Much of so-called "science education" in schools is about learning categories, category schema and reduction from wholes to parts. We, in other words, are prepared by a Cartesian-derived way of looking at the world to look at it in precisely this brain-dead way.

Look how much effort it takes to break people out of thinking of Cynefin as a categorisation schema! The temptation to fit the data to the categories is constant: it is our experience.

Heidegger, in "The Question Concerning Technology", talked about losing the ability to think outside the framework. The framework he talks about - techné (German: technik) - is one imbued with process and technology (and occasionally people). Even many of the social networking types look for how to use SNs as objects rather than how to be co-evolutionary and participative subjects with others (at the risk of a slap for using a bifurcation like subject & object).

Of course, it's impossible to reduce a complex topic to three subtopics without trivialization. That trilogy is reminiscent of Linstone's original Technical/ Organizationa/ Personal 'multiple perspectives' approach. One reason, I think, is because each is qualitatively different from the others, despite the fact that they interpenetrate and reticulate. A second reason is that over a reasonably short period in time each is pretty much frozen. For example, you may not want to have to conform to the technology, but it is what it is, and on any given day (to paraphrase a well-known phrase), you do business with the technology you have, not the technology you wish you had.

Dave,

Patrick uses a four-pole diagram using "people", "business", "content" and "technology" to show the competing interests and aptitudes which must be balanced by various job roles in the IM/KM space.

e.g. see p30 of his 2008 iCKM presentation.

In my view, his version is far less flawed, since it emphasises influences on knowledge managers rather than components of KM, but it wouldn't surprise me if this idea had been taken and tinkered with by others.

Another possibility is the blending of KM ideas with Enterprise Architecture (a discipline that never met a process-driven approach to change it didn't like). EA has four 'pillars' which might seem broadly compatible with KM, being Business (people), Applications (process), Data (content) and Technology.

I dunno that it's really misguided, it seems quite practical to me. Since the invention of HR and IT departments, people and technology have been managed separately from the business process. So no point blaming knowledge management for this.

One part of me thinks HR and IT should be abolished completely, and this would solve your problem. Another part of me is tempted to acknowledge that there are distinct "logics" not to mention suites of technical knowledge and skills associated with each strand of activity, so categorisations are useful ways to distinguish and resource these.

That in itself should not be a preventer of co-evolution, so long as you have integrative activities to bind them into coherent activity. That's where there IS a big gap, not just in KM but in organisations as a whole.

Language leads to action, and the language of categories tends to categorisation ....

Nice soapbox, Dave - I have a similar one! ;o)

Dave,

Only by distinguishing one course of action from another (i.e. through the use of categorization) can any action take place.

Your insistence against categorisation reminds me of this quote from Neil Gaiman:

One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or the world, is by telling the story. It is a balancing act and it is a dream. The more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. The most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless. The tale is the map that is the territory.

Categorisation must be fluid in order to be functional. But without categories people could not function at all.

Stephen - there is nothing wrong with categorisation if the system is ordered and has clear boundaries. However for a complex system the best you can have is coalescence or coherence. You are not prevented from action of course, but he nature of action is different. Applying categories to human systems militates against good decision making in general, but specifically as you enter boundary states, which are always fuzzy. Something the author of American Gods knows well as he writes about fuzzy boundaries all the time.

Dave, my point is that simply naming something doesn't automatically imply reductionism or strict categorisation.

We need to teach people to be smart about edge cases and complex interactions, sure. But there's nothing inherently wrong with putting a label on parts of the world.

Also, categorisation of a complex idea helps those who have difficulty 'getting their head around' the complixities to at least gain enough of an understanding of the issue to be able to take some action...

Otherwise confused people tend to shut their mind totally to what they don't understand &/or react in a hostile and negative way.

Categorising may therefore be the only way to get the majority to take the action(s) you want.

With regard to categorisation, and an ordered system and clear boundaries, I was wondering how this pertains to the system which group people.

For example, I notice today that a council in Wales has concerns about the use of the word 'British'.

"New guidelines for town hall workers state that "many Scots, Welsh and Irish resist being called British" and says people from ethnic minorities should be called "British Asians" or "Chinese British".
Officials at Caerphilly in South Wales are warned that "the idea of 'British' implies a false sense of unity".

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I wonder if these officials have been on too many Cynefin courses..........

Stephen, there is nothing wrong with naming things, but that does not imply that all things which are named are categories. In the context of my rant the three names were being used to separate three sets of action (over time) which is the issue. You can name the centre of a coalescence and still acknowledge it has fuzzy boundaries.

David - nationality is a good case of coalesence. I see myself as Welsh and European, but I am a British Citizen. Life is ambiguous and a desire not to be absorbed into Empire precedes CE courses

Nicola - I am finding that people in field roles are very happy if you move away from categories in respect of human systems

With regards to nationality and coalesence, I'm interested in some details on this. (I am guessing though that this will drop off the blog in a day or so - which incidentally is one of the drsawbacks of this site, compared to a forum).

Anyway, I was wondering firstly why you instinctively used the word "but" preceding British citizen. And secondly, I'm fascinated to understand what you mean by "European": do you mean the EU - or do you mean 'Greater Europe' including parts of the old Soviet Union? Is it defined by land borders (boundaries?) - or is it a 'state of mind'? (Oh, and why?)

Thanks, David.

"In the context of my rant the three names were being used to separate three sets of action (over time) which is the issue."

No objections here Dave.

However, it's worth pointing out that this context is important to avoid people misinterpreting your original post.

I could "kinda sorta" intuit that this was the issue given your references to "bio-reengineering" and "linearity", but it was never spelled out.

David - my use of "but" was really to say that while I consider myself Welsh and European I am formally a British Citizen. Ie the nation state does not always conform with nationality - as to European, I mean the continent, but happy to accept the EU as a pollitical limit.

Stephen - I think we are now agreed. It was a rant remember!

I have been trying to imagine a world without categorization. What does it look like? Do we have to get rid of all the words we have today as it seems to me that they are the result of categorization. Tall, big, red, smart, stupid, happy, frustrated, sad.. are all words that categorize. Even the word categorize itself!

I can't imagine a world without categories either, but a world in which everything is categorised is a different matter

So who decide what should and should not be categorized. Is there some authority that we must refer to?

Why on earth does there need to be an authority? Its really very simple. If the class of things has clear boundaries and there is no ambiguity in context as which side of a boundary a thing belongs then it can be categorised. If the boundaries are more ambiguous (such as those between people and their tools (technology) then its fussy and categorisation is a mistake.

You are trying to categorize what can and cannot be categorized. Are we having a problem that defines itself?

Oh please - you are on your own after that one