On this day in 1961 work started on the construction of the Berlin Wall. It stood for just over 28 years before it suddenly, surprisingly and wonderfully came down in 1989. That was the year my first child Eleanor was born. The following year we saw the start of the end of Apartheid and by December 1991 the Convention for a Democratic South Africa had started its work. In the same month and year my son Huw was born. It was a time of hope, both personal and also for openness in the wider world.

I’m writing in this in the middle of an narrative project in Toronto Canada. We are looking at health and life style issues relating to the use of drugs. There are some interesting paradoxes here. To take one example :

I freely decide to purchase and take vitamins and yet I resent taking the medicines prescribed by my physician...

Now we have 31 people with in four groups, each of which has a common condition such as asthma. They are all ages and social groups and we want to end up with several hundred stories, each of which is interpreted by the story teller not some expert. We want to real voice of the patients to come through and be heard.

They are a great group to work with, and they have trotted to and fro the video booths throughout the day to tell some profound and moving stories. They have done that with no facilitation in the groups. We gave them cards with open questions, or showed them pictures of life style conditions and left them to it. No focus group facilitator to influence what they said. No one telling them that they had to tell positive stories, or forcing them to decide which story was the most significant, or was the most important.

They have just spend the day telling stories, interpreting those stories and meaning is emergent and therefore triumphant

I’m sitting here with a can of Tiger trying to get away from emails and skype conversations to do some serious writing. I am listening to Boulez’s Bayreuth Ring Cycle which for me is the most powerful and driven version of the modern era with the best Brunhilde of all time in Dame Gwynneth Jones. My other favorite (and I have eight versions at the current count) is in complete contrast; a wonderfully balanced and more evolutionary performance produced in the same period under the baton of the greatest Wagnerian of all time Reginald Goodall. One of these days I will find some way to get tickets to Bayreuth!

Either way, after a couple of days of listening I have reached Siegfried’s funeral march. For me this represents one of the most moving pieces of music ever written, impossible to hear without an intense emotional response and difficult to listen to out of context. The death of the hero who does not know fear triggering the death of the Gods and the opening of hope for a human kind released from their control. Far more powerful to my mind than Ode to Joy as it represents a more complex transition of values. In the Boulez version it also represents a release from the greed and decline of 19th Century capitalism.

I remember sitting through a full performance of the Ring in the 1986 performance by the WNO over four glorious nights in the New Theatre Cardiff. In the final scene of Götterdämmerung, as Brünnhilde immolates herself on Siegfried’s funeral pyre, Kathryn Harries (who made Gutrune more than a supporting role) turned to the audience in a gesture that could only be one of a “release to act”, to take responsibility for the world freed from superstition.

One of the things I’ve noticed over the years is that doing new things is hard. Something that is self evident to the innovator is conceptually difficult to the establishment, by which I mean everyone who is comfortable for good or bad reason with the current way of doing things. You then get a secondary phenomena in which a group of people arise who offer to “simplify” or interpret the method or approach to make it more acceptable, and in doing so compromise the functionality. The greatest of the wise fools in the story telling traditions of the world Nasrudin has a story which summarises this need to people to make something “familiar” even at the cost of destroying what they found.

Nasrudin found a weary falcon sitting one day on his window-sill. He had never seen a bird like this before.
‘You poor thing’, he said, ‘how ever were you to allowed to get into this state?’
He clipped the falcon’s talons and cut its beak straight, and trimmed its feathers.
‘Now you look more like a bird,’ said Nasrudin.”

Now why am I raising all of this under the heading of special people?

One of the consequences of an over focus on process, be it BPR (Business Process re-engineering) or the more recent manifestation in Six-Sigma (which I sometimes refer to as Six-Stigma for reasons that I will expand on at some stage in the future) is an emphasis on Fail-safe, or getting it right. Now in a complex system, as I summarised recently you can never fully know the outcome in advance. If I cannot predict the end point of the journey and follow defined paths it behooves me to be more careful about the starting conditions. I also need to realise that I can’t get it right in advance, so I need to experiment with different ways of approaching the journey that are safe-fail in nature. That is to say I can afford them to fail and critically, I plan them so that through that failure I learn more about the terrain through which I wish to travel.

The first time I used the word Cynefin in print was in 2000 when I referenced one of the greatest artists of the modern period, Kyffin Williams. The article states:

Cynefin (pronounced cun-ev-in) is a Welsh word with no direct equivalent in English. As a noun it is translated as habitat, as an adjective acquainted or familiar, but dictionary definitions fail to do it justice. A better, and more poetic, definition comes from the introduction to a collection of paintings by Kyffin Williams, an artist whose use of oils creates a new awareness of the mountains of his native land and their relationship to the spirituality of its people: “It describes that relationship: the place of your birth and of your upbringing, the environment in which you live and to which you are naturally acclimatised.” (Sinclair 1998). It differs from the Japanese concept of Ba, which is a “shared space for emerging relationships” (Nonaka & Konno 1998) in that it links a community into its shared history – or histories – in a way that paradoxically both limits the perception of that community while enabling an instinctive and intuitive ability to adapt to conditions of profound uncertainty. In general, if a community is not physically, temporally and spiritually rooted, then it is alienated from its environment and will focus on survival rather than creativity and collaboration.

I have always loved the work of Kyffin Williams who encapsulated the landscape and culture within which I grew up. This is a small tribute to his genius, and his influence on a key aspect of my work. The Oriel Ynys Môn Gallery has a web site where you can see examples of his work.

One of the most thoughtful guys I know in the Blogosphere is Patrick Lambe. Always interesting with a gleeful and intelligent sense of humour. He has just posted on Invisible Influence. The posting will ruffle a few feathers with some gentle but deserved criticism but over all it is a reflection on the questions of influence and acknowledgment. I should also confess that he says nice things about me which I would like to deserve …..

However, as always with Patrick it got me thinking. I know that there are people and books that have influenced me so much that I probably don’t acknowledge the influence formally as often as I should. I get really angry when people don’t attribute my stuff to me, especially when they claim it as their own (in which respect I resonate with Patrick’s gentle criticism). I am also finding that influence can itself be dangerous and with at least two blogs I know I have caused offense (which means the count is probably higher). I’ve also realised that people can move from being sensitive to paranoid very easily! However I don’t think I regret anything to date and the British have a reputation for satire and irony into which tradition I fall.

Around this time five years ago I had just landed at Heathrow on a flight from Washington DC via Chicago. I had spent the previous few days at an office in Arlington VA working on a method to create situational archetypes. It was an experiment in sense-making during the early days of my DARPA work, which post 9/11 became a key part of Genoa II. We had taken a group of people from very different backgrounds through a process of abstraction, emergence and convergence based on a range of events in US history and had produced a series of archetypal historical lens. This is rather like the work we do in creating individual archetypes but with a different focus. It had been a great success, in that having gone through the process people were able to talk through current political situations, despite their radically different backgrounds from the perspective of each archetype. A conflict resolution method, but also one designed to increase the number of perspectives that would be taken into account in a foreign policy. It had not been easy, people had started with a negative and cynical approach but they had engaged, become interested then enraptured (well thats a bit strong but it was good). Above all they had seen the world through new lens and from a different perspective.

In 1966 we were on our last day of one of these visits when the news of the Aberfan disaster came on the television. It was another of those occasions where you remember where you were at the time generations later. I can see in my minds eye the mahogany table with the markings round the edge where we played with our toy racing cars. The shelf with family photographs and the view through the french doors onto the back garden strewn with the remnants of a game of cricket. 116 children were killed that day by the slag heaps thrown out by the production of coal, to feed the growth of the Empire.

Decades later I took my own children for a trip to the Big Pit and we went down the mine as tourists. At the bottom we stood by a huge fire door and the guide, a ex miner, put out the lights. It was, to quote Dylan Thomas starless and bible black, nor after a few moments did it seem to us that there was any prospect of light. In a different generation I might have sat there terrified on my first day of work, younger than I was in 1966 opening and closing the door to let the coal trains through. Sitting in absolute pitch black darkness surrounded by noises, the source of which I could only guess at. My father escaped being a Bevan Boy by the skin of his teeth and ended up instead in the RAVC on the North West Frontier for World War II. Another of those small events in history, but he came close. The rest of the family managed to avoid the mines.

Coal Mines were not just a constituent part of South Wales; to a large extend they defined it and from which the culture of work, chapel and rugby emerged. If you wanted another tough, hardened prop forward, the saying went, you just whistled one up from the nearest pit. Mining communities world wide were and remain special. The Miners Libraries of South Wales brought a generation of literacy and political activism. In the slate mines of North Wales, miners would gather during their breaks to debate religion and politics, in marked contrast with the drawing rooms of the newly rich and enfranchised. A richness other than money; although too many of the wrong people became rich through their toil. The Marquis of Bute spent money so gained, building mock castles. My Great Grandfather served him as Head Game Keeper, until he died of a heart attack and the whole family were thrown on to the streets and thus into the slums of Cardiff docks to make way for his replacement: that one is personal. A very different form of service from that provided by the solidarity of the mines and the communities that grew up around them.

