YOU ARE A KNOWLEDGE WORKER

A term first used by Peter Drucker in his book, Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New Post-Modern World, (1996): “A knowledge worker is anyone who works for a living at the tasks of developing or using knowledge. For example, a Knowledge Worker might be someone who works at any of the tasks of planning, acquiring, searching, analyzing, organizing, storing, programming, distributing, marketing, or otherwise contributing to the transformation and commerce of information and those (often the same people) who work at using the knowledge so produced”.

More directly, a knowledge worker is understood to be:
• a problem solver versus a production worker;
• an individual who uses intellectual rather than manual skills to deliver a job function;
• an individual who requires a high level of autonomy;
• an individual who is a manipulator of symbols; someone compensated for quality of judgment rather than speed of work;
• an individual who uses unique processes as part of their job function;
• an individual who possesses un-codified knowledge which is difficult to duplicate;
• a worker who sources concepts, ideas and intelligence; and
• someone who uses knowledge and information to add to deeper knowledge information.
The term Knowledge Worker includes those in the information technology fields, such as programmers, systems analysts, technical writers, academic professionals, researchers, and so forth. The term is also frequently used to include people outside of information technology, such as executives, lawyers, doctors and teachers, as well as scientists and students of all kinds.
Article by David E. Perry Managing Partner of Perry-Martel International Inc., co-author Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters and Career Guide for the High Tech Professional. Readers may download 3 free chapters at www.gm4jh.com