Information is golden. In the cutthroat business world, its efficient use can mean the difference between red and black ink on a balance sheet. On the battlefield, it can be a matter of life and death.
'Wrong information in a combat zone can get you killed,' infantry officer with the US Marine Corps Anthony Guess Johnson said. Fresh from the battle zone in Iraq, Captain Johnson was in Hong Kong this month to deliver a talk on knowledge management in the US military at Polytechnic University.
Sporting a crew cut, the bespectacled, strapping marine is studying for a master of science in knowledge management with the university's HKCyberU. The online courses on how to harness knowledge in different fields have proved to be invaluable in his treacherous job on the battlefield.
'My job involves managing a lot of information and making sure people get that information at the time they need it,' he said.
'There's much information in the combat zone - where the good and bad guys are, what they are doing - there's so much going on that you can't address and analyse all of it [on the spot]. What you can do is set up a system ahead of time, and do the right taxonomy and categorisation beforehand to make sure the information can be easily retrieved.'
Joining the marines after completing his degree in criminal justice at California State University in 1998, his decade-long military career has taken him to many places during times of war and peace, including Indonesia, Thailand, Afghanistan and Iraq.