Danger and glory often go together, but so, with regrettably greater frequency do greed and indifference. Let us return to Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

My thanks to Paolina via the ACT KM Forum for bringing my attention to this article. Apparently the IQ loss arising from addiction to email and text messaging is over double that arising from using cannabis. It inspired me to come up with a list of reasons for managers to restrict email use:

1. You will get time to walk the floor (and sometimes even walk the talk) not to mention think and talk strategically


2. Looking people in the eye tells you more than trying to make sense of emoticons, and an apology in the flesh is worth far more (in both directions) than any virtual communication


3. You will get a chance to check for reaction before you press send, and to recover in real time if you make a mistake; before it becomes fatal


4. The human brain evolved is designed to see patterns, not process small chunks of information, but if you spend your time processing said chunks you will loose the patterning capability (the neurons will die out) and end up as an information processor. Another name for that function/capability is clark not manager


5. Its far more likely that you will pick up that something is going right/wrong by meeting people in their own environment; you will sense multiple audio and visual tools that are not available in email


6. It is far too easy to come across as authoritarian using a keyboard, and its more difficult for people to say no to you face-to-face than it is in writing


7. Your eyesight and general disposition will improve, not to mention your flexibility to negotiate a win-win result with your staff and to see them as humans not avatars

Hemingway once said There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. Since I started blogging I have come to realise (and I hate to admit this) that Euan was right. Intimacy and trust can be as powerful if they emerge through the broadcast-network model that is the bloggosphere. Not the same mind you, more the sort of empathy that you get in a keynote, coupled with the conversatins that follow (comments). I mean that both ways: since I started to blog, I have been far more active in commenting on other people's sites. I can't find the blog where Euan made that statement mind you, but if you search his blog you will see that his taste in chairs is terrible (which is petty but I need to restore some pride).

The Nobel Peace Prize has a mixed history, but today they got it right when they awarded it to the Grameen Bank, created by Muhammad Yunus. The bank represents one of the most effective approaches to dealing with world poverty that I know. I often cite it as one of the best examples I know of complexity based management. It was the inspiration behind our development of Social Network Stimulation, a method designed to facilitate bottom up self-organisation to solve intractable problems.

Manege comes from the Italian Maneggiare meaning to handle and train horses and it's one of the origins of the word manage in English. I was reminded of its significance when I found a blog entry from Robert Paterson that reflects many of my own concerns on Presence by Senge et all.

It's forty years to the day since 144 people (116 of them Children) died when a waste tip from the coal mines slipped down a mountain to engulf several houses and the local school.

When the British slave trade was abolished, as result of the campaigns of Wilberforce and others there were a million slaves in the British Empire. According to a Unesco there are currently 27 million slaves world wide, and the average price is £60.

I have allowed myself to get sucked into a debate on the value of the SECI model. To my mind in the hands of consultants and IT vendors it has become the model that launched a thousand failed knowledge management initiatives. In responding to an as ever intelligent post from Richard Vines this morning I created a list of different approaches currently being taken on the use of complexity in social systems. I did this quickly so it is probably wrong, but share it below in the hope that others will improve and add to it.

There has been much debate in ActKM on the subject of ROI for KM projects and the use of an idealistic end state (or Utopia) to sell Executives on a KM programme. I have been engaged in that debate and reflecting on it I realised that I have spent the majority of my life discovering and selling new things to skeptical executives. To my mind at least nine principles that apply if you want to be an innovator:

One of the questions at KM World was the now familiar one question: Is KM dead? My view for about two years now is that it is on its last leg as a strategic movement (otherwise known as a fad) in management. We also have that infallible predictor that a fad cycle is coming to an end: government adopts it as industrial best practice.

Melisse was one of the larger than life figures in Knowledge Management. Author of KM for Dummies, early practitioner and all round one of the best networked people in the movement. I remember the first time I met her over dinner in London during the period of the knowledge wars in IBM, and the support she provided during a difficult time. I remember her sharing with me the archetypal Boudreaux stories that had deligted her during her childhood in Baton Rouge. Her laughter at those stories mingled with a serious and insightful comparison between the lessons of those stories and those of Nasrudin.

We all celebrated when she appeared to have recovered from breast cancer, and appeared to have stabilised following a recurrance last October. But two days ago her fight ended. She was supported by her family, and also by a community of KM people through email and telephone to the end. Its taken me the best part of two days to be able to write about and I share the poem I sent to her family here. I want it read at my own funeral and it is to my mind one of the great poems of the last century. It calls to the humanity and potential in all of us, as did Melissie through her life and work.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

Just over a week ago I summarised my understanding of three natural numbers: 5 as the effect limit of the short term memory, 15 as a natural limit on deep trust and 150 (the Dunbar number) as a natural limit on acquaintances, normally interpreted as a limited number of individuals in respect of whom one can maintain some degree of knowledge. The Dunbar number was originally raised on the Value Networks list serve (VNL) in the context of a possible limit on the viable membership of a network or virtual community. I promised at the time to look at the implications of social atomism for using these numbers. I will do that, but in a separate blog later this week. I found that reflecting on the VNL discussion raised more than enough issues for one blog. This was especially true as the postings by Scott Allen, and his supporting references, have made me rethink some long established positions. A change which has also been influenced by my own experience of the blogosphere. This is, to warn you, a mini-essay over 3000 words in length; it is fragmented in nature and its composition has taken some days and as a result I have failed to post for some days. It is in effect a series of thoughts which will end up as a chapter of the book or possibly an article so comments however harsh would be appreciated. The one thing I had not addressed, but have left for a Christmas holiday blog is the question of trust in a virtual community.

If we believe that murder is wrong and not admissible in our society, then it has to be wrong for everyone, not just individuals but governments as well.

HELEN PREJEAN, Dead Man Walking

Cory Banks on the actKM forum brought my attention to this interview. In it, Tom Stewart references Friedman's best seller The World is Flat and argues that, in such a world, the only way to make money is in the ridges and valleys. He sees this as one of the big ideas: how do you find the anomalies, the bumpy bits where you can do things differently. He also asserts that managing your ”smarts” (intellectual capital) is key, but knowledge management went down the wrong route with a focus on codification; a position I have supported all be it with a different twist.

I was writing today, something I can only do to music. I had spent the previous day immersed in Wagner and needed something that would bring me back to earth without trivialisation. On a whim, I selected Britten's War Requiem. I first heard this in Wells Cathdral many years ago. It is one of the most moving pieces of music I know; impossible to listen to with dry eyes. Britten brilliantly took the poems of that greatest of war poets, Wilfred Owen and interspersed them into the Latin Mass for the Dead. The following, one of his most famous poems is placed, significantly, in the Offertorium

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenched there,
And streched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

I had intended to post this on Martin Luther King day, but entered the wrong bring forward date in the diary which all goes to show the danger of relying overmuch on computers. I could leave it for next year but then it might go missing again! So here it is.

I had a throughly enjoyable day yesterday down at the University of the West of England looking at, and talking about the use of robots as a simulation device with Alan Winfield. Now anyone involved in complexity knows about simulation, although too many confuse simulation with prediction as their linear predecessors confused, and confuse, correlation with causation. Simple rules give rise to complex phenomena, so if we build a computer model in which each agent operates on a series of rules, then as the agents interact, patterns emerge. Flocking of birds, termite nest building are all examples of this, as is most of the special effects industry in Hollywood.

I have the privilege this week of attending the Finance Family Forum of a major North American company. I first worked with them around this time last year at the same meeting and in the same location when I was with them for a day. A few months ago I did a whole day strategy session with them, This year I have been allowed to sit in on their various discussions over three days and run one session each day using Cognitive Edge techniques. Today it will be The Future Backwards, tomorrow a general session on innovation. Yesterday was a refresher on sense-making. Now it is unusual for me to be working with the Finance Function, in most organisations they are the holders of the purse strings, the custodians of Newtonian measurement and the nay-sayers to innovative ideas. Here it is the opposite, in that the finance function is seeking to gain understanding of new and radical ways of thinking by which it can help the business. I also like the idea of the Finance function being a family (which they are, its not just a nice nice name). I almost gave up my long dislike of golf in order to be more fully integrated yesterday, but instead resisted and walked into Phoenix to add to my collection of Starbucks City Mugs (two on this trip with Atlanta on Monday).

Jon Husband sent me this interesting reference to the value of radio. I generally agree with the points it made and if anything would go further in arguing for the supremacy of radio over television as means of stimulating human imagination. Now before I proceed I need to confess that I starting to realise that I am in danger of becoming a parody of Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch. I had this pointed out to me by my son the other day when I told him that when I was young we had to walk two miles to school in all weathers dressed in shorts, and that included when the temperature was sub zero and there was snow on the ground. This did not have the desired effect of making him realise how lucky he was, but instead produced general derision and mockery. However at the risk of the same reaction from you, dear reader I want to tell you a story. Are you sitting comfortably?

“Though human ingenuity may make various inventions answering by different machines to the same end, it will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple, more direct than nature does; because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing superfluous. She needs no counterpoise when she creates limbs fitted for movement of the bodies of animals, but puts within them the soul of the body which forms them, that is the soul of the mother which first constructs within the womb the shape of man, and in due time awakens the soul that is to be its inhabitant.”

This quotation from Leanardo da Vinci comes courtesy of Andrew Campbell who sent it along with the picture. I asked his permission to replicate it and he replied to say yes and gave me some history on the picture itself.

