I’ve been going through some of the videos from the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference that I talked about last time. While I’ve come across some interesting videos, one of the coolest videos I’ve seen was sent to me by a reader (who wishes to remain anonymous). The video below is Pattie Maes demonstrating a wearable technology that could allow you to physically interact with the web (and web-based metadata) in the real world.

One of the most interesting things about this demo is that the device she talks about is really just assembled from a bunch of technologies that already exist. It’s a good reminder that innovation and invention are not always the same thing, but are still sometimes tough to tell apart.

Since it’s Friday, I figured I’d draw your attention to something a bit different. A friend of mine sent me a link today to the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference website, where you can watch videos from the conference for free. In case you haven’t heard of it before (like I hadn’t), the conference “brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).”

There are some fascinating talks available on the site from some of the world’s smartest and most influential people. As the TED site says, they’re “building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.” To get you started, here’s Bill Gates talking about mosquitos, malaria and education:

I just came across an interesting piece over at Inside Knowledge that argues that possessing competence is actually more important than the “mere acquisition, development, storage, usage, ownership and protection of concepts and facts”. Competence, in this argument, extends beyond just knowing something — it’s more about the practical and useful application of knowledge.

The authors go on to describe a ‘framework of competence’, through which competence can be managed. It’s the authors opinion that competence matters a great deal more than just knowledge, and that by extension, the management of competence is of greater value to an organization than the management of knowledge.

Yet it would seem to me that there is an assumption inherent to the phrase ‘knowledge management’ (rightly or wrongly) that assumes that knowledge is, in fact, applied information. Not that I want to open the (very tired) data-information-knowledge(-wisdom?) can of worms. The interesting part about the word ‘competence’ to me however, is that it denotes something entirely different than what is denoted by the data-information-knowledge hierarchy, and I don’t think ‘competence’ really fits in there hierarchically. Either way, definitely an interesting read.