|
"Everything dies, including information" - nice piece from Erik Sherman in
MIT Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/26/1061308/death-of-information-digitization:
'You make educated guesses and hope for the best, but there are data sets that are lost because nobody knew they’d be useful...'There are never enough people or money to do all the necessary work—and formats
are changing and multiplying all the time.
One of the reasons I'm so interested in the use of foresight with KM = wise prioritisation of what we store and share can be informed by the perspective of imagined future contexts: what will we need to know, what will
we wish we had preserved, in contrasting futures which challenge our assumptions about what comes next?
As
the Bodleian Libraries’ Frankie Wilson put it at EBLIP 10 “Using Evidence in Times of Uncertainty”, sometimes we need to make strategic decisions which
existing evidence seems to tell us not to... (Seems rather prescient now with pandemic hindsight).
M.
MATTHEW FINCH
Associate Fellow, Saïd Business School
|
|
|
I agree Matt. I've been looking at this problem for several years and have proposed that KM strategy, as one of its core functions, identify critical knowledge and a strategy for preserving it. I've also proposed intentionally forgetting of obsolete knowledge (the track I co-chair at HICSS has a minitrack on intentionally forgetting). I've attached an article I wrote in 2013 on this topic and published in an issue of iKnow (I'm including the whole issue as there are several good articles on KM risk). Thanks....murray jennex
-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Finch <Matthew.Finch@...>
To: main@sikm.groups.io <main@SIKM.groups.io>
Sent: Sun, Nov 27, 2022 8:19 am
Subject: [SIKM] "Everything dies, including information" / uncertainty and preservation of knowledge
"Everything dies, including information" - nice piece from Erik Sherman in
MIT Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/26/1061308/death-of-information-digitization:
'You make educated guesses and hope for the best, but there are data sets that are lost because nobody knew they’d be useful...'There are never enough people or money to do all the necessary work—and formats
are changing and multiplying all the time.
One of the reasons I'm so interested in the use of foresight with KM = wise prioritisation of what we store and share can be informed by the perspective of imagined future contexts: what will we need to know, what will
we wish we had preserved, in contrasting futures which challenge our assumptions about what comes next?
As
the Bodleian Libraries’ Frankie Wilson put it at EBLIP 10 “Using Evidence in Times of Uncertainty”, sometimes we need to make strategic decisions which
existing evidence seems to tell us not to... (Seems rather prescient now with pandemic hindsight).
M.
MATTHEW FINCH
Associate Fellow, Saïd Business School
|
|
|
I’d be more cautious - the whole issue of what is or isn’t obsolete is a mute question. I’d talk more about abandoning over structured, information centric systems which tend to run out of utility more quickly. Chance and serendipitous discovery of knowledge is important and most KM approaches really don’t encourage that or are over depending on machine learning which is text only.
Prof Dave Snowden
Director & Founder - The Cynefin Centre CSO - The Cynefin Company Social Media: snowded
|
On 28 Nov 2022, at 04:50, Murray Jennex via groups.io <murphjen@...> wrote:
I agree Matt. I've been looking at this problem for several years and have proposed that KM strategy, as one of its core functions, identify critical knowledge and a strategy for preserving it. I've also proposed intentionally forgetting of obsolete knowledge (the track I co-chair at HICSS has a minitrack on intentionally forgetting). I've attached an article I wrote in 2013 on this topic and published in an issue of iKnow (I'm including the whole issue as there are several good articles on KM risk). Thanks....murray jennex
-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Finch <Matthew.Finch@...>
To: main@sikm.groups.io <main@SIKM.groups.io>
Sent: Sun, Nov 27, 2022 8:19 am
Subject: [SIKM] "Everything dies, including information" / uncertainty and preservation of knowledge
"Everything dies, including information" - nice piece from Erik Sherman in
MIT Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/26/1061308/death-of-information-digitization:
'You make educated guesses and hope for the best, but there are data sets that are lost because nobody knew they’d be useful...'There are never enough people or money to do all the necessary work—and formats
are changing and multiplying all the time.
One of the reasons I'm so interested in the use of foresight with KM = wise prioritisation of what we store and share can be informed by the perspective of imagined future contexts: what will we need to know, what will
we wish we had preserved, in contrasting futures which challenge our assumptions about what comes next?
As
the Bodleian Libraries’ Frankie Wilson put it at EBLIP 10 “Using Evidence in Times of Uncertainty”, sometimes we need to make strategic decisions which
existing evidence seems to tell us not to... (Seems rather prescient now with pandemic hindsight).
