Knowledge is power (Bacon). Information is not knowledge (Einstein); knowledge is not wisdom; and wisdom is not truth (Zappa). Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught (Wilde). Knowledge is ... good (Animal House).
Indeed, knowledge may be all those things—powerful, good, unteachable, yet crucial to deeper understanding. But knowledge can also be a liability. What you think you know can be a worse barrier than ignorance, hard to dispose of if too rigidly clung to, devastating when disrupted.
What does it really mean to know something? And more importantly, what will it mean, especially when things you thought you knew and valued could become obsolete?
The workers of tomorrow will have been nurtured in a hyperconnected digital age where everything can be done anywhere, anytime. Theirs is a future in which crowdsourcing and the Google "answer box" are like oxygen, bringing talents and solutions to bear to tackle almost any challenge. Traditional lifespans of enterprises will be shortened. The patterns of individual careers and organizational forms need to become much more agile and fluid. Societies will be confronted with enormous churn. Yesterday's modes—of learning, making, organizing, investing, inventing—will seem as "old school" as the days of the one-room schoolhouse are when compared to education in the future. Universities will be fully online, and learning will become collaborative, constructivist, lifelong, and worldwide.
If who you need to know, what you need to know, how you come to know, and why you need to know are changing, how will we adapt? This conference will probe each of these questions; the answers will impact every organization in the future.