We have to follow the money in the knowledge economy, opens the Editor of the Havard Business Review Thomas A Stewart. Knowledge is as fundimental as electricity.

He talks of knowledge as something we buy and sell, it is all sounding very American and capitalist, but the auditorium is full and listening attentivly.

His slide breaks information down into three strategies:
1 instilled knowledge (smart products)
2 distilled knowledge (knowledge as a product)
3 Black box strategies (knowledge services)

Discusses how different sectors have become knowledge/information suppliers through re-sellling the information they create in their main business, "selling what they know" for examp[le shipping insurers, bankers and office suppliers who have all become information vendors.

Mastercard used anti-fraud department providing information from knowledge collected as "you know this [in one department], why don't we".

Instilled knowledge, is information you "stick into something", ie a mobile phone collects data on numbers, times of calls, mobiles are knowledge products, companies can stick more and more knowledge into the devices they sell.

Every company needs to have an explicit conversation about its information.