M.
MATTHEW FINCH
Associate Fellow, Saïd Business School
|
|
|
Right - the question of what is obsolete can only be resolved in hindsight, and even then maybe not once-and-for-all. Obsolescence comes about in a context; if the context changes, what was once obsolete might become relevant once more.
Hence why I think foresight work might be a useful way forward for KM: manufacturing plausible future contexts, challenging to current expectations, in which different knowledge and different ways of knowing might be relevant. Those future contexts
then give us a fresh vantage point on the decisions we must make today.
There's some good work from Burt and Nair on how scenarios help us to "unlearn" things which I think could be resonant with Murray's idea of forgetting:
"individuals and organisations acknowledge and release prior learning (including assumptions and mental frameworks) in order to accommodate new information and behaviours.”
I'm also interested in Frank Knight's distinction between risk and uncertainty - the question of whether, in a given situation, past precedent is useful for modelling what comes next.
To the point about chance and serendipitous discovery (& thinking about Erik Sherman's article), I guess the point is: decisions about KM have to be made based on limited resources and capacity - serendipity is hugely useful but you wouldn't leave
your strategy about what information to store & how entirely to chance.
Thanks Murray, thanks Dave --
On 28 Nov 2022, at 02:40, D J Snowden < snowded@...> wrote:
I’d be more cautious - the whole issue of what is or isn’t obsolete is a mute question. I’d talk more about abandoning over structured, information centric systems which tend to run out of utility more quickly. Chance and serendipitous discovery of knowledge
is important and most KM approaches really don’t encourage that or are over depending on machine learning which is text only.
Prof Dave Snowden
Director & Founder - The Cynefin Centre
CSO - The Cynefin Company
Social Media: snowded
|
I agree Matt. I've been looking at this problem for several years and have proposed that KM strategy, as one of its core functions, identify critical knowledge and a strategy for preserving it. I've also proposed intentionally forgetting of obsolete knowledge
(the track I co-chair at HICSS has a minitrack on intentionally forgetting). I've attached an article I wrote in 2013 on this topic and published in an issue of iKnow (I'm including the whole issue as there are several good articles on KM risk). Thanks....murray
jennex
-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Finch < Matthew.Finch@...>
To: main@sikm.groups.io < main@SIKM.groups.io>
Sent: Sun, Nov 27, 2022 8:19 am
Subject: [SIKM] "Everything dies, including information" / uncertainty and preservation of knowledge
"Everything dies, including information" - nice piece from Erik Sherman in
MIT Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/26/1061308/death-of-information-digitization:
'You make educated guesses and hope for the best, but there are data sets that are lost because nobody knew they’d be useful...'There are never enough people or money
to do all the necessary work—and formats are changing and multiplying all the time.
One of the reasons I'm so interested in the use of foresight with KM = wise prioritisation of what we store and share can be informed by the perspective of imagined future contexts: what will
we need to know, what will we wish we had preserved, in contrasting futures which challenge our assumptions about what comes next?
As the Bodleian Libraries’ Frankie
Wilson put it at EBLIP 10 “Using Evidence in Times of Uncertainty”, sometimes we need to make strategic decisions which existing
evidence seems to tell us not to... (Seems rather prescient now with pandemic hindsight).
M.
MATTHEW FINCH
Associate Fellow, Saïd Business School
|
|
|
Hi Dave,
Isn't a key benefit of information-centric systems that they can
sustain themselves beyond the knowledge of any individual
participant?
If we focus only maintaining the active knowledge dynamics of
individuals, then we risk creating structures that collapse as
soon as key players leave.
Yes, the flip side risk is that we end up with ossified
organisational processes, but the alternative of genuinely only
keeping knowledge in people's heads seems like a recipe for rapid
failure in the future.
Cheers,
Stephen.
On 28/11/2022 5:40 pm, Dave Snowden via
groups.io wrote:
I’d be more cautious - the whole issue of what is or isn’t
obsolete is a mute question. I’d talk more about abandoning over
structured, information centric systems which tend to run out of
utility more quickly. Chance and serendipitous discovery of
knowledge is important and most KM approaches really don’t
encourage that or are over depending on machine learning which is
text only.
