Steve Barth | Reflexions

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.

A Sojourn for the Senses

We only had a couple of days in Tokyo, but thanks to advice from our friends (and reward-point nights at the Hilton), we maxed out on fabulous restaurants for an ultimate culinary vacation: In Ginza, we cooked beef and pork shabu shabu at Shabusen, which the International Herald Tribune once called one of the top 10 restaurants in the world… We had a traditional two-tray lunch at Kanda Yabu Soba, a 128-year old noodle shop in Akihabara… We had $15 fruit juice with all the society girls at Tanaka, which treats oranges and pineapples the way other brands treat diamonds… At the chic Shinjuku yakitori shop, Imaiya Honten, the chicken is so fresh you can eat it raw or cooked any of a dozen other ways (see this review of the chain's original)… Window shopping in Omotesando (more for the actual windows than the brands inside—see below) we ended up at Yoku Moku for coffee, dessert and souvenirs for lucky colleagues… Finally, we treated ourselves to an outrageously good (and expensive) omakase chef's-choice dinner at famous sushi-ya Sushi-Kan.

Patenting Ancient Wisdom

When you want your knowledge to be freely available, how do you keep other people from claiming it as their own? NewsHour rebroadcast an interesting segment tonight about India's efforts to protect and preserve its traditional knowledge. The problem starts when people patent or copyright ancient methods, such as yoga positions or medicinal uses of spices. More than 2,000 patents per year are awarded on tricks such as using turmeric for healing wounds.

In 1997, a Texas company got a patent on basmati rice, which meant that it would get a royalty payment when anyone else sold rice by that name. The Indian government filed 50,000 pages of evidence to show that basmati rice grown in India for centuries was essentially the same stuff. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office finally revoked the basmati patent in 2001.

At the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, which began in 2002, Indian scholars catalog ancient manuscripts on medical knowledge, architecture, music and the arts, to digitize 5,000 years of knowledge—an estimated 30 million pages—into a multilingual database that can be more easily referenced by international patent offices checking on the validity of filed claims.

"But I don't know how to do that!"

In the

beginner's mind

there are

many possibilities.

In the

expert's mind

there are few.

—Shunryu Suzuki

Meditation Increases Attention

In our sense-making work, we have been looking at the relationship between different approaches in eastern meditation practices that result in or involve tranquility, insight and mindfulness.

Now a scientific study recently published points to increased attention to fast-changing stimuli when subjects practice meditation.

Meditation teachers such as Gil Fronsdal would point out that there are differences between attention, awareness and mindfulness. (See Fronsdal’s talk on mindfulness here.)

These three concepts are often used interchangeably, but the differnces need to be better explored. For example, attention--as concentration--can cause tunnel vision that misses threats coming from unexpected angles. Whereas awareness can be seen as an improvement in peripheral vision.

Dharma for Dummies

A few months ago I discovered Gil Fronsdal, a Buddhist scholar and teacher whose explorations of Vipassana and Zen led him to study in monasteries throughout Asia and also to Stanford University. Gil’s dharma talks are posted on the Web and are amazingly digestible and thought-provoking for a novice Westerner.

There are almost 500 of his talks posted for free download. His own selection of best 32 talks--in order--are at www.audiodharma.org/talks-rec.html. I'm about half way through; I took him backpacking with me a few months ago. There's also a site called Zencast that mixes talks by Gil and others with some music and also classic talks by people like Shunryu Suzuki.

Jakuchu and the Age of Imagination

The Price Collection, Jakuchu and the Age of Imagination is turning out to be the astonishingly popular traveling exhibition from the Shin’enKan Foundation. It’s a real triumph for Joe and Etsuko Price, who single-handedly curated world attention for Edo-period painters such as Itoh Jakuchu (1716-1800) long dismissed even by Japanese art historians. Joe was first attracted to Japanese art while apprenticed to Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed the Price Tower for Joe’s father in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

I’ve been a huge fan of the Prices ever since first getting to know them at the Japan America Society of Southern California in the 90s. JAS Director Doug Erber reports that Joe has become a sidewalk celebrity in Japan, mobbed by teenagers wherever he goes.