The new technology
embraces and feeds off the entire array of human knowledges.
The search for knowledge, as well as the teaching thereof,
has traditionally been dissociated from application. Both have been organized by subject, that is,
according to what appeared to be the logic of knowledge itself. The faculties and departments of the
university, its degrees, its specializations, indeed the entire organization of
higher learning, have been subject-focused.
They have been, to use the language of the experts on organization,
based upon “product” rather than “market” or “end use.” Now we are increasingly organizing knowledge
and the search for it around areas of application rather than around the subject
areas of disciplines. Interdisciplinary
work has grown everywhere.
This is a symptom of the shift in the meaning of knowledge
from an end in itself to a resource, that is, a means to some result. Knowledge as the central energy of a modern
society exists altogether in application and when it is put to work. Work, however, cannot be defined in terms of
the disciplines. End results are
interdisciplinary of necessity.
ACTION POINT: List results for which you are responsible.
What specialists are you dependent on to get these results? How can you improve
coordination among these specialists?
The
Age of Discontinuity
Quoted from The Daily Drucker, February 4, page 40
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