Prof Dave Snowden
Director
& Founder - The Cynefin Centre
CSO - The
Cynefin Company
Social Media: snowded
|
On 28 Nov 2022, at 04:50, Murray Jennex via groups.io
<murphjen@...> wrote:
I agree
Matt. I've been looking at this problem for several years
and have proposed that KM strategy, as one of its core
functions, identify critical knowledge and a strategy for
preserving it. I've also proposed intentionally forgetting
of obsolete knowledge (the track I co-chair at HICSS has a
minitrack on intentionally forgetting). I've attached an
article I wrote in 2013 on this topic and published in an
issue of iKnow (I'm including the whole issue as there are
several good articles on KM risk). Thanks....murray
jennex
-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Finch <Matthew.Finch@...>
To: main@sikm.groups.io <main@SIKM.groups.io>
Sent: Sun, Nov 27, 2022 8:19 am
Subject: [SIKM] "Everything dies, including
information" / uncertainty and preservation of
knowledge
"Everything
dies, including information" - nice piece from
Erik Sherman in
MIT Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/26/1061308/death-of-information-digitization:
'You
make educated guesses and hope for the
best, but there are data sets that are
lost because nobody knew they’d be
useful...'There are never enough people or
money to do all the necessary work—and
formats are changing and multiplying all
the time.
One of the
reasons I'm so interested in the use of
foresight with KM = wise prioritisation of
what we store and share can be informed by the
perspective of imagined future contexts: what
will we need to know, what will we wish we had
preserved, in contrasting futures which
challenge our assumptions about what comes
next?
As
the Bodleian Libraries’ Frankie Wilson put it at EBLIP 10 “Using Evidence in Times of Uncertainty”, sometimes we need to make strategic decisions which
existing evidence seems to tell us not to... (Seems rather prescient now with pandemic hindsight).
M.
MATTHEW FINCH
Associate Fellow, Saïd Business School
--
Stephen Bounds
Executive, Information Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
|
|
|
We always know more than we can say, we can always say more than we can write down
Iinformation Management is necessary, information centricity is dangerous. Managing channels for knowledge to flow more resilient than codifying knowledge Prof Dave Snowden Cynefin Centre & Cognitive Edge Pro www.cognitive-edge.com
On 28 Nov 2022, at 22:02, Stephen Bounds <km@...> wrote:
Hi Dave,
Isn't a key benefit of information-centric systems that they can
sustain themselves beyond the knowledge of any individual
participant?
If we focus only maintaining the active knowledge dynamics of
individuals, then we risk creating structures that collapse as
soon as key players leave.
Yes, the flip side risk is that we end up with ossified
organisational processes, but the alternative of genuinely only
keeping knowledge in people's heads seems like a recipe for rapid
failure in the future.
Cheers,
Stephen.
On 28/11/2022 5:40 pm, Dave Snowden via
groups.io wrote:
I’d be more cautious - the whole issue of what is or isn’t
obsolete is a mute question. I’d talk more about abandoning over
structured, information centric systems which tend to run out of
utility more quickly. Chance and serendipitous discovery of
knowledge is important and most KM approaches really don’t
encourage that or are over depending on machine learning which is
text only.
Prof Dave Snowden
Director
& Founder - The Cynefin Centre
CSO - The
Cynefin Company
Social Media: snowded
|
On 28 Nov 2022, at 04:50, Murray Jennex via groups.io
<murphjen@...> wrote:
I agree
Matt. I've been looking at this problem for several years
and have proposed that KM strategy, as one of its core
functions, identify critical knowledge and a strategy for
preserving it. I've also proposed intentionally forgetting
of obsolete knowledge (the track I co-chair at HICSS has a
minitrack on intentionally forgetting). I've attached an
article I wrote in 2013 on this topic and published in an
issue of iKnow (I'm including the whole issue as there are
several good articles on KM risk). Thanks....murray
jennex
-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Finch <Matthew.Finch@...>
To: main@sikm.groups.io <main@SIKM.groups.io>
Sent: Sun, Nov 27, 2022 8:19 am
Subject: [SIKM] "Everything dies, including
information" / uncertainty and preservation of
knowledge
"Everything
dies, including information" - nice piece from
Erik Sherman in
MIT Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/26/1061308/death-of-information-digitization:
'You
make educated guesses and hope for the
best, but there are data sets that are
lost because nobody knew they’d be
useful...'There are never enough people or
money to do all the necessary work—and
formats are changing and multiplying all
the time.