“that picture was made by a young asian (indian) woman, who worked I think for PriceWaterhouseCooper, it was during a workshop I organised for a company in Oxford in 1998. It was subsequently incorporated into a book-manual of personal mastery/leadership exercises published in 2000. I was asked to create artworks for the book - but I proposed that rather than put my artwork in I could put in works selected from workshops i'd run, by people who did not consider themselves arty or artists. the artwork people produce are often like aphorisms or short sayings of some kind - this one is a beautiful object - like a child within a woman's belly... and i still have the original here, I also have a better jpeg if you prefer...the artist was Rose Nathan the exercise was exercise one: aligning with the person that you want to be. ;-)”

Andrew is always interesting, always challenging. I often disagree with him, I frequently don’t understand him but he does interesting work. He shows people how to use art to express complex issues. So if anyone is looking for a UK based artist able to help people with this sort of interpretative work then I will happily make the connection (or Andrew can leave details in the comments)

I was in Moelfre towards the end of last year, clearing my parents house before its sale; more of that later. I went for a final walk around the sea cliffs from their house to the harbor and town and came across this statue to Dic Evans, coxswain of the Moelfre Lifeboat.

Non British readers may not know that in the UK the lifeboat service (which performs many of the same services as the Coastguard in the US) is a voluntary organisation. The latest RNLI statistics show in 2006 lifeboats launched a total of 8,377 times (the highest annual number to date) and rescued 8,015 people .

The boats are paid for by public collection, and crewed by local people with deep knowledge of the sea. Often fisherman, working under conditions of extreme danger solely out of concern for others. It is rare for their heroism to be recognised in this way. They are ordinary people, living in the local community who understand that the world is not about selfishness, but about service.

A rushed day last Thursday, between taking the cat to the Vet, completing a paper on modulators in complex systems and dashing up to London for a just-in time-arrival at the Royal Opera House for what turned out to be a mixed performance of Madama Butterfly: The lead soprano missing a note at the start of Un Bel Di Vedremo but retrieved with a well sung but over-acted suicide in Act III. . I also had to attend a seminar in London the next day, so stayed up in one of those dire hotels in the west of London that charge more for less and on which I have previously commented. No internet access, a battery that did not last the train journey home and a traumatic weekend [please do not mention 10 seconds or Law 5.7 (e)], all resulted in my absence from the blogosphere for several days. For this I apologise, although this week will also be difficult as I am getting ready to present our work for the last two years at a symposium in Singapore next week.

To the subject of today’s blog; I stayed up in London as I had an EPSRC day seminar looking at the state of complexity science research in the UK all day Friday.

I am not sure what provoked it, but over the weekend Euan let fire with The 100% guaranteed easiest way to do Enterprise 2.0?, for those to lazy to click on the link this is the recipe:

1. Do Nothing
2. Get out of the way
3. Keep the energy levels up

I have just finished reading a fairly vigorous set of criticisms of Dave Pollard’s blog Nobody but Yourself. Dave is reading Dawkins diatribe at the moment and his blog thus addresses religion along with other issues. One of the critical comments referenced Terry Eagleton’s review of The God Delusion of which more later. By coincidence I knew Terry back in the 70’s when he was an editor of SLANT along with one of my intellectual mentor/hero’s Hubert McCabe (read his Faith within Reason if you get a chance). Terry has written one of the best books on understanding terrorism I know in Holy Terror from the OUP. This outstanding book traces terrorism from the cult of Dionysus to the modern day. It represents the sort of intelligent research, deep knowledge and considered reflection that is the antithesis of the cheap polemic and partial reporting of history which characterises the The God Delusion, and the primitive stereotyping of terrorism that is all too often found in politics. One quote from Holy Terror makes my point:

Genuinely believing that your enemy is irrational, as opposed to pretending to do so for propaganda purposes, will almost certainly ensure that you cannot defeat him. You can only defeat an antagonist whose ways of seeing things you can make sense of. Some of the British People may have believed that the IRA had no goals other than to maim and slaughter, but British Intelligence took a different view. There is nothing irrational, as opposed to morally repulsive, about killing people to achieve your political ends. It is not on the same level as believing that you are Marie Antoinette. If one’s enemy really is metaphysically evil, then the chances of defeating him look rather small. Not even the SAS can stand up to Satan.

An interesting quote here from Cognitive Daily.

When a suspect confesses to a crime, it's often seen as a clear victory for the prosecution. But what if the confession was coerced? Under the emotional strain of an interrogation, it happens more often than you'd think. In response to the problem of coercion, many police departments now videotape interrogations. This should eliminate all potential for abuse, right? Wrong. Teams led by Daniel Lassiter have found that when the camera is focused on the suspect instead of both the suspect and the interrogator, people are more likely to view the confession as voluntary rather than coerced (the video the viewers saw was based on the transcript of an actual false confession). Even when a judge warns jurors of the potential for bias due to camera perspective, the bias still occurs.

I am reading Mary Douglas’s excellent little book Thinking in Circles. To my mind she is of the most original and interesting anthropologists of all time. Her books are classics, but on this occasion she has stepped out of her domain of expertise to deal with a particular form of story. She apologies for her lack of expertise, but this is false modesty. She has brought new insight to a neglected field of study, and one that is relevant to the blogosphere: here I am picking up on my earlier Tribal Mind post. If you don't enjoy the analysis that follows go straight to the quote and final two paragraphs.

There is an old joke that I repeat from time to time (well that is the essence of an old joke). It goes like this:

A: Do you think computers will exceed humans in intelligence in the future?
B: Yes, because we are planning to meet them half way

During the last century we got a little too excited about computers and started to think that the brain was a computational device. At its worst excess (and this comes from my daughters A-level text book in psychology we get things like<"the human brain is a limited capacity information processing device". While science has moved on, this concept pervades popular management approaches, such as process engineering and many others. We even use computer metaphors such as: I have exceeded by bandwidth. In fact (and I use the word advisedly) human consciousness is far more than that. I referenced our increasing understanding of distributed consciousness back when I started blogging last year The need to get people to understand that consciousness (and cognitive capacity) is not confined to our brain cells, and that those brain cells are not a biological replication of silicon chips is one of my driving motivations in the work I do. The good news is that the body of evidence is growing to support this view. Evidence that also alleviates some of my earlier worries

I was engaged in a discussion earlier this morning with someone who feels that knowledge has to be written down if it is to survive the retirement or other loss for other cause of employees. Part of the exchange involved discussing understanding knowledge creation and use in call centres. This reminded me of a story from one of my early ethnographic projects in which (as the title suggests) I learnt some disturbing facts. I will tell that story later, for the moment let me set the scene, which will also set the context for tomorrow;s how to get started in KM summary that I promised Moscow delegates as well as the wider readership.

The other party to the discussion was heavily focused on codification, hence my engagement, I argued that the limits on effective codification are narrower than technology focused KMers would accept. My disputant was arguing that capturing knowledge through software at the point of its use/creation was critical. Now I agree that at the time knowledge capture is more effective than after action review on grounds of better recall, but also because the way we know things in the field is not the way we describe them when questioned. This latter point which has been known for some time and together with issues on question bias in interviews completely undermines traditional systems analysis and consultancy methods by the way, but such practices continue never the less. However despite that agreement I see at the time process as limited in its usefulness if the focus is on codification (I do not include narrative in that).

In effect we were agreed (with Boisot)' that codification increases diffusion of information. However in Boisot’s I-Space (read his wonderful Knowledge Assets for an explanation) there is a third aspect namely abstraction (which one might also describe as shared context and conventions). Shared context between message giver and message receiver is critical and that context comes, with some exceptions, from other sorces than written documents. This is where KM has in the main failed. Common context requires not just a common use of language (itself very difficult) but also a common set of experiences. This was the heart of our difference, so to make my point more explicit I said:

Let me tell you a story …..

It is a cliché to say that the internet opens up possibilities for new forms of organisations, but cliché or not, it is true. One of the ways this works is to transform what used to be known as the craft industry. If you walk around the streets of London you will encounter the various Guild Halls, such as that of the Leatherworkers (I have chose that example for reasons that will become self evident). A key part of the transition from Feudalism to a Merchant based society, the guilds providing a mechanism for apprenticeship and quality control that existing independently from land owning aristocrats. Like all human systems power could corrupt, but the progress from apprentice through journeyman to master provided a route to a better future that was not really rivaled in Britain until my generation, when University education through a grant system became available to all, not just to the privileged and the rare individuals who could earn scholarships.

During the early days of the Guilds there was a direct relationship between the craftsman (they were nearly all male) and the end customer. The guild provided a quality control, the guild stamp but the relationship was direct. Now the growth the the mercantile class increasingly divorced the creators of artifacts form the users of artifacts. One of the major changes offered by our connected age is for this separation to be removed, and for a direct relationship to be created again. Because any individual craftsperson (the sexism is going) can market themselves on the web the intimacy of a direct relationship and the customisation that goes with that relationship can be res-established.

A really excellent post today in Neurophilosophy on Dostoyevsky. The picture is of his statue outside the main Library near Red Square in Moscow, taken on my recent visit. Back in school days I won a County Prize for contributions over and above the academic. It was a £60 book token. Now the idea was that you went out and bought an Encyclopedia or something similar, but I had different ideas. In those days Penguin classics cost 30p or 6/- (we had just decimalised and mental arithmetic suffered in consequence). So I got my father to park outside the bookshop in Liverpool (the nearest big town to Yr Wyddgrug where I grew up) and came out half an hour later with 200 paperbacks. Youthful pretension ensured that they were all serious. The whole of Plato & Aristotle, coupled with the Greek & Roman histories was followed by a full set of Russian Literature.

