Knowledge-based companies depend on innovation–creating, modifying, and improving products and services–rather than reproducing the same product all the time, as in an industrial organization.

Information and communications technologies can be thought of as the raw materials of a knowledge-based economy, in that they provide the means for creating, storing, analyzing, transferring, reproducing, and transforming information.

Because new knowledge is being created so fast, it is impossible for someone to cover everything within a particular area of study such as engineering or medicine. Therefore the focus must be on the management of information: how to find, analyze, organize, and apply information appropriately.

from Managing Technology in Higher Education: Strategies for Transforming Teaching and Learning by A. W. (Tony) Bates, Albert Sangra