One of the
reasons I'm so interested in the use of
foresight with KM = wise prioritisation of
what we store and share can be informed by the
perspective of imagined future contexts: what
will we need to know, what will we wish we had
preserved, in contrasting futures which
challenge our assumptions about what comes
next?
As
the Bodleian Libraries’ Frankie Wilson put it at EBLIP 10 “Using Evidence in Times of Uncertainty”, sometimes we need to make strategic decisions which
existing evidence seems to tell us not to... (Seems rather prescient now with pandemic hindsight).
M.
MATTHEW FINCH
Associate Fellow, Saïd Business School
--
Stephen Bounds
Executive, Information Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
|
|
|
Valdis Krebs
Agree with Professor Dave! Our experience with social/knowledge networks in organizations and communities show the foolishness of over-structuring, and trying capture/store the right data at the right time, etc. etc. Our 30 years of organizational consulting experience show that sociology/anthropology are much more important than technology when it comes to knowledge “management” — we tend to focus on sharing/learning/emergence as opposed to “management”.
I first saw this dynamic as an IT Project Manager (TRW, Toyota USA, The Walt Disney Company) and the message just got stronger during my consulting years: Sociology >> Technology (In Math >> means much greater than, here we use it as: much more important than… and when we say Sociology we mean all social sciences that recognize emergence, complexity, opportune patterns, etc.)
Valdis
|
|
|
The risk of that phrase has always been the implication that it
is a one-way reductive process from knowledge to information.
That's not how we operate in theory or practice. Information
encoding conceptualises, systematises, unifies, reinforces, and
persists. The presence of these information artifacts becomes a
new part of our individual and joint environments that can be used
to guide and alter our ongoing knowledge practices, and in ways
that would never have been possible without its representation and
abstraction as information in the first place.
Yes, resilience and adaptability is important. But robustness in
the face of disruption is a valuable outcome too, and the capture
and reuse of information is a key means of improving robustness.
I note that depending on what you mean by "information centric",
we may in fact be arguing the same point.
Cheers,
Stephen.
On 29/11/2022 8:44 am, Dave Snowden via
groups.io wrote:
We always know more than we can say, we can always say more than
we can write down
Iinformation Management is necessary, information centricity
is dangerous. Managing channels for knowledge to flow more
resilient than codifying knowledge
Prof Dave Snowden
Cynefin Centre & Cognitive Edge
Pro
On 28 Nov 2022, at 22:02, Stephen
Bounds <km@...> wrote:
Hi Dave,
Isn't a key benefit of information-centric systems that they
can sustain themselves beyond the knowledge of any
individual participant?
If we focus only maintaining the active knowledge
dynamics of individuals, then we risk creating structures
that collapse as soon as key players leave.
Yes, the flip side risk is that we end up with ossified
organisational processes, but the alternative of genuinely
only keeping knowledge in people's heads seems like a
recipe for rapid failure in the future.
Cheers,
Stephen.
On 28/11/2022 5:40 pm, Dave
Snowden via groups.io wrote:
I’d be more cautious - the whole issue of what is or isn’t
obsolete is a mute question. I’d talk more about
abandoning over structured, information centric systems
which tend to run out of utility more quickly. Chance
and serendipitous discovery of knowledge is important and
most KM approaches really don’t encourage that or are over
depending on machine learning which is text only.
Prof Dave Snowden
Director & Founder - The
Cynefin Centre
CSO - The Cynefin
Company
Social Media: snowded
|
On 28 Nov 2022, at 04:50, Murray Jennex via
groups.io <murphjen@...>
wrote:
I agree Matt. I've been looking at this
problem for several years and have proposed that
KM strategy, as one of its core functions,
identify critical knowledge and a strategy for
preserving it. I've also proposed intentionally
forgetting of obsolete knowledge (the track I
co-chair at HICSS has a minitrack on intentionally
forgetting). I've attached an article I wrote in
2013 on this topic and published in an issue of
iKnow (I'm including the whole issue as there are
several good articles on KM risk).
Thanks....murray jennex
-----Original
Message-----
From: Matt Finch <Matthew.Finch@...>
To: main@sikm.groups.io
<main@SIKM.groups.io>
Sent: Sun, Nov 27, 2022 8:19 am
Subject: [SIKM] "Everything dies, including
information" / uncertainty and preservation of
knowledge
"Everything dies, including
information" - nice piece from Erik
Sherman in MIT
Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/26/1061308/death-of-information-digitization:
'You
make educated guesses and hope for
the best, but there are data sets
that are lost because nobody knew
they’d be useful...'There are
never enough people or money to do
all the necessary work—and formats
are changing and multiplying all
the time.
