I never know quite how to explain / articulate it, but in my experience there's a lot (and with consistent frequency) of the "lo-and-behold" experience, things (information, knowledge, something useful) shows up when you're in the flow .. as often as not before one actually starts looking for whatever it is.

It must be related to the feedback loops and networks-of-networks through which one's flow of incoming and outgoing information operates.

Thanks for the link Dave

Your comment got me thinking more about librarians being people connectors (which is at the heart of KM), and how social networks are taking the reigns, so instead of a hub heavy network we have enabling technologies where all the edges connect into a people web.

This comment was getting long so I made a new blog post:
http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2007/11/29/librarians-network-enablers/

Here's an excerpt:

"...librarian knowing the interests of lots of people in the organisation. We have to capitalise on this as we are one of the few people in the organisation who knows who likes what…so we introduce these people that have common interests, this is especially interesting if it’s cross disciplinary.

Introducing and linking people slowly creates a network, the librarian is overworked, but hopefully the network will start to manifest its own connections, but how will this happen (assuming people want to network) without enabling technologies."

Thanks again for your inspiring philosophies.

Jon,

Equally reciprocated in that I've been thinking and blogging about the librarians role lately, and Daves post about librarians flowed or made itself present into my current mindset, and what was originally going to be a comment in this post has become a new blog post.

As long as we have intention our thoughts are out there in the mindosphere (couldn't help myself ;), I think we pick up and link with each other thoughts in the collective consciousness just like we do in the blogosphere, only we don't know it.

Just like when your partner says something you were thinking, or something that you know but had not come to the forefront of your mind yet, or the phone rings when your thinking about that person.

Like you say, when you are in the flow, your just being and things find you...a very interconnected world, which I think the concept of social networks harnesses.

John

Carl Jung referred to these types of coincidences as sychronicity. To my knowledge, however, there is no scientific evidence that such events are anything but pure coincidence. Even very unlikely events do happen. Rather consider all the times your phone rang and you did NOT think of the caller at that moment.

Leon

Dave,
John T blog post is really impressive, detailed and well put. However, I think that it cannot reffred as "Knowledge management", but an "Information specialist" work, isn't it?

Librarians rock!
[Ooops, my profession is showing...]

Leon,

Coincidence is a very contentious word.

What you say is correct if you take the Newtonian view of the world as a machine that is objective and measurable, but this doesn't apply in the sub-atomic world and beyond.

Quantum physics, string theories, Bells theorem on local causes, implicate order, etc are coming full-circle with mysticism and native spirituality...about the interconnectedness of all things...hence, my comment.

Those times I was connected to the person who was phoning me, to my mind, means I was tapped into or in tune...but most of the time we are our brain beta mode, too distracted and busy to tap into this stuff.

I'm no physicist and have to go to my book reading notes to recap on stuff, and one book that is amazing is, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, also check out the Tao of Physics, and for the interconnectedness of things you can't go past The Holographic Universe.

I'm getting excited here, for more indigenous studies see: Blackfoot Physics, The Cosmic Serpent, Supernatural (Graham Hancock), and the Carlos Castaneda collection (these books are about manipulating energy...fiction or not, it doesn't really matter).

John

We'll have to agree to disagree here. As enthusiastically as you support the application of quantum physics to mentation and thence to mysticism, I consider it to be pseudoscience nonsense (at least until a body of scientific evidence proves me wrong). I quote the phycisist Robert Park from his book Voodoo Science: "Where once the magician in his robes would have called forth the spirits, the pseudoscientist invokes quantum mechanics, relativity, and chaos."

I'm new to the blogosphere and not too sure about blog etiguette. Rather than continuing this dialogue on Dave's blog, should we not do so privately? If so, e-mail me on LeonStander@gmail.com.

Leon