Economists, sociologists and geographers all emphasized the crucial importance of local diffuse knowledge about how to do things in making these economies successful. Such knowledge was in part the product of market interactions, but it wasn’t itself a commodity that could be bought and sold. It was more often tacit: a sense of how to do things, and who best to talk to, which could not easily be articulated. (View Highlight)
Process knowledge
In Shenzhen, as in Bologna, process knowledge travels from company to company in people’s heads, but at a much bigger scale.
someone might work at an iPhone plant one year, for a rival phone maker the next, and then start a drone company. If an engineer in Shenzhen has an idea for a new product, it’s easy to tap into an eager network of investors. Shenzhen is a community of engineering practice where factory owners, skilled engineers, entrepreneurs, investors, and researchers mix with the world’s most experienced workforce at producing high-end electronics. This sounds like the Bay Area - but with a difference. As Dan says: Silicon Valley used to be like this too, but now it lacks a critical link in the chain - the manufacturing workforce. The value of these communities of engineering practice is greater than any single company or engineer. Rather, they have to be understood as ecosystems of technology. The American imagination has been too focused on the creation of tooling and blueprints of products. … [government] agencies [looking to emulate China] misunderstood the point of Shenzhen. They were still more interested in individual inventors rather than understanding it as a community of engineering practice. (View Highlight)
Process knowledge
for decades, American policy makers sat back as manufacturing moved overseas, not understanding what the long term consequences for process knowledge might be. (View Highlight)
Process knowledge. La importancia de preocuparse por generar y nutrir y cuidar comunidades de práctica.