The Neuronal Model of Knowledge Systems, Data Mining, and the Performance of Organizations

Abstract

Why do we continue with our misplaced confidence in this primitive model? Among the possible reasons, I propose the following four key factors. First, since the middle of the twentieth century, we have accumulated and have become accustomed to an enormity of data and information. We designed and constructed massive warehouses—physical and electronic—to store and to manipulate this massive collection. We currently, for instance, have information on almost all working people, including their credit history, economic and financial activities, and their health and employment experience. To the chagrin and desperation of supporters of individual liberties and of privacy advocates, almost all private and public organizations are in possession of even minute details of our lives. In short, as a society, we have too much data and information at our disposal, and we continue to collect and store an ever-growing quantity of whatever information we are allowed to gather.