A long three week holiday near Llangwynadl in a caravan with unseasonable heavy rain meant that I could not sail my Fireball, so I settled in and read. By luck I started with Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment which taught me more about ethics than the first year course at University some time later. Then to the Brothers Karamazov which transformed my understanding of religion and introduced me to a whole range of issues around ecstacy and vision. Now at that time I knew nothing of epilepsy, a position that has changed in recent years; although I do not, thank God, suffer from it myself. Dostoyevsky's writing was influenced strongly by that condition and I returned to his writing to gain more insight when I had to deal more directly with the phenomenon. This essay adds considerably to my understanding and I commend it.

Now back to proposals, expenses and invoicing - see Dilbert below

To all my friends in the US, and Virginia in particular. I am thinking of you, I still can’t believe it, I don’t want to believe it.

I went to see the ENO’s production of Glass’s second opera last night. It covers Ghandi’s period in South Africa from Tolstoy Farm to the New Castle March. There is just one performance left (tonight) so if you are in London and can free up the time I strongly recommend getting a ticket. It normally takes a long time for a modern opera to be revived although this was a joint production with the Met so you get a second chance in New York starting on 11th April 2008. I left the opera house at around eleven in the evening and picked up a text from my daughter asking how was the opera; without thinking I texted back transcendent.

I woke up this morning at home (briefly between US trips) to learn from a friend that Mary Douglas died recently. The note included this statement from Richard Farson:

I have the sad news that our friend and colleague Mary Douglas died last night, peacefully in a London hospital near her home there. Mary was certainly one of the greatest anthropologists who ever lived, and we were fortunate indeed to have her as an ILF Fellow. A product of Oxford, she taught at University of London, and wrote some of the classics in anthropology, notably Purity and Danger. She was the founder and leader of a network of scholars around the world who pursued her views of cultural theory. In her recent years she had accepted visiting appointments in schools of religion and theology at Princeton and Northwestern, and at the time of her death, was writing about several books in the Old Testament, Leviticus and Numbers, as I recall.

Mary was simply one of the most knowledgeable, smartest and wisest social scientists I have ever encountered. I can truthfully say that I have never emerged from a serious conversation with her without having my mind changed in some fundamental way. And what a lovely person. I still love her deeply, and will miss her more than I can say.I can only echo that statement.

Her book Purity and Danger is a classic, and was one of the seminal influences on my own work. She knew more about the nature and criticality of boundaries than anyone else I have read. She understood complexity before complexity science had been created, she articulated the pattern basis of human intelligence before neuro-science. She was an intellectual giant. I reported some of her new work here only a few weeks ago. She is a huge loss, not only to the field of anthropology, but to humanity.

Patrick Lamb is a good friend and a consistent provider of excellent links and comments both on this own blog, and on various listservs. He is also someone you can have an argument with without personality clashes creeping into the learning process.

One area on which we have traditionally clashed is the usefulness of taxonomies. I have been known to suggest that in many an IT implementation the static nature of taxonomy based classifications is closer to taxidermy than it is to knowledge management. From a complexity perspective I have been more interested in coalescence than in categorisation and in emergent meaning than in formal abstractions. However I have a lot of respect for Patrick so when he sent me his new book I settled down on a plane and read it from cover to cover. I then re-read it a week later which is a rare complement and I have no hesitation in recommending the book. I quote from the introduction:

Taxonomies are at the same time deceptively simple and fiendishly complicated. They are simple because they are absolutely basic to human consciousness, so everyone manipulates and creates them with great ease........ (They) are complicated becuase we use them for the most part unreflectingly .... often in competing and inconsistent ways.

As a writer Patrick has that rare ability to combine deep academic insight with practical language. His book provides practical advise, but also intellectual stimulation; expect some more blogs on this subject over the next month as a result. Patrick's book has joined a small select set that sit on the top of my bureau desk and the book already has many underscorings and green ink comments in the margins (well we all have rituals)

Having said all of that you should be aware that Patrick has his odd quirks and is subject to the odd paranoia. An innocent aside in one of my recent posts suggested that we needed more un-conferencing and as an aside I suggested that some supported such approaches because they had failed to make it on the conventional conference circuit. Patrick picked up on this and ignored the more positive statements. I know Patrick too well to suggest that this emphasis represents some form of Freudian slip ....

Thinking Meat put me onto this 2002 article Will Science Die Again? The article starts as follows:

A wondrously unique revolution in human thinking began 2500 years ago in Ionia. This revolution was that the underlying harmony of the Universe was accessible by observation and experiment without invoking the supernatural. Previously humans had always believed that the Universe was manipulated and controlled by one or more gods. This new way of thinking marked the beginning of science, and this science flourished for approximately 200 years and died.

Many people seem to think that simply ignoring the irrational religious forces that have led mankind down a blind alley for so long will eventually make them go away. But history teaches us that vigorous effort will be required to ensure that science survives.

I have been reading Freeman's outstanding Societies of Brains over the last week. I had the privilege of meeting him and the terror of lecturing to him some weeks ago and he is a truly impressive figure. This is a man who has studied physics and maths at MIT, English at Hamilton, Philosophy at Chicago and Medicine at Yale. if you are lucky from time to time in your life you get a chance to meet someone who is wise and this was one of them.
Expect several posts around my learnings from this book, especially the way he deals with intentionality. The book will not be enjoyable reading for the AI community and others who treat humans as information processors, or the fluffy bunny brigade who want to separate rationality from emotion. Pending those posts, and in the context of recent listserv discussions on DIKW, I thought I would quote him on the subject of age and wisdom. The bold text is my emphasis and relates to the title of this post.

My presentation earlier today was on the use of complexity in health care. I went through some of the basics, in particular the links with cognitive science and the role of narrative. At the end of the session I put together a summary of the sorts of thing that go wrong. By wrong, I meant structured linear methods being applied to non-linear complex situations, but I was also targeting researchers and consultants who take up complexity and/or narrative, but then fail to follow through the implications in their work. The title of this post is not meant as an attack per se. Hypocrisy is a serious charge so I have placed it in quotations and prefixed it with understandable. It is very difficult, if you have been trained for years in a particular approach to change. Even if you understand complexity in theory, the practice of research and consultancy has been developed before that knowledge. There is thus a danger of failing to fully appreciate the degree of change necessary. This is particularly the case with demanding clients who want to know what they are going to get in advance.

So, here is the list, with some explanation .....

It was a real pleasure today to give the opening keynote at NDM8. (NDM= Naturalistic Decision Theory) I was there at the invitation of Gary Klein whose work I have long admired, and in addition to my keynote we had a joint paper with Chew Lock Pin of DSTA in Singapore. Luckily for all concerned I was also there in the right year. To my eternal chagrin I turned up in Monterey last year, to discover that I was a year early; min you there are worst places to be stuck for three days! The slides I used are here for those who are interested. Some good conversations afterwards but I was also deeply depressed by later discussion of a normative approach to story which I summarise and address below. I obviously failed to communicate fully the difference between narrative work, and that of story telling and the critique of story. The gap is immense and important, as is the difference between ordered and complex systems which it resembles. One deals with structure and certainty, the other with ambiguity and emergence of meaning.

A fascinating article has just been published in Business Week on the tension between the relentless drive for efficiency at 3M and the price paid in innovation. 3M fell from number 1 in 2004, to number 7 this year on Boston Consulting's Most Innovative Companies list. The article references back to Fry, the famous inventor of the Post-it who places the blame for this loss on the application of Six Sigma to 3M's research labs. One telling quote illustrates the point: Steven Boyd, a PhD who had worked as a researcher at 3M for 32 years before his job was eliminated in 2004, was one of them. After a couple of months on a research project, he would have to fill in a "red book" with scores of pages worth of charts and tables, analyzing everything from the potential commercial application, to the size of the market, to possible manufacturing concerns.

The latest edition of Scientific American Mind (I picked it up from Mind Hacks but I will get my own copy when I get home) reports on some research on team learning strategies. The following quote is important:

These researchers trained college students to assemble transistor radios either alone or in groups of three. A week later the subjects were tested with their original group or, for people who received solo training, in newly formed groups. Members of groups that had trained together remembered more details, built better-quality radios and showed greater trust in fellow members' expertise. People in newly formed groups were less likely to have the right mix of skills to complete the task efficiently and knew less about one another's strengths.

Around this time a month ago Greg Timbrell (whose company and conversations I always enjoy) intervened in an ActKM conversation to talk about the way in which culture can bind behaviour, but can also be detrimental to organisational goals. I responded to argue the role of stories. I also outlines an as yet undocumented method for induction of new employees which may be of interest.

Returning to this subject briefly, Thinking Meat reports on an article from American Scientist which surveyed the religious beliefs of 149 evolutionary scientists. The results are interesting to say the least. The majority I am pleased to say (I confess a certain smugness here) agree with the position I have been taking in the blogosphere, both in my own right and as a part of my campaign to save Euan from the polemics of anti-religion.