One
of the reasons I'm so interested in
the use of foresight with KM = wise
prioritisation of what we store and
share can be informed by the
perspective of imagined future
contexts: what will we need to know,
what will we wish we had preserved, in
contrasting futures which challenge
our assumptions about what comes next?
As
the Bodleian Libraries’ Frankie Wilson put it at EBLIP 10 “Using Evidence in Times of Uncertainty”, sometimes we need to make strategic decisions which
existing evidence seems to tell us not to... (Seems rather prescient now with pandemic hindsight).
M.
MATTHEW FINCH
Associate Fellow, Saïd Business
School
--
Stephen Bounds Executive, Information
Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
--
Stephen Bounds
Executive, Information Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
|
|
|
IThe opposite Stephen, it says that reduction is impossible When robust systems fail the result is catastrophic, not the case if we focus resilience I suspect you are misreading Boisot on abstraction but you may not be making such a reference
Otherwise, while I think that information, and information management has value and is of critical importance, the phrase “ Information encoding conceptualises, systematises, unifies, reinforces, and persists.” Is to my mind (in practice and theory) a seductive rabbit hole that we should avoid.
Connectivity matters far more in effective knowledge management and practices such as informal network stimulation are more effective in context Prof Dave Snowden Cynefin Centre & Cognitive Edge Pro www.cognitive-edge.com
On 29 Nov 2022, at 01:22, Stephen Bounds <km@...> wrote:
The risk of that phrase has always been the implication that it
is a one-way reductive process from knowledge to information.
That's not how we operate in theory or practice. Information
encoding conceptualises, systematises, unifies, reinforces, and
persists. The presence of these information artifacts becomes a
new part of our individual and joint environments that can be used
to guide and alter our ongoing knowledge practices, and in ways
that would never have been possible without its representation and
abstraction as information in the first place.
Yes, resilience and adaptability is important. But robustness in
the face of disruption is a valuable outcome too, and the capture
and reuse of information is a key means of improving robustness.
I note that depending on what you mean by "information centric",
we may in fact be arguing the same point.
Cheers,
Stephen.
On 29/11/2022 8:44 am, Dave Snowden via
groups.io wrote:
We always know more than we can say, we can always say more than
we can write down
Iinformation Management is necessary, information centricity
is dangerous. Managing channels for knowledge to flow more
resilient than codifying knowledge
Prof Dave Snowden
Cynefin Centre & Cognitive Edge
Pro
On 28 Nov 2022, at 22:02, Stephen
Bounds <km@...> wrote:
Hi Dave,
Isn't a key benefit of information-centric systems that they
can sustain themselves beyond the knowledge of any
individual participant?
If we focus only maintaining the active knowledge
dynamics of individuals, then we risk creating structures
that collapse as soon as key players leave.
Yes, the flip side risk is that we end up with ossified
organisational processes, but the alternative of genuinely
only keeping knowledge in people's heads seems like a
recipe for rapid failure in the future.
Cheers,
Stephen.
On 28/11/2022 5:40 pm, Dave
Snowden via groups.io wrote:
I’d be more cautious - the whole issue of what is or isn’t
obsolete is a mute question. I’d talk more about
abandoning over structured, information centric systems
which tend to run out of utility more quickly. Chance
and serendipitous discovery of knowledge is important and
most KM approaches really don’t encourage that or are over
depending on machine learning which is text only.
Prof Dave Snowden
Director & Founder - The
Cynefin Centre
CSO - The Cynefin
Company
Social Media: snowded
|
On 28 Nov 2022, at 04:50, Murray Jennex via
groups.io <murphjen@...>
wrote:
I agree Matt. I've been looking at this
problem for several years and have proposed that
KM strategy, as one of its core functions,
identify critical knowledge and a strategy for
preserving it. I've also proposed intentionally
forgetting of obsolete knowledge (the track I
co-chair at HICSS has a minitrack on intentionally
forgetting). I've attached an article I wrote in
2013 on this topic and published in an issue of
iKnow (I'm including the whole issue as there are
several good articles on KM risk).
