Knowledge is the source of value and wealth

Gotta’ question for you – How much does the economy weigh? (Cross posted from Attestation Update.)

Can’t answer?

Okay. How ‘bout this – Does much does the economy weight today versus 1950?

Before you answer, consider that I just counted 220 books on the bookshelves in my office. I currently have 195 books on my Kindle.

Now, how much does the economy weight today compared to 60 years ago?

(Remember my Kindle would weigh the same if I erased it.)

That is just one question from The Soul of Enterprise: The Economy in Mind, by Ronald Baker (@ronaldbaker) and Ed Kless.

Their Kindle Single is the first chapter of what will be a full-length book, based on interviews from their radio program.

If you are intrigued by the idea of knowledge as the source of wealth and prosperity, check out the book.

My simple illustration of the concept – –

The billions of barrels of oil under North Dakota have been there for millions of years. That shale part of the oil had zero value as recently as 20 years ago. Incredible wealth was only created when petroleum wizards developed the knowledge on how to get millions of barrels out of the ground that nobody knew how to touch before.

By my calculation, there has been around $29,000,000,000 of oil produced from the Bakken field during the last 12 months. About 30 billion bucks of value which wasn’t touchable 20 years ago. All because brilliant minds developed new knowledge that then was used by a huge number of companies and people working really hard to apply that newly created knowledge.

If you are a knowledge worker, and my guess is that almost everyone reading this blog falls into that category, you ought to check out the concept that knowledge creates wealth and value. Start with the chapter linked above. Only a buck.