The Fourth Revolution

The article discusses the transition from a brain force economy to a economy that gives more leverage to both the knowledge worker and the enterprise. A reliance on brain force is obvious in the increased dependence on knowledge workers for competitive advantage. The amount of information knowledge workers must deal with grows daily and is beyond anyone's ability to sort and parse usefully. That situation sets the stage for an even more powerful event -- a fourth wave or revolution that creates increased leverage for both the knowledge worker and the enterprise, extending the evolutionary thrust of doing less but accomplishing more. This Fourth Revolution is about developing the full potential of knowledge workers, about identifying and linking knowledge resources within an enterprise and, therefore, gaining maximum return from human capital. Until now, corporate spending for increased human capital productivity focused mainly on more content and more technologies for training and learning. But recently, a number of company leaders began to realize that they were addressing only half of the equation: content and dissemination.