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 on “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
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker