Knowledge has to do with how much control is exercised over different types of information. Knowledge can be divided into four categories:

a- Know what

b- Know why

c- Know how

d- Know who

Information technology is busy turning these types of information into symbols and goods that can impact (more directly than by the past) economy, capital, and nation.

a- Know what: This type of knowledge has to do with knowing facts, which is more like traditional knowledge such as the knowledge of medical facts by doctors or that of law by attorneys, etc. 

b- Know why: This type of knowledge has to do with knowing the causes behind natural phenomena and their exploitation to serve humanity. This type is behind the development of scientific and technological knowledge, industry, the production of various goods, etc. The resources of this type of knowledge focus on units of education, research, and development, both public and private.

c- Know how: This type of knowledge has to do with expertise in the implementation of things, be they, managing individuals,  making operations work, setting systems and machines in operation, or various technological implementations. It is usually the case that such knowledge is the property of societies and institutions, and acquiring some of it requires different, complex, and expensive apparatuses.

d- Know who: This type of knowledge has to do with specialist knowledge. The importance of such knowledge is on the increase: Knowing who can do something is required to execute such a job properly and economically. To create an interactive economy badly needs such knowledge, which also surely and soundly helps speed up the execution of projects.

Teaching control over these four types of knowledge is acquired through various means. The “know what” and the “know why” are taken from books, educational and training institutions, and databases. As to the two other types, they can only be acquired through practice.

But making knowledge available and turning it into information made information technology (IT) a tremendous tool whose job is to make knowledge affordable to the world, especially since information networks such as the Internet and others, are curtailing distances, abridging times, reducing cost, and facilitating use. This symbolizing of knowledge and storing it digitally (from information in books, magazines, agendas, references, indices, images, sounds, films), beside facilitating its transfer via international networks, make knowledge a tool in economic, cultural, and safety development of utmost importance. This is what leads us to “information society,” which generates, transports, and uses knowledge in all walks of life.

Making knowledge available and turning it into digital information causes it to become a commodity whose types multiply day-by-day and whose role in the global economy, which becomes “knowledge economics,” increases in importance.