The progression from data to information to  knowledge to intellectual asset is easier to imagine than to accomplish. It encompasses not just systems but people as well. It involves education of those people in ways that still seem new, strange, and even threatening to many IS managers. Yet it is  imperative for today's organizations to develop their human resources into teams that are educated, motivated, empowered, and focused on customers.
Employee training is an age-old concept.
Certainly the medieval guilds practiced it. Job training was critical to the  Industrial Age, and there is no shortage of employee and management training in today's business environment. But beyond initial efforts to get employees up to speed, many corporate educational programs remain tied to the past, in an environment that considers education to be static and intermittent and that requires employees to  take significant time away from their normal jobs. Traditional corporate education is often strictly institutional in nature, reflecting the culture and world view of each corporation. It requires time out for training, taking employees away from their jobs, often at appreciable travel expense.