I have now revised the draft paper for the Safety conference. I think there is about the right amount of content for half an hour. It may connect in with the other papers in the session. Christopher May will talk about openness and the control of information. I have found a page about the knowledge commons online. So this might support my claims about other knowledge resources found on the Web. Melissa Sedmak is from a School of Risk and Safety Sciences so my hope is that at least some of the time, danger is regarded as real at a place like this. She will decribe some new technology for clearner energy from Australian SMEs.

Looking at the IAS website I have found some PDFs from a seminar series on Changing Cultures of Competitiveness. This seems to follow on from the research on the Knowledge Based Economy (KBE)and confirms my impression is that the interest is in the political consequences of the language rather than the KBE as such.

Ngai-Ling Sum quotes South China Morning Post (12th December 2000)

It is important to have computer knowledge, as the Internet is playing an increasingly significant role in our life. We write e-mail instead of letters, chat with friends on ICQ instead of on the telephone and get our news from Web sites instead of newspapers.
We use computers to do paperwork, keep our accounts and even order goods.

This may be supportive of neo-liberal rhetoric, but it may also be seen as a resonably accurate statement in itself.

"Education's Role in Econimic Competitiveness" is covered by Jane Mulderrig with a contrast between "audit" and "autonomy". I think the lack of engagement by academics with quality ideas as theory has a lot to do with the experince of audit as it has happened in the UK. The aim of quality assurance was to move away from inspection but this is not always realised. I will come back to this in another post later.

By the way, I don't have a problem with the political views that are generally accepted in this discussion. I am starting to read more from the website on "Global Competitiveness" where PDFs are available. It is reasonable for linguists to be interested in language. My problems start when people in business schools turn out to be more concerned with critique than forms of practice. It seems to me that some form of quality management is a part of any form of organisation. So there is something to it as well as language. I will do another post later about "network learning" and web design. there is some sort of gap between the two though I can't understand what it is.

"Knowledge Brands" include cities, especially design cities as described by Guy Julier. There could be a similar study on the design of a university campus. Lancaster is not that old but Info 21 seems to be a break with hiding it all behind trees as seen from the motorway. My guess is that the computer hardware inside the building is not in need of unusual cooling systems. I may be wrong about this but this is a blog so can be changed in a lter post. So the design is there mostly for effect. I am still working on a script for a walk along the campus starting from Info21 as it implies acceptance of technology. I started out looking at quality systems as a way to cope with change in the printing industry. This is still a project though since drupa 2008 my impression is that significant change has already happened in terms of what technology is available. Anyway, the conference will include an evening meal at Info21 so it will be interesting what people make of it.