The April cover story of KMWorld is my article "The $60 billion challenge," which I wrote to urge the $60 billion Collaborative Business Knowledge industry, comprised of companies that supply knowledge sharing and collaboration tools and technologies, to help end-user companies move from an industrial-age mindset into that of the knowledge economy.

Since writing that piece (the lead time for KMWorld's print edition is several months), we began to try to calculate how far along we were on the road to the knowledge economy.  This is not as simple as it sounds; the only way to calculate this is to use anecdotal evidence and study behavior.

Of course, we can't collect the evidence all by ourselves.  So here's my request: please e-mail us at [email protected]; tell us how far along your organization is in the knowledge economy and the basis for your assessment. 

If you are with a vendor organization, tell us both about your company and your customers (leaving out names to protect the innocent of course).  We will treat your information as confidential and not directly attribute anything to you or your organization without your express permission.

There are lots of metrics we can use; just to get you started, here is our current litmus test: when you get up at 3 in the morning to get a glass of water, do you also go to your home office and check your e-mail?  After all, something important might be happening somewhere in the global knowledge economy.

So look around, think about how you would want to measure what the knowledge economy is, take measure, and e-mail [email protected].  We'll report back to you in a few weeks with an update.  We thank you for your participation.