The skills needed in digital age
Knowledge involves two strongly inter-linked but different
components: content and skills. Content includes facts, ideas, principles,
evidence, and descriptions of processes or procedures.
The skills required in a knowledge society include:
·
Communications skills: as well as the
traditional communication, we need to add social media communication skills. The
ability to reach out through the Internet to a wide community of people with
one’s ideas, to receive and incorporate feedback, to share information appropriately,
and to identify trends and ideas from elsewhere.
·
The ability to learn independently: this
means taking responsibility for working out what you need to know, and where to
find that knowledge. It could be learning about new equipment, new ways of
doing things, or learning who are the people you need to know to get the job
done.
·
Ethics and responsibility: this is
required to build trust (particularly important in informal social networks),
but also because generally it is good business in a world where there are many
different players, and a greater degree of reliance on others to accomplish
one’s own goals.
·
Teamwork and flexibility: although many
knowledge workers work independently or in very small companies, they depend
heavily on collaboration and the sharing of knowledge with others in related
but independent organizations. In small companies, it is essential that all
employees work closely together, share the same vision for a company and help
each other out. In particular, knowledge workers need to know how to work
collaboratively, virtually and at a distance, with people. The ‘pooling’ of
collective knowledge, problem-solving and implementation requires good teamwork
and flexibility in taking on tasks or solving problems that may be outside a
narrow job definition but necessary for success.
·
Thinking skills: critical thinking,
problem-solving, creativity, originality, strategizing of all these skills
needed in a knowledge-based society, these are some of the most important for
Businesses.
·
Digital
skills: most knowledge-based activities depend heavily on the use of
technology. However, the key issue is that these skills need to be embedded
within the knowledge domain in which the activity takes place. This means for
instance real estate agents knowing how to use geographical information systems
to identify sales trends and prices in different geographical locations,
welders knowing how to use computers to control robots examining and repairing
pipes, radiologists knowing how to use new technologies