Steve Barth | Reflexions

Wolfram|Alpha Confuses Answers and Facts

Everybody's googley-eyed about the long-anticipated first-coming of Wolfram|Alpha, launched yesterday. Already, the system claims 10+ trillion of pieces of data, 50,000+ types of algorithms and models, and linguistic capabilities for 1000+ domains. But can it cook?

Stephen Wolfram gives a very impressive demo. He should: he's both an acknowledged genius and simultaneously a guy who acts like he's pretending to be a genius. W|A stands as a milestone in The Quest for Computable Knowledge and is based on Wolfram's single-handed invention of A New Kind of Science (irrespective of previous work in chaos and complexity research).

A man of realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over …. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic…

Now, a Message from the Minister for Digital Engagement

This blog doesn't normally reprint press releases, but this was pretty engaging as is:

Cabinet Office names Director of Digital Engagement M2 Presswire May 13 2009

The Cabinet Office has appointed Andrew Stott to the new role of Director of Digital Engagement, a position created to take forward the Power of Information agenda. The Director of Digital Engagement will be based in Government Communications at the Cabinet Office and will work across Government departments to encourage, support and challenge them in moving from communicating to citizens on the web to conversing and collaborating with them through digital technology. The Director will:

Does Corporate Failure = PKM?

Nick Milton posted a critique of personal knowledge management, "PKM=Corporate Failure," in which he called PKM a distraction (seems so, since he took time to write).

Having written about questions of PKM for almost 10 years, I wanted to refute his article point by point. But it turns out that I agree with him in almost every way. I'm interested in PKM precisely because, like Nick, I'm interested in building better teams, communities, organizations and societies.

I have to admit, it's something that I find a little disturbing. You see, for me, Knowledge Management is not a personal thing; it's a communal thing.

Clearly, Nick and I don't define PKM in the same way.

Koan Zero?

Learning is breathing in

Creating is breathing out

Knowing is holding your breath

I've always been most interested in how knowledge management can facilitate personal and organizational learning as a way to improve understanding, decisions, actions and outcomes.

Although I've never seen it defined that way, I think that's the good intention behind most of our efforts. Too quickly, however, expedience redefines KM as analysis and explication, economics reduces KM to technology, rhetoric deludes us to believe that rules can change cultures and behaviors, and we forget that the quest to master knowledge is as old as consciousness itself.

Without being able to articulate the reasons why, I was increasingly uncomfortable with the goal of "knowledge creation" (so creating, above, would be creating value, I suspect). In fact, using the word "knowledge" makes me uncomfortable. For one thing, I don't think people actually act on what they know so much as on what they believe to be true (objectivity is overrated). But more importantly, I've come to believe that knowledge and learning are less interrelated than opposite and mutually exclusive concepts.

Novice and Master

Reading today about "conscious competence" made me cranky. But then I stumbled on this in my own slides:

The difference between the novice and the master is simply that the novice has not learnt, yet, how to do things in such a way that he can afford to make small mistakes. The master knows that the sequence of his actions will always allow him to cover his mistakes a little further down the line. It is this simple but essential knowledge which gives the work of a master carpenter its wonderful, smooth, relaxed, and almost unconcerned simplicity.

Christopher Alexander A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction 1977

Intelligence Unplugged

Robert K. Ackerman at SIGNAL Magazine has been tracking how virtual collaboration tools and methods are faring in the intelligence community.

Users set free to explore these new cyberspace systems have uncovered new capabilities and have driven the introduction of still more collaborative systems. The result is that finished intelligence reports now are richer than before virtual collaboration was adopted. An issue is viewed through more than one perspective; and the overall effect is timelier, more agile and more accurate intelligence reporting to decision makers.

He notes that projects based on instant messaging, social bookmarking and enterprise blogging have developed quickly because of only limited upfront structure, forcing users to take responsibility and adapt the tools to their needs.

62 KM Defintions are better than 1

Last year, Ray Sims compiled a discriminating list of 62 KM definitions (and counting). I think 62 definitions is a great start. As far as I'm concerned, the more the better—and much better than just one definition of knowledge management that tries to please everybody.

Best of all, many of these definitions are very different from how I see KM. For example:

"…the process of improving the job performance of knowledge workers by eliminating relevant ignorance and inability as quickly and inexpensively as possible…"

Why are multiple, bad definitions of KM better than one definition, even if it's really good?

What’s Wrong with KM Definitions

I think there are at least four problems with defining knowledge management:

1. The more definitions the better. Ambiguity forces people to negotiate meaning rather than assume they have shared understanding (when in fact they really don't).
2. A definition is worthless without defining knowledge, knowledge work, knowledge worker, knowledge economy, knowledge economics, learning, learning organizations, information, information management, etc.
3. On the other hand, I'm not sure that knowledge is what really matters. People act on what they believe, not what they know.
4. You never want to call it KM anyway. Many programs inculcate KM principles and values in every functional corner of the organization. But the best ones help people rediscover and then enhance every craft or culture's existing traditions of sharing and stewarding their expertise.