don't just provide information; help your customer convert the information to knowledge and use it effectively. In many cases this will mean combining products and services. Make sure that people are paying attention to the information and knowledge you provide, or you won't be in business for long!

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