Thanks....murray jennex
-----Original
Message-----
From: Matt Finch <Matthew.Finch@...>
To: main@sikm.groups.io
<main@SIKM.groups.io>
Sent: Sun, Nov 27, 2022 8:19 am
Subject: [SIKM] "Everything dies, including
information" / uncertainty and preservation of
knowledge
"Everything dies, including
information" - nice piece from Erik
Sherman in MIT
Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/26/1061308/death-of-information-digitization:
'You
make educated guesses and hope for
the best, but there are data sets
that are lost because nobody knew
they’d be useful...'There are
never enough people or money to do
all the necessary work—and formats
are changing and multiplying all
the time.
One
of the reasons I'm so interested in
the use of foresight with KM = wise
prioritisation of what we store and
share can be informed by the
perspective of imagined future
contexts: what will we need to know,
what will we wish we had preserved, in
contrasting futures which challenge
our assumptions about what comes next?
As
the Bodleian Libraries’ Frankie Wilson put it at EBLIP 10 “Using Evidence in Times of Uncertainty”, sometimes we need to make strategic decisions which
existing evidence seems to tell us not to... (Seems rather prescient now with pandemic hindsight).
M.
MATTHEW FINCH
Associate Fellow, Saïd Business
School
--
Stephen Bounds Executive, Information
Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
--
Stephen Bounds
Executive, Information Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
|
|
|
I agree that in isolation, robust systems are more prone to
catastrophic failure. However, in the context of a larger
environment there may still be broader benefits to implementation
of a robust approach.
It is the essence of Schumpeterian destruction where capitalist
systems maximise their exploitation of a resource until they are
inevitably supplanted by a new paradigm. The individual companies
cease to exist, but the benefit to society persists.
No, I wasn't referring to Boisot. I can see some overlap with his
thinking but I'm not conceptualising a specific process, it is
more a generic reference to the role of information in effectively
diffusing knowledge across system boundaries, especially across
larger time and space paradigms. When you say:
Information encoding conceptualises,
systematises, unifies, reinforces, and persists.” Is to my mind
(in practice and theory) a seductive rabbit hole that we should
avoid.
I'd like to know exactly what you mean. Because taken literally
you seem to be arguing that the existence of language and writing
is a "seductive rabbit hole", and I presume you aren't seeking to
do that!
Cheers,
Stephen.
On 29/11/2022 2:43 pm, Dave Snowden via
groups.io wrote:
IThe opposite Stephen, it says that reduction is impossible
When robust systems fail the result is catastrophic, not
the case if we focus resilience
I suspect you are misreading Boisot on abstraction but you
may not be making such a reference
Otherwise, while I think that information, and information
management has value and is of critical importance, the
phrase “ Information encoding conceptualises, systematises,
unifies, reinforces, and persists.” Is to my mind (in practice
and theory) a seductive rabbit hole that we should avoid.
Connectivity matters far more in effective knowledge
management and practices such as informal network stimulation
are more effective in context
Prof Dave Snowden
Cynefin Centre & Cognitive Edge
Pro
On 29 Nov 2022, at 01:22, Stephen
Bounds <km@...> wrote:
The risk of that phrase has always been the implication
that it is a one-way reductive process from knowledge to
information.
That's not how we operate in theory or practice.
Information encoding conceptualises, systematises,
unifies, reinforces, and persists. The presence of these
information artifacts becomes a new part of our
individual and joint environments that can be used to
guide and alter our ongoing knowledge practices, and in
ways that would never have been possible without its
representation and abstraction as information in the
first place.
Yes, resilience and adaptability is important. But
robustness in the face of disruption is a valuable
outcome too, and the capture and reuse of information is
a key means of improving robustness.
I note that depending on what you mean by "information
centric", we may in fact be arguing the same point.
Cheers,
Stephen.
On 29/11/2022 8:44 am, Dave
Snowden via groups.io wrote:
We always know more than we can say, we can always say
more than we can write down
Iinformation Management is necessary, information
centricity is dangerous. Managing channels for
knowledge to flow more resilient than codifying
knowledge
Prof Dave Snowden
Cynefin Centre & Cognitive Edge
Pro
On 28 Nov 2022, at 22:02,
Stephen Bounds <km@...>
wrote:
Hi Dave,
Isn't a key benefit of information-centric systems
that they can sustain themselves beyond the
knowledge of any individual participant?
If we focus only maintaining the active
knowledge dynamics of individuals, then we risk
creating structures that collapse as soon as key
players leave.
