The Emergence of Knowledge

The internet, and the technology surrounding it, search, social networking, mobile-data have all been adopted in such a rapid way it can be really easy to forget a time before Siri told us where to go!

Some of you have hopefully been exposed to the Google knowledge graph and the conversation of what ‘search’ means to us now and what it could mean. The implant idea: think and you shall know, is as possible as it is scary. Perhaps not in our lifetime.

But the internet, search, mobile search and the speed at which information is available to us presents some really fundamental questions. For example, do I need to have a degree in business marketing to be able to be a marketer in business? Do I need to have studied computer science at an expensive university to be a proficient programmer? The answer is simply no.

Today, and for many years now, we have been able to acquire skill and the information required to develop those skills with a simple tap of a keyboard. The validity of subject comprehension without standardized testing is always going to be in question when compared to university or other curriculum based learning, but ultimately there are very few things out of reach in our quest for knowledge online.

In school, it was common for most people to use computers to search for answers, when I was in school at least. Prior to my generation, books were our only source of knowledge outside of human interaction. Film, classrooms and the like were all essentially second tier to the bound pages of an encyclopedia or mathematics text book. I remember reading through pages and pages on a particular subject to understand, as best I could, its meaning. I often still read with the intention of acquiring knowledge. The difference though is today; I read, out of interest, not necessity. If something needs to be answered I don’t trawl a text book, or the instruction manual, I search for it online. Increasingly searching on my mobile. I have yet to really embrace the wonder of voice search and that maybe because of my strange accent and high rate of speech. Siri gets me about half the time.

But the fundamental question I would like to ask is; what is happening to our schools now? Are we embracing the change, are we acknowledging that having all the answers needn't be as important as being able to find them and more importantly use them?

Are we adjusting for the rapid availability of information to our children? Are we taking this into consideration for our employees? In our business since day one “I would search for this on Google” was an acceptable answer for a number of roles in the interview and technical testing process. We as people should embrace the speed at which knowledge is now available to us whole heartedly. Education in my experience should be about learning how to learn. About how to acquire knowledge infinitely and continuously. Not about showing up and testing your ability to cram!

It’s an interesting thought and one that is close to my heart. I am a firm believer that education can save us. That the underlying factor in improving our social, financial and moral issues globally such as poverty, disease, racism, famine and even war is education. Ignorance plagues humanity and without free knowledge and the gift of education we will never propel our societies and cultures to the heights we aspire to.

If someone can search for the answer to nearly any question in a matter of seconds because they have a smart phone, then surely every child should be given the chance to learn to read?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/19/google-search-knowledge-graph-singhal-interview