To know or naught to know . . .
It is funny how the need to be up-to-date on a subject matter, for say an important meeting, will galvanise us into reading up and getting to know about the topic. Of course, we would actively seek out the appropriate information when we need it. But if the information were lying with us - in books and papers and such like professional literature that we tend to collect - we would most probably not read it till we need it.
This point struck me when I started to hunt for information about Private Equity funds - funds that invest in unlisted or soon to be delisted equity
shares - this morning. A little sifting through the books, notes and electronic literature I have accumulated yielded sufficient material for me to read and get a very decent overview of the sector and its activities. I have had this material with me for between six months to two years now, yet I never occasioned to read it till the time came for me to prepare for a meeting I am having with one such fund the day after.
Why would that be?
In part could it be because I have been lazy and not read all the literature I have collected? Perhaps. But the sheer volume of literature in the field would mean it is absurd to expect someone to have read it all - even if that someone is a devourer of the printed page like I am. I think the real reason is the high degree of technical specialisation that has come to characterise all major fields of knowledge. This is well illustrated by an observation made by the celebrated historian Arnold Toynbee. He records that in his youthful days, libraries were full of books - large tomes - and the state-of-the-art body of knowledge in the field could / would be contained there in. In later days, libraries still had many books, but they usually covered the basics and the foundations of the topics they addressed - the state-of-the-art in any field would be documented in research periodicals specific to that field and more specialised libraries - departmental libraries and such like - would tend to have more material in the form of periodicals, often bound into annual volumes, than books. Trivial though this observation seems, it does portray a true picture of the way our intelligentsia and academia are fragmented into ever increasing bastions of specialisation.
The upshot is that the ability to quickly access and peruse the information one needs by locating the source most efficiently is a key skill required today.
This point struck me when I started to hunt for information about Private Equity funds - funds that invest in unlisted or soon to be delisted equity
shares - this morning. A little sifting through the books, notes and electronic literature I have accumulated yielded sufficient material for me to read and get a very decent overview of the sector and its activities. I have had this material with me for between six months to two years now, yet I never occasioned to read it till the time came for me to prepare for a meeting I am having with one such fund the day after.
Why would that be?
In part could it be because I have been lazy and not read all the literature I have collected? Perhaps. But the sheer volume of literature in the field would mean it is absurd to expect someone to have read it all - even if that someone is a devourer of the printed page like I am. I think the real reason is the high degree of technical specialisation that has come to characterise all major fields of knowledge. This is well illustrated by an observation made by the celebrated historian Arnold Toynbee. He records that in his youthful days, libraries were full of books - large tomes - and the state-of-the-art body of knowledge in the field could / would be contained there in. In later days, libraries still had many books, but they usually covered the basics and the foundations of the topics they addressed - the state-of-the-art in any field would be documented in research periodicals specific to that field and more specialised libraries - departmental libraries and such like - would tend to have more material in the form of periodicals, often bound into annual volumes, than books. Trivial though this observation seems, it does portray a true picture of the way our intelligentsia and academia are fragmented into ever increasing bastions of specialisation.
The upshot is that the ability to quickly access and peruse the information one needs by locating the source most efficiently is a key skill required today.