I recently took part in an on line learning event organised by the University of Manitoba. Other speakers included Dave Weinberger, Jay Cross and other luminaries. You can find all of the presentations here and mine specifically here.

You should note that this was an on line presentation and people were asking questions on the message board as I spoke, including the odd side swipe on the Welsh. So if you listen you may hear a remark which appears out of context and there is some back ground noise. I was also slightly short of breath at the start after rushing around to find a spot in the conference hall with good wireless access and some privacy. My role was to challenge some of the presumptions and over optimism of much thinking about future forms of education. I summarise the content below, having suffered listening to myself (it really is not fun)

A few days ago I talked about one of our techniques The Future Backwards which was designed in the context of providing alternatives to scenario planning. The post was picked up by several blogs including Art Hutchinson at Mapping Strategy who provided some interesting comments. Now this blog is in part complementary; I think its nice to be called an innovative UK based consultant. However I am not sure that Patti Anklam, the source of Art's knowledge of my approach, would like to be called an acolyte! I would call her a colleague in preference. There is always a downside and the suggestion is made that I positioned narrative as an improvement on scenario planning and to do so is judged to be a bit hasty and sweeping. Now I think that is part based on a misconception but also raises some wider issues around the legitimate boundaries of scenario planning techniques. So with the qualification that I like Art's work and his blog is in my RSS feed, let me take a contrary, or at least a qualified position.

Art over at Mapping Strategy has produced a subtle and fascinating response to my earlier comments on the limitations of scenario planning. There is much on which we are agreed (although his reading list contains some of my bette noirs so we shall see). For example that narrative considered as story-telling is limited to a pre-scenario planning process or (I am making an assumption here) the communication or refining of a scenario or scenarios. We are also agreed on the inherent limitations of what Art calls paleo-scenarios (the classic Peter Swartz type approach). However there may be (I hesitate to say are in the context an emerging dialogue)some differences of varying significance and possible agreement through a dialectic process. He also has a really nice analogy (and pictures) which may assist this process.

I will freely admit that I am disposed to like Stephen Downes simply on the basis of his CV & photograph. Eccentrics with Philosophy degrees, who adopt a less that formal dress style, list science fantasy as a hobby and have facial hair should I think be encouraged and nurtured; although I realise that such a policy would obviously be in my own self interest. All of that said, his original suggestion that I was mistaken to distinguish between the physical and the real, together with this more recent response to my defense of yesterday seem to me at least confused and possibly perverse. He also has an irritating habit of failing to see the log in his own eye when it comes to questions of a somewhat less than thorough style of analysis and suggestions that contrary views to his own are not rooted in a thoughtful analysis of the phenomenon. However it would be hypocritical for me to complain overmuch about a robust style of debate!

As it happens the question of virtual environments has exercised me both in thought, speech and writing over the years. So my blog for today, written from a serviced apartment in Melbourne (having landed at 0520 this morning from Singapore) and composed the Act I of Das Rheingold will expand on this theme, and pick up some of Stephen's points as I go. In particular I want to look at three aspects, namely collaboration, education and publication. One reason for this separation is that I think Stephen is focused on issues of publication, while my original comments were made in the context of an on line learning event.

George Siemens pointed me to the Britannica Blog where there is an active debate about the role of expertise. In effect it is a Britannica V Wikipedia debate and Michael Gorman has weighed in with some provocatively titled posts such as The Siren Song of the Internet and The Sleep of Reason. Nick Carr is also there with a thoughtful (sic) entry From Contemplative Man to Flickering Man.

I want to argue that we need to separate the debate about with wisdom or otherwise of crowds (hive mind, social computing etc. etc.) from one about the role of an Encyclopedia. I also think its time for the debate to move on from a false polarity.

I am on the editorial board of three refereed journals on the subject of Knowledge Management (KM). One of them is getting proactive about promotion and gave us all a logo to put on our blogs or email addresses. From the point of view of a reviewer the material I see demonstrates the increasing maturity of academic understanding of KM with a lot of good, detailed research now that there is a body of case material. Academic conferences on the subject are on the increase as is formal teaching in the area. Now I find this frustrating, we could have done with some real academic input in the early days of KM when a strong conceptual basis with some rigor would have increased the practicality and scalability of some of the early KM programmes. However what is encouraging is the increase in interest and the presence of supporting material of varying levels of scholarship and varying quality (the two are not necessarily the same). Now at the same time I was withdrawing finally from one listserv, frustrated at censorship in ActKM and adding some 15 more RSS feeds. I realised that all of these were connected and that is the subject of my reflection today. It expands, towards the end, on some of the benefits of social computing over listservs

I should warn you, fair reader, that I have no intention of holding back in this post and I am 100% sure that the content would not be tolerated by the censors of the ActKM list serve (through no fault of their own the moderators have become censors). I should also state that I using a British form of humour known as Irony, coupled with some sarcasm and satire. If you don't find this attractive do not read on.

Paula Thornton at the Fastforward blog, in a comment to my previous entry suggests a reason for my frustration with listserv censorship and the robotic postings of the Frank. She states: You're experiencing the dissonance of the field you're trying to align yourself with and the fundamentals of their beliefs. I do find that a bit confusing as I thought I was already strongly aligned with KM, but let us leave that aside for more important matters. She also points me to one of her recent blog postings in which she argues that Knowledge doesn't want to be managed. This entry has its fair number of sweeping statements and rhetorical questions, for example asking What reasonable goal would suggest a need to manage knowledge? Her conclusion is that the promise of 2.0 is to 'free' the knowledge, and she requests notification of the death of KM.

I thought about using Jerry bites back as the title to this post, with some reference to gums, however a phrase from British Parliamentary History (June 1998 the pugnacious Denis Healey on the mild mannered and ineffective Geoffrey Howe) seemed more appropriate. It's up there as a put down with the much used ... having a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent and Churchill's famous response to if you were my husband I'd put poison in your tea from Lady Astor, to wit: ... and if I were your husband I'd drink it.

I decided to reread Sartre's autobiographical Roads to Freedom trilogy (the novel sequence that Monty Python famously established was an allegory of man's search for commitment) yesterday and discovered that I had foolishly lent my copy some years ago. Why is that some people don't return books? Do they think they are disposable commodities, to be read once and discarded? Can we devise some suitable purgatory for these social deviants? Sorry, tirade over. A new set will arrive from Amazon tomorrow by which time I will be in the air to Atlanta but they will await my return. Oh a second tirade/plea at/to anyone in the BBC, why is the classic 1970s serialisation staring Michael Bryant not available from the BBC shop on DVD?

One of the reasons for wanting to reread them was the realisation that one of the central themes of existentialism, the precedence of existence over essence, has importance for understanding complexity in human systems, including social computing. The quote from Sartre which heads this post also makes a critical point about having to play with the cards you are dealt. This post explores this connection (hopefully in common sense language) and comes to the conclusion that we are the means by which we create meaning in the world to which we belong and must remain engaged.

Well I proved something to myself about the blogosphere yesterday. My request for contributions within the next three hours (I did not make it easy) produced some great comments and a greater number of emails, to preserve anonymity I think. Euan was lightning fast, one of these days I going to set an ethnographer on him to see how he managers to stay connected in some many electronic environments while remaining a warm and compassionate human being. Other contributions followed. Sin obviously brings out the best in us! All of that, plus my own experience and thoughts allowed me to put together a presentation that got people talking, although the venue forced us to close early.

So for those interested I thought I would summarise what I said here, and also invite any further contributions or opinions. My brief, under the provocative title was to provide a where have we come from, where are we, where are we going in respect of Knowledge Management (KM). So here goes, although it is going to be a longish post but I can use HTML links to past posts to shorten it while providing more depth (what did we do before HTML?).

Some of the major posts here were Whence goeth KM, along with Weltanschauung for social computing Overall this post took several hours to write, but has given me an opportunity to pull together a lot of blogs in one cohesive group, and its done most of the work (with the HTML links) on two chapters of the book so that is good news although you may not appreciate just under 2000 words.

Patrick Lambe is much taxed with the state of this throat. It's not as easy read: I am not sure I want to know about his stomach acid lapping up and down this throat during sleep. However if you skip to the end of the medical records then you find a two by two matrix looking at different models of medical practitioner which are then applied by analogy to knowledge management practice. Now I don't often disagree with Patrick, but this time I think I do, or at lease I want to express the odd concern. I think he anticipated this as I got an email saying that he had blogged on the role of consultants in KM & would welcome a diatribe-oops dialogue.

Well here goes, but I warn you I am going to play dirty; I will quote Drucker ....

This morning saw me wake up with a hangover and in trouble at home. Given that the village bookclub refuses to admit men, we have a first Thursday club that meets in the pub for intelligent conversation once a month. 6X is a wonderful pint, but I had at least one to many, then discovered that I had forgotten my keys when I got back at midnight and you can imagine the consequences. Either way this morning I was fragile and the email was mixed. One to one conversations with Uncle Jerry are civilised but I must admit I am giving up hope of any end to paternalism, and travel is proving difficult to organise for July August. Those irritations aside, my morning was brightened by an email from Vivienne Blake of the University of Western Australia (UWA) who had attended the Perth accreditation course a couple of weeks ago. She had gone straight from the training to run an ambitious project and had a good result. I quote from her email:

Hi Living-on-the-Cognitive-Edge Fellow Travellers,
Kenn Martin and I tried out the Cognitive Edge material Cynefin framework and Social Network Stimulation (SNS)last week and I was delighted with the result. The client made one of those speeches at the end of "I must admit I came along this morning pretty skeptical, but I am amazed at how much we have achieved today." Don't you just love that!

