Idea 26 - The knowledge economy As usual, Peter Drucker was on the case before anyone else. In the late 1960s he coined the term 'knowledge economy', predicting that the spread of information would cause major changes in society. What management had to do, he said, was to boost the productivity of 'knowledge work' and the 'knowledge worker'. Academics and statisticians - who want to measure it - have yet to agree on exactly what the knowledge economy is. Some say it is a group of specific industries, such as high-tech manufacturing, computing and telecommunications. Others argue that knowledge permeates all industries. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) takes the middle road with a definition that includes high- and medium-tech manufacturing, knowledge-intensive service industries such as finance, insurance and telecoms, followed by business services, education and health. The layperson could do worse than the followi...