Dr. Stanley Davis--author, consultant, public speaker, and educator--will be the keynote speaker at SLA's 89th Annual Conference, "Leadership, Performance, Excellence: Information Professionals in the Driver's Seat," in Indianapolis, IN, on June 8, 1998. The focus of his speech, "Driving Profit from Knowledge," will explore ways information professionals can increase their business' value by making it knowledge based. Davis is the author of several award-winning books including 20/20 Vision, Future Perfect, and The Monster Under the Bed. His newest book, just released, is titled Blur.

In a recent interview, Davis shared his thoughts on the importance of being knowledge based. "It started because we had two decades which focused solely on data processing, followed by two decades focusing on information technology, and now that has shifted to knowledge. There's a clear difference between data, information, and knowledge. Information is about taking data and putting it into a meaningful pattern. Knowledge is the ability to use that information."

He believes information professionals will play an expanded role in increasing the value of a knowledged based business. "Librarians are essential players, skilled professionals collecting, analyzing, and disseminating timely and accurate information. Because of electronic delivery, the librarian's role in storing information will shrink, but their role in processing it will grow."

Davis believes businesses will generally shift toward more knowledge based operations, but the blather about the concept exceeds the reality. He has worked closely with many giant corporations and believes that Fortune 500 companies are capable of shifting philosophies in terms of knowledge management. He also says companies of all sizes will utilize the information profession in new and innovative ways. "Data comes in basically four forms: numbers, words, sounds, and images. In the last four decades, however, the major applications have been spreadsheets and word processing. With increased bandwidth, the focus has turned to sound and image. Companies will utilize computerized sound and image as often as numbers and words. Because of Moore's Law (microprocessing power doubles every 18 months and the cost is cut in half), the price of computing power is cheap," he says. "You will have an abundance of computing power at low cost. Metcalf's Law says that network power increases with the square of the number of people on the network, and there will also be virtually infinite bandwidth at nominal or no cost." These will bring the information economy into the mature part of its life cycle, Davis feels, and spur the focus on knowledge--i.e., on using information.

Today, there is an abundance of new terms and metaphors about knowledge. One such term, "intellectual capital," has become very popular in the information industry and Davis believes that intellectual capital will be an asset in today's business environment. "Capital is constant and it represents a productive surplus in economic value. The form it takes varies from one historical period to the next. The earliest form was physical capital and the next was financial capital. The monetary period went through changes from beads to feathers, gold, paper, and eventually pure information in the form of electronic bits. There are basic elements required of a business to capitalize on intellectual capital," says Davis. "The question you have to ask is: 'How can you minimize all of the physical assets and maximize the intellectual?'" $