I spent this morning teaching the use of narrative approaches to lessons learnt programmes and more generally to decision making. I was doing this within the context of a naturalistic (work with way people are) as opposed to an idealistic (this is how we think people should be) perspective on sense-making in general and knowledge management in particular. I came up with some sound bites and critical points while I was doing that and share them here. A few have been posted before, but not as a group.

Just over a week ago on the ActKM forum I was asked a set of questions by Kelly Green about how you get people to share failure. This is a key area for KM; avoidance of failure is a more successful strategy in evolutionary terms than imitation of success and best practice systems (in my experience) rarely get the same attention as a good failure story. OK, so the human race has evolved as a bunch of malicious gossips (what stories spread fastest in your organisation?), but there is a purpose to it. We learn more form failure, or rather tolerated failure; possibly also undiscovered failure but I am less sure about that.

I thought the questions interesting, so here they are with my answers.

Sonja & Aiden were the other tutors on this weeks accreditation course in Pretoria and they updated me on a narrative project they are running which has necessitated a lot of innovation additions to our archetype method, which I hope they will add into the Wiki shortly (yes the Wiki is up for practitioners on a test basis). They also reported on a great example of the ability of narrative to allow people to talk about things that they would not talk about directly. It's the story of the change house cleaner. Aiden has a great blog and I suggested that he use it to share his experience, which he did here.

Conversation is an essential part of being human and we have many forms and practices, some new (the blogosphere) some as old as the hills (over a meal with friends). Conversation of course is also an evolutionary necessity; we were and are story telling apes before we are content creating apes.

Well I made it to a year, and over a blog a day on average which is better than I expected. The ritual of the daily blog has been a good one, and at times surprising. A blog you spend days on receives no comments, a throw away remark written and posted before midnight to hit the deadline (yes I have become obsessional) gets multiple comments and references. My technorati ranking went from zero to 250 in a series of unpredictable steps, and that isn't bad for the first year. Thanks to everyone who has linked, commented and also given me access to their own thoughts. My RSS feed is richer for the exchange.

I had intended something profound today relating to the Weinberger/Keen debate. I brought both of their books to Australia with that goal in mind, but I must admit I have been disappointed. Weinberger's Everything is Miscellaneous is a rolling, well written narrative, a flow of examples that establish the interconnected and messy nature of the world we live in. However there it stops, it would have been great to see some real critical reflection from one of the pioneers. Keen in The cult of the Amateur also takes an anecdotal form with a constant succession of examples selected to prove a negative thesis. His argument reminds me a bit of some of the extreme right preachers and cultists, seizing on evidence out of context, adding some polemic and conviction in the hope of winning converts. The book is littered with logical errors and a crazy theme that social computing must be wrong because it is deriving traditional channels of advertising revenue. What does he think television did to Newspapers for God's sake, they survived and will again in a different form. There are a few points hidden within the polemic but they are not well argued. The man is a troll pure and simple. To be honest both books would be better as essays. I plan to try and distill some meaning from them over the next few days, but the material did not justify much more than the above comments.

So what have I learnt in this last year? Well many things but I think it can be summed up as follows:

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again

310 miles driven, 47 photographs taken, 1 Americano Grande drunk, 0 Starbucks City Mugs acquired

Accomodation: Vagabond Inn, Bishop (Good value)

Picture: The first view point after starting the descent into Death Valley. The pale coloured rocks in the foreground had been visible as we left the entry fate to the park. At a distance they appeared to be sand but close inspection proved otherwise. This was the last really clear light before the increasing heat produced a shimmer that prevented clear shots

If there is one place I have visited which has exceeded high prior expectation then it is Death Valley. This was the longest drive so far, and we bought an icebox and multiple bottles of Glacéau (market research rather than promotion on my part here, but each bottle has a great story) to last the journey. We took the scenic route out via Red Rock Canyon which provided a spiritual recovery from the excess of Las Vegas. After that it was a long, long straight road across barren land until we entered the Death Valley National Park. Almost immediately the colours and texture of the rock was arresting. The picture here is one of the most dramatic.

The thing which really struck me is the way that the heat (it got up to 115F) creates a special form of silence. I have never heard anything like it before. Silence in the mountains has the subtle noises of the wind, birds and water. In the desert the heat has a terrible dryness to it, it sucks the moisture from your skin and sound from the air. Clarity is one of those words mostly used of conversation, but here it is a quality of the landscape itself; visual and aural.

Accomodation: Tenaya Lodge (Second night and its still an indulgence, but an enjoyable one)

Picture: Called the Clothespin tree, this Giant Sequoia has survived several forest fires which have burt a hole through its centre. The Telescope tree just up the road has lost all its heartwood and if you stand in it you can see blue sky above you but both trees survive. You can get a sense of the size by looking at the base, the small and inconsequential figure is a 6' 1" teenager.

Our original intent for today was to take the bus up to Glacier Point and then fallow the Panorama walk down to the valley. Unfortunately the Hikers' Bus was fully booked not only for today, but also for Tuesday so that plan went by the board. Instead we spent the early part of the morning in the Wawona museum which is interesting but frustrating. They have rebuilt a series of typical buildings gathered from around the area, but you can only look at them from the outside. They should really look at the St Fagans museum for an example of how to do this well. Still interesting, but the bulk of our day was spent in the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias.

For those who don't know, these trees, grow to around 300 feet, slightly short of the Coastal Redwoods which approach 400 but overall they are larger. Their sap is water based unlike pines so they are better able to survive fire. For unknown reasons they seem immune to insect attack. They live for thousands of years and only seem vulnerable (thanks to a shallow root system) to falling. They are older as individuals, and as a species than humankind. However none of those facts really matter when you among them. They create a presence and a sense of timelessness which is unparalleled in my experience. Huw, on the way down from the grove remarked that he now knew why Tolkein had made the Ents slow speaking.

Oh, and the injury, I don't know how it happened but pain started to intrude to the point where I had difficulty walking. Three hours with ice packs and hopefully a good night sleep may relieve the problem, but it's probably a good job we could not get on that Hikers' Bus.

Accomodation: Comfort Inn, Monterey (OK)

Picture: The bulk of today's pictures were taken from Glacier Point and they are up on Flickr. However I choose this view taken as we leaving the valley to represent this final day of our all too brief sojourn in Yosemite.

John Muir was a vigorous campaigner for the preservation of the Yosemite and his words speak to it's special narure far better than I can:

But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose; others, absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet, advance beyond their companions in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly aware, yet heedless, of everything going on about them. Awful in stern, immovable majesty, how softly these rocks are adorned, and how fine and reassuring the company they keep; their feet among beautiful groves and meadows, their brows in the sky, a thousand flowers leaning confidently against their feet, bathed in floods of water, floods of light, while the snow and waterfalls, the winds and avalanches and clouds shine and sing and wreathe about them as the years go by, and myriads of small winged creatures – birds, bees, butterflies – give glad animation and help to make all the air into music. Down through the middle of the Valley flows the crystal Merced, River of Mercy, peacefully quiet, reflecting lilies and trees and the onlooking rocks ...

“... at the heart of the museum is a rage which will not be quieted while racists walk our streets”

Dr David Flemming, Director National Museums of Liverpool

I was privileged to be at the opening of the new International Slavery Museum in Liverpool last night, dressed in full black tie regalia! I then spent this morning walking around, observing and experiencing what is an impressive world first for Liverpool. David Flemming delivered an outstanding speech, with passion and compassion in equal measure. I spoke to him afterwards to complement him in general, but specifically on the phrase quoted above, in particular the use of rage. He told me that he had been concerned it might be too strong but I don't think so.

A scary photograph; this is not a mock up or a reproduction, it's an actual set of robes donated to the International Slavery Museum . Of course this is from the second Klan formed in 1915 and informed by the film Birth of a Nation. The first, while racist in intent and practice was as concerned with the carpet baggers and scallawags that followed the defeat of the South in the Civil War. At its height it had 4-5 million members and we saw the lynching of almost 5,000 recorded acts of lynching (the actual number was almost certainly higher). If you add in intimidation and other acts we have a fair inditement of the human race.

Now there is an obvious lesson here, namely the need to oppose racism as early as possible and as hard as is ethical (I avoid several issues by that phrase). The second one is less obvious, but to my mind at least as important. There are parallels between the reconstruction period in the USA in the 19th Century and the WWI reparations in Europe in the 20th. Lloyd George and others opposed the severity of these, and did so prophetically as one of the consequences of their economic devastation on Germany was the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis.

Mandela was in London yesterday at the unveiling of a statue of himself in Parliament Square. The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone gave a speech which I heard on the Radio 4 news and one phrase struck home. I was driving at the time so could not write it down, but thankfully someone at Demos did. The Mayor said: Long after we are forgotten, you will be remembered for having taught the world one amazing truth: that you can achieve justice without vengeance..

That reminded me of three key quotations that were used in the launch of the International Slavery Museum:

Remember not that we were sold, but that we were strong
Remember not that we were freed, but that we fought
Remember not that we were bought, but that we were brave

The key switch here is to place the emphasis on those subjected to slavery, not those who enslaved, and then freed in turn. Both these, and the Livingstone quote reflect dignity, a word much neglected and much needed both by the oppressed, and the oppressor.

