This topic is at the heart of innovation and New Product Development (NPD) and the future for collaborative marketing. No-one wants to keep making the same mistakes as they have made in the past, and most marketers want to be progressive and dynamic. The role of knowledge marketer will help make marketers be seen as responsible corporate players, and help to achieve measure- ments and benchmarks of marketing activity. It is, therefore, a crucial role, Toni Peters in his book Thriving on Chaos talked about a world that is becoming increasingly fast, a world where people need to take chances and learn quickly from their mistakes.
NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
The "have a go" argument is that it is better to make a lot of cheap mistakes and make some progress, than to go slow and end up making one gigantic mistake. These days people have to make deci- sions swiftly, and the more information they can get quickly, the more informed they will be and the better their decision will be. This, in essence, is what knowledge management information systems try to provide. There is also a need to avoid what call marketing amnesia. Too few companies have a debrief session after launching a project, let alone store any relevant informa- tion for future use. Since a product manager's average tenure before moving on is 18 months, this is very surprising. It is little wonder that knowledge is lost. First, we should define knowledge. Knowledge is information plus rich experience, and therefore, it is more valuable than the strings of data churned out by computers over the last fifty years.