Yes, the flip side risk is that we end up with
ossified organisational processes, but the
alternative of genuinely only keeping knowledge
in people's heads seems like a recipe for rapid
failure in the future.
Cheers,
Stephen.
On 28/11/2022 5:40
pm, Dave Snowden via groups.io wrote:
I’d be more cautious - the whole issue of what
is or isn’t obsolete is a mute question. I’d
talk more about abandoning over structured,
information centric systems which tend to run
out of utility more quickly. Chance and
serendipitous discovery of knowledge is
important and most KM approaches really don’t
encourage that or are over depending on machine
learning which is text only.
Prof Dave Snowden
Director
& Founder - The Cynefin
Centre
CSO
- The Cynefin Company
Social Media: snowded
|
On 28 Nov 2022, at 04:50, Murray Jennex
via groups.io <murphjen@...>
wrote:
I agree Matt. I've been looking
at this problem for several years and
have proposed that KM strategy, as one
of its core functions, identify critical
knowledge and a strategy for preserving
it. I've also proposed intentionally
forgetting of obsolete knowledge (the
track I co-chair at HICSS has a
minitrack on intentionally forgetting).
I've attached an article I wrote in 2013
on this topic and published in an issue
of iKnow (I'm including the whole issue
as there are several good articles on KM
risk). Thanks....murray jennex
-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Finch <Matthew.Finch@...>
To: main@sikm.groups.io
<main@SIKM.groups.io>
Sent: Sun, Nov 27, 2022 8:19 am
Subject: [SIKM] "Everything dies,
including information" / uncertainty
and preservation of knowledge
"Everything dies,
including information" - nice
piece from Erik Sherman in MIT
Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/26/1061308/death-of-information-digitization:
'You make
educated guesses and
hope for the best, but
there are data sets that
are lost because nobody
knew they’d be
useful...'There are
never enough people or
money to do all the
necessary work—and
formats are changing and
multiplying all the
time.
One of the
reasons I'm so interested in
the use of foresight with KM
= wise prioritisation of
what we store and share can
be informed by the
perspective of imagined
future contexts: what will
we need to know, what will
we wish we had preserved, in
contrasting futures which
challenge our assumptions
about what comes next?
As
the Bodleian Libraries’ Frankie Wilson put it at EBLIP 10 “Using Evidence in Times of Uncertainty”, sometimes we need to make strategic decisions which
existing evidence seems to tell us not to... (Seems rather prescient now with pandemic hindsight).
M.
MATTHEW FINCH
Associate Fellow, Saïd
Business School
--
Stephen Bounds Executive,
Information Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
--
Stephen Bounds Executive, Information
Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
--
Stephen Bounds
Executive, Information Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
|
|
|
The dangerous rabbit holes are (what I consider) you exaggerated claims for the role of information management. Schumpeterian disruption is another dangerous rabbit hole as it leads into the Forest Cycle error Prof Dave Snowden Cynefin Centre & Cognitive Edge 11 Pro Please excuse predictive text errors and typos
On 30 Nov 2022, at 07:19, Stephen Bounds <km@...> wrote:
I agree that in isolation, robust systems are more prone to
catastrophic failure. However, in the context of a larger
environment there may still be broader benefits to implementation
of a robust approach.
It is the essence of Schumpeterian destruction where capitalist
systems maximise their exploitation of a resource until they are
inevitably supplanted by a new paradigm. The individual companies
cease to exist, but the benefit to society persists.
No, I wasn't referring to Boisot. I can see some overlap with his
thinking but I'm not conceptualising a specific process, it is
more a generic reference to the role of information in effectively
diffusing knowledge across system boundaries, especially across
larger time and space paradigms. When you say:
Information encoding conceptualises,
systematises, unifies, reinforces, and persists.” Is to my mind
(in practice and theory) a seductive rabbit hole that we should
avoid.
I'd like to know exactly what you mean. Because taken literally
you seem to be arguing that the existence of language and writing
is a "seductive rabbit hole", and I presume you aren't seeking to
do that!
Cheers,
Stephen.
On 29/11/2022 2:43 pm, Dave Snowden via
groups.io wrote:
IThe opposite Stephen, it says that reduction is impossible
When robust systems fail the result is catastrophic, not
the case if we focus resilience
I suspect you are misreading Boisot on abstraction but you
may not be making such a reference
Otherwise, while I think that information, and information
management has value and is of critical importance, the
phrase “ Information encoding conceptualises, systematises,
unifies, reinforces, and persists.” Is to my mind (in practice
and theory) a seductive rabbit hole that we should avoid.