Aiden Chole has an excellent blog which always provides substance mixed with reflection and insight. Today he considers issues of truth and reconciliation within South Africa and promises further blogs as he embarks on a journey back into the work of the TRC. That journey is taking place in context of a political shift within that country which, having survived the journey out of Apartheid with less trauma that most of us expected, has now to make a more substantial transition in which the goals are unclear, and in which there may be less room that in the past for tolerance. Aiden does not promise to complete his journey, but I recommend following him on it. It links to my 46664 blog of last week and the reference to justice without vengeance but not necessarily in an optimistic way.

I was attempting to explain Durkeim's concept of Anomie (literally without law) to my daughter yesterday, and recommended her to three novels from France, Russian and Germany that to my mind explore the consequences of the concept better than any sociology text book (I should say that I have a philosophers prejudice against sociology as a discipline). I was reminded of that conversation this morning when the quote below from Bertrand Russell popped up in the RSS feed. I thought how apposite it was to many of the issues we face working with organisations, but I also realised that the implications intended by Russell, may be less relevant to decision making in the modern age.

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

Sunday evening Huw and I were walking around the harbour at Caen waiting for embarkation on the night ferry to Portsmouth. We had just eaten well (Moules and Frites for me, Pizza boy had, well pizza). Earlier we had witnessed 16 glorious minutes of Rugby with five Welsh tries (pity about the other minutes but we still won), found the car again after some desperate minutes of searching and arrived at the port with plenty of time. We were contented, to add to that contentment, he sun was just setting, and we could see the channel lights, red for port, green for starboard stretching out into the English Channel before us. The harbour lighthouse was now in operation and we were able to experience that strange silence that accompanies dusk by the sea. A trawler was moving through the sea lock in order to prepare for a full night and we stood and watch in maneuver into the wharf. I love the sea, and one of these days I will return to live by it. Harbours and boats provide a human interface with the ocean and trawlers are something special. I took this picture a couple of years ago in Wellington during a blustery walk along the sea front. The shapes and colour create a wonderful texture, an apparent chaos from which order and functionality emerge in use. A trawler has a small crew of people who, by nature of their work and practice need to trust each other. To the outsider the picture is incoherent, but to the experts each rope, winch and shackle has a specific function and purpose that can not be taught, but has to be learned. There is a lesson in that picture of many an organisation.

James Naughtie is narrating series two of his history of classical music on Radio 4: 15 concentrated minutes per day. The BBC continue to lag behind their Australian cousins in providing material as pod casts, so only a week is available at a time but they are worth listening too. Today was on Wagner and the title of this post comes from the broadcast. Naughtie argues, rightly I think, that Wagner brought into play this concept, without which much of modern music (in particular the Minimalists) would not have been possible.

Wagner believed in the complete experience; music, voice, drama and philosophy combining into an overwhelming and transforming celebration of humanity. I can't listen to the Funeral March without tears in my eyes. The fusion of passion, death and the transition from a world of Gods to that of Man is one of the most moving pieces of music ever written. I have a complete Ring at the Royal Opera House to come in a just over a month, the 8th I have been too in my life and I wish it had been more. To attend a performance is to disappear into an experience which is physical in its intensity.

I will admit to no comprehension of how anyone can not be in awe during such a performance, but you either love Wagner or you hate him. The one thing that cannot be denied is that music of this nature proves that humans are more than an assembly of reward seeking self interests. We are capable of transformation.

I joined up to facebook some time ago and accepted a trickle of invitations to confirm various people as friends. I wasn't too sure of its usefulness to be honest and tended to only check in from time to time. However earlier this week I made it the default page on my browser and started to use it more actively. Up till then its main use had been to allow me to check on who my daughter was friends with and which photos she was sharing (old and cunning beats young and gifted every time). I had indulged in the odd compare your film choices game but nothing serious. Then I got a note from Bronwyn Stuckey to invite me into the CPSquare group where she had posed a question: Dave Snowden recently said to Etienne Wenger "If knowledge management had had the tools we have today it would not have needed communities of practice" . One consequence of my consequent engagement is that I think facebook may be another nail in coffin for listservs.

Media Influencer has a good piece on Trolls, looking at the way in which Andrew Keen avoids debate in favour of provocation for the sake of publicity. Now there is a role for provocation and a danger that many an online forum or workshop can degenerate into a fluffy bunny group hug, although Neurophilosophy reports that bees group hug hornets to death so bunnies may be more dangerous than I thought. What is becoming increasingly clear is that we need some new language and conventions, or at least some more distinctions. Being provocative does not a troll make, however not engaging in debate, merely repeating the original provocation (something the Frank is good at) seems to me to provide evidence of a desire to have culinary exchanges with passing goats.

Now there is a related issue here, which is use of an ad hominem argument. A form that I don't think this can be dismissed completely. If someone argues a position, but their life or behaviour contradicts that then it is legitimate to point it out. If some becomes a troll then the direct labeling (with cause and argument) is again legitimate. At least an ad hominem has a quality of honesty, it is direct and its subject self evident. There is a more dishonest form, frequently used by people (Uncle Jerry did it recently in ActKM) which is a special type of Troll like behaviour. Here a comment is made along the lines of People who say X are obviously stupid. The target of the attack is generally known to a significant number of participants and now has a choice. To respond to the attack, allows the attacker to say something line Oh you, I didn't mean you but if the cap fits ... or similar. To fail to respond can be seen as an acknowledgment of the the statement.

It would be interesting to create a taxonomy of trolls.

Hugh introduces a new phrase to the landscape of management science, and illustrates it with this sketch. He defines the said agents in an interesting post about Microsoft as follows: a rather snarky term I recently coined to describe the folks in a big company- any big company, not necessarily Microsoft- whose job isn't to invent, make, or sell stuff, but to maintain the apparatus of bureaucracy and status quo. Now, like others I am watch Hugh's engagement with Microsoft with interest, it was unexpected, and the journey is producing some interesting arguments that have not yet become casuistry. This walking on the edge makes his journey interesting. My own observation is that Microsoft, having achieved the sort of domination previously enjoyed by IBM has succumbed to the mind numbing bureaucracy that seems to accompany size, and to persist despite nurturing some very bright people, not to mention continued innovation.

On the eve of the last winter solstice Euan and I went for a walk above my house, up onto the Pewsey Downs. We returned through the West Woods; not to mention an unplanned diversion into Pewsey Vale due to my casual attitude to navigation. When we got back we settled down by the wood burning stove in my house and talked about social computing and other general issues. The conversations were recorded and we are making them available for those interested in our verbal ramblings. I know I promised these a long time ago, but by the time I had reviewed them and Euan had loaded them (we are equally guilty here) some time had lapsed! If anyone who wants the route of the physical ramble let me know and I will send or post it. With variants it is one of the best downland/woodland walks in the UK and starts at stops at the pub opposite my house.

You can find them on Euan's blog here.

Hugh is on form with this latest cartoon drawn on the back of a business card. It reminded me of a moment of considerable frustration during a LO conference in Vienna two years ago. There was a theme in several of the presentations that focused on changing individuals on the basis that the system would change in consequence. The closing keynote from Senge was an exemplar of the approach, although I should emphasis that there were many good speeches and conversations that took place around this.. The emphasis on personal change was in the context of sustainability, awareness of global warming and the like.

The above named were Odin's two Ravens. Melanie Rawn's latest novel Spellbinder references the translation of their names as Thought and Memory but states that the more accurate version is Thoughtful and Mindful. Now I came across that reading in the bath this morning . There is no better place than a bath to think by the way and why US hotels only have showers I will never understand. The bath followed an email exchange with Ivan Webb in Australia. He was asking about how to you sustain successful practice (so much better a phrase than best practice) in schools, and also how you would scale those practices up to a whole school or to other schools.

So what's the connection? Well it's in the difference between the state of X and being Xful. The former is a thing, a manageable object. The latter an attitude or way of doing. It strikes me that the solution to Ivan's problem may lie in this difference. Its also one of the general problems in KM, the difference between lessons learnt and learning lessons on which I have blogged before. However the issue of ICT in schools raises some wider issues and ones that justify the polemical category into which I have placed this. So I sat down today and developed seven (its always a good number) learnings/comments/recomendations that I offer for criticism.

I am settled into Durham University for three days, with a small group of very interesting people discussing the subject of extreme events. Our guest blogger Max is one of those (if you have not checked out his delightful combination of wit with serious reflection do so) and there are other old friends. Bill McKelvey of UCLA, Peter Allen of Cranfield and others all brought to together by Pierpaolo Andriani of Durham. So expect three days of reflections and comments on this most important of subjects.

An interesting question came in last night from Les Handford over in Canada. He had been reading my paper with Stanbridge on The Landscape of Management and picked up on this quote: ...executives need to pay more attention to management theory rather than to pay more attention to simple recipes derived from superficial understanding of past practices in other organizations 'in the naive belief that is a particular course of action helped other companies to succeed, it ought to help theirs too. His question was deceptively simple: How can one lead "leaders" to the trough and get them to drink?

