Good thoughts!

In regards to an interactionism (symbolic) and semiotic approach, Rick's comments are obvious insights.

We simply cannot negate the fact of self-signification on BOTH ends of a symbol. And people seem to limit the idea of what a symbol/sign is as well. It's not just words or images, but feedback, body gestures, thoughts, etc... So in regards to two people interacting in any form, symbols are the ONLY medium, and further which is self-signified on BOTH ends.

When I hear some people describe SenseMaker and self-signification, I feel there might be somewhat of a delusion persisting where it is expected that meaning objectively travels from the person doing the self-signification to the analyst. This couldn't be more wrong.

You see, if we are to recognize self-signification, we must recognize it in all aspects of it's relevance.

Furthermore, we simply cannot escape as well the impact of the creation of the signifier sets, which I think Rick is alluding to. The person who creates the question is ultimately creating the appropriate answer, as self-signified by them. And no matter how "self-signified" the responses are, all stakeholders must self-signify the self-significations.

Otherwise we are living under the delusion that symbols tell us what they mean, instead of us telling symbols what they mean.

Dave,

Other question: what is your feeling towards adding methods like the MSC to the CE wiki/method sections?

The aim would be to build on the state of the art of today towards the state of the art for tomorrow.

Are there others methods from other sources that deserve to be included in the CE open source method collection.

Or is this against the CE policy?

This is an interesting change of direction given some of things that you have said about MSC in the past. What next? A combined Cog Edge / Appreciative Inquiry project after a real ale drinking contest with David Cooperrider?

Whatever. This is good news and I look forward to the coming outputs with enthusiasm.

Not really Matt, I liked the idea of MSC and made a couple of attempts some years ago to get interest in the SenseMaker™ link - it seemed that we had better methods of narrative capture and more interesting ways to vote that their current use. Something that was confirmed in my conversations with Rick. Always better to talk direct, then to rely on third parties. Equally Ai as a therapeutic technique, or an approach to a pathologically negative organisation fine. As a KM tool it doesn't really work, too much emphasis on the therapist/consultant. Many things work well without boundaries, but fail when they are used inappropriately.

Harold - happy to add methods (or variations of methods) if they follow the basic principles of naturalising sense-making.

Mark, interesting points. I have always seen self-signification within a constrained framework as creating the potential for emergent meaning. More on that in a later post.