Connectivity matters far more in effective knowledge
management and practices such as informal network stimulation
are more effective in context
Prof Dave Snowden
Cynefin Centre & Cognitive Edge
Pro
On 29 Nov 2022, at 01:22, Stephen
Bounds <km@...> wrote:
The risk of that phrase has always been the implication
that it is a one-way reductive process from knowledge to
information.
That's not how we operate in theory or practice.
Information encoding conceptualises, systematises,
unifies, reinforces, and persists. The presence of these
information artifacts becomes a new part of our
individual and joint environments that can be used to
guide and alter our ongoing knowledge practices, and in
ways that would never have been possible without its
representation and abstraction as information in the
first place.
Yes, resilience and adaptability is important. But
robustness in the face of disruption is a valuable
outcome too, and the capture and reuse of information is
a key means of improving robustness.
I note that depending on what you mean by "information
centric", we may in fact be arguing the same point.
Cheers,
Stephen.
On 29/11/2022 8:44 am, Dave
Snowden via groups.io wrote:
We always know more than we can say, we can always say
more than we can write down
Iinformation Management is necessary, information
centricity is dangerous. Managing channels for
knowledge to flow more resilient than codifying
knowledge
Prof Dave Snowden
Cynefin Centre & Cognitive Edge
Pro
On 28 Nov 2022, at 22:02,
Stephen Bounds <km@...>
wrote:
Hi Dave,
Isn't a key benefit of information-centric systems
that they can sustain themselves beyond the
knowledge of any individual participant?
If we focus only maintaining the active
knowledge dynamics of individuals, then we risk
creating structures that collapse as soon as key
players leave.
Yes, the flip side risk is that we end up with
ossified organisational processes, but the
alternative of genuinely only keeping knowledge
in people's heads seems like a recipe for rapid
failure in the future.
Cheers,
Stephen.
On 28/11/2022 5:40
pm, Dave Snowden via groups.io wrote:
I’d be more cautious - the whole issue of what
is or isn’t obsolete is a mute question. I’d
talk more about abandoning over structured,
information centric systems which tend to run
out of utility more quickly. Chance and
serendipitous discovery of knowledge is
important and most KM approaches really don’t
encourage that or are over depending on machine
learning which is text only.
Prof Dave Snowden
Director
& Founder - The Cynefin
Centre
CSO
- The Cynefin Company
Social Media: snowded
|
On 28 Nov 2022, at 04:50, Murray Jennex
via groups.io <murphjen@...>
wrote:
I agree Matt. I've been looking
at this problem for several years and
have proposed that KM strategy, as one
of its core functions, identify critical
knowledge and a strategy for preserving
it. I've also proposed intentionally
forgetting of obsolete knowledge (the
track I co-chair at HICSS has a
minitrack on intentionally forgetting).
I've attached an article I wrote in 2013
on this topic and published in an issue
of iKnow (I'm including the whole issue
as there are several good articles on KM
risk). Thanks....murray jennex
-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Finch <Matthew.Finch@...>
To: main@sikm.groups.io
<main@SIKM.groups.io>
Sent: Sun, Nov 27, 2022 8:19 am
Subject: [SIKM] "Everything dies,
including information" / uncertainty
and preservation of knowledge
"Everything dies,
including information" - nice
piece from Erik Sherman in MIT
Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/26/1061308/death-of-information-digitization:
'You make
educated guesses and
hope for the best, but
there are data sets that
are lost because nobody
knew they’d be
useful...'There are
never enough people or
money to do all the
necessary work—and
formats are changing and
multiplying all the
time.
One of the
reasons I'm so interested in
the use of foresight with KM
= wise prioritisation of
what we store and share can
be informed by the
perspective of imagined
future contexts: what will
we need to know, what will
we wish we had preserved, in
contrasting futures which
challenge our assumptions
about what comes next?
As
the Bodleian Libraries’ Frankie Wilson put it at EBLIP 10 “Using Evidence in Times of Uncertainty”, sometimes we need to make strategic decisions which
existing evidence seems to tell us not to... (Seems rather prescient now with pandemic hindsight).
M.
MATTHEW FINCH
Associate Fellow, Saïd
Business School
--
Stephen Bounds Executive,
Information Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
--
Stephen Bounds Executive, Information
Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
--
Stephen Bounds
Executive, Information Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
|
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