Like many others my RSS feed has been full of the spinning silhouette optical illusion. It has been used as a left/right brain test. You know the theory: left brained people are logical, right brained people are emotional. It is another variation on the absurd but all to common desire for simplistic categorisation models on which I have commented previously. The whole idea is, and always has been an arrant nonsense and you have to be very naive or poorly read to take it seriously (if that offends some people hard luck). I had made a note to myself to put together a post on this, but fortunately Nerophilosophy has done the job for me with an excellent post which I highly commend: The left brain/ right brain myth. A good quote to wet your interest: So the notion that someone is "left-brained" or "right-brained" is absolute nonsense. All complex behaviours and cognitive functions require the integrated actions of multiple brain regions in both hemispheres of the brain

Why oh why, do people want to put other people (and themselves) into neat and tidy boxes; it is so limiting.

There are upsides and downsides to being a pioneer. You start off excited by a new idea or concept, continue to develop it in multiple collaborations often covertly, make it practical, get the first few organisations to take a risk and do something with you. That period is frustrating but enjoyable. Then the idea starts to creep into the collective consciousness and selling becomes easier. This is the sweet period, vindication is great, even without acknowledgment. However almost inevitably a sour note creeps in as the ignorant and the opportunistic (and sometimes the opportunistically ignorant) jump on the band wagon and trivialise the subject. The other major problem is where another field purloins the new language or idea, hijacking it to vindicate a now tired concept, the classic example of this is relabeling Information Management as Knowledge Management. In effect the characteristics of my title are, in effect the four horsemen of the apocalypse for new ideas and concepts. Hijacking is the main topic of this post having come across a fairly blatant example yesterday which I want to share. I was also irritated enough the avoid the usual circumspection and name names, so read on if interested.

In a comment to my post of yesterday, Brian Sherwood-Jones referenced this wonderful story. It is a great fable of a good idea, trivialised through opportunism and ignorance. All told as a reverse of the tale of the Three Little Pigs. It is a delight, and given that some people do not have an RSS feed on comments I thought I would give it an airing here.

Its funny how a quickly written blog often produces interesting reactions, while one that takes several hours to write is ignored (well maybe not ignored, but not cross referenced or commented on). I was very tired last night and took my call from the University of Texas in bed following a raid on the minibar fully prepared to fall asleep as soon as I put the phone down; fortunately for the students it was not a video-conference. However after answering questions I was awake again and had an idea for a blog which would have nagged at me and prevented sleep, so five minutes on the keyboard produced yesterday's attempt at wisdom in respect of a consultant starting out on their career.

Today would have been Melissie's birthday, author of Complete Idiot's Guide to Knowledge Management, friend to many, passionate advocate of the human dimension of knowledge management. She died after a long struggle with cancer last December. There are plans for a tribute at KM World in a few weeks time. Aside from reflecting on memories of working with Melissie, its also interesting to see the way in which electronic systems create fragments of memory and triggers. Plaxo brought me a routine birthday notification yesterday which was anything but routine when I read it.

"There's a growing body of academic research about decision making under uncertainty. (If you Google the term, you will get — or I did — 284,000 hits.) Not much of this research has worked its way into practical frameworks for managers. To me, one of the great values of "A Leader's Framework for Decision Making" is that it lives up to its title. In so doing, it connects sense-making to action in ways that are both wise and practical."

The HBR article on the Cynefin framework is now out and available for $6.50. Tom's Letter from the Editor, the generous conclusion of which I quote above, is a great summary of the context and need for the article. It also has the benefit of being free!

One of those great sayings from Gaping Void. Generally if you look at an organisation and trace back the various rules and regulations they can normally be seen as arising from past failure and the attempt to correct it. There is a sub-class here, of controls arising from a re-engineering exercise. In this case we get rules based on idealised processes the net result of which is denser informal networks to find work arounds in order to mitigate the impact of excessive structure. I call it a sub-class as such root and branch exercises normally arise in consequence of some failure to create breathing space.

Paternalism has always worried me, especially when it is exercised with the power of the state. An example came to mind when a long term friend of mine expressed concern about the imposition of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for treatment for psychic distress in the UK. We are talking about NICE clinical guidelines being imposed de facto on the NHS here: incidentally how can anyone let anything end up with an abbreviation like NICE. Now I should emphasise that this is not an argument against CBT per se. CBT after all is a technique with an evidence base in practice and theory. It is an argument against selection of a single approach, in particular one which is focused on creating wellbeing and happiness, words which sound good but have a poor history in use by government agencies. The fact that the technique can be self administered by way of CBT is even more scary. Warning bells should start to ring if we ever plan for uniformity. A similar theme, in a different context, is picked up by Kim in Thinking Shift, on the danger of standing out from the crowd, of being different in any way.

We need difference, we cannot afford in an area such as psychology (or any major area of policy) to embed a particular theory or practice and thus prevent evolution of both. To be honest this seems to be another example of inappropriate industrial practices (in this case best practice) being imposed in the public sector to its detriment. There is far too much of this at the moment, and management-speak seems to reign, to make another Orwellian reference. So let those better qualified than I speak on this subject:

Further to my earlier post on the dangers of a single approach to treatment for psychic distress, and the dangers of Government (or any other power for that matter) doing things for the best of all possible motives based on current belief. I was reminded in a conversation on the subject of the practice of lobotomy, which was thought to have a calming effect. The portrayal of the consequences of this, and the context of orthodoxy was brilliantly portrayed in One Flew over the Cookoo's Nest, but it is also worth tracking back through this post from Mind Hacks to the radio interview of one of the victims. The picture by the way is of a brain, post lobotomy.

I am writing this blog with tears in my eyes to the sound of the Llanelli Male Voice Choir singing Calon Lan at the funeral of Ray Gravell. For those who don't know him Grav was an outstanding centre from the great Welsh sides of the 1970s. A British Lion in 1980 and a member of the Llanelli side that 35 years ago beat the 7th All Blacks. Grav was more than just a rugby player, he was also swordbearer of the Eisteddfod a bard, a broadcaster and an actor of note. The First Minister of the Welsh Assembly has just said it all He touched everyone. A person of great enthusiasm, immense passion who was always modest, who never really believed the level of his talent and inspired all those around him.

A sense of his importance in Wales can be gained from the fact that the sword of the Eisteddfod led out his coffin, the first time it has ever been used outside of the Eisteddfod. All Welsh radio and Television channels are transmitting the ceremony either in Welsh or with simultaneous translation. The funeral is in a packed Stradey Park, the home of Llanelli Rugby Club and the score from the All Black's defeat is up on the score board (2 goals and a try to a single goal 9-3). I can see former English forwards such as Fran Cotton, who were Lions teams mates unashamedly crying. For a small Welsh town this funeral has a real international presence.

Hywel Teifi Edwards, historian, in his tribute says There was a touch of the Mabinogion about him and closes in Welsh with Heros don't die. Dafydd Iwan has sung Owen Glyndwr will return and the flag of Glydwr was in the procession. Gerald Davies, quotes Carwyn James No one has ever worn the red shirt of Wales with a better sense of what it means to be a Welshman. There is real affection and poetry in these tributes and a smile on the faces of his family as they hear stories of his singing in the dressing room. Gerald Davies again: He was devoid of any malice, he was a granite figure yet tender.

For Llanelli, Wales and the British Lions he wore a red shirt. It was fitting that his two all to young daughters wore that same shirt as they followed their father's coffin into the ground. At the start of the ceremony one of the commentators explained the significance of the Welsh word Cynefin: a place of multiple belongings. Stradey Park, home of the Sospan Fach that adorns the top of its Rugby posts, stands today for a man who symbolised what it was, is and will be to be Welsh; to belong.

With Cwm Rhondda the ceremony concludes, but the memory will live on.

James Dellow hopes that this paper will will cause a bit of stir in the knowledge management community. The following extract from the paper's summary may explain why:

we find that sharing codified knowledge in the form of electronic documents saved time during the task but did not improve work quality or signal competence to clients. In contrast, sharing personal advice improved work quality and signaledcompetence but did not save time. Beyond the content of the knowledge, process costs in the form of document rework and lack of advisor effort negatively affected task outcomes

Now for many of us that is not a revolutionary idea, especially those members of the community who have consistently challenged the codification strategies that grew out of Nonaka's SECI model. So its nice to have a paper with the authority of Wharton and INSEAD authors to make the point. That said I think we really need to take this paper with a pinch of salt.

In the middle of the night a connection suddenly came to me between claims that payers answered prove the existence of God, and the research basis of management "science". Both could learn from the delightful cult of the Pastafarians by the way. Either way, to my subject by way of some context setting.

There is a lot of talk about communities and networks not only within KM, but in many other areas. I want to explore some new ideas here, and it is early days in that exploration, bringing teams and crews into the equation. I see an atomistic and individualistic set of assumptions behind most of the conversations I witness on communities and networks. This contrasts with a more collectivist or system focus on roles and identities that comes if we look at teams and crews. I am beginning to think that we need to get more focus (in organisational work) into teams and crews and shift away from some of emphasis on communities and to a lesser extend networks.

Virtual Canuck picks up my posting about crews, teams etc but takes issue with my position, I quote: So I don’t think that Snowden’s use of the term crew to define a subset of groups really moves us forward. It turns out that the author (Terry) along with one Jon Dron has already created a taxonomy of groups, networks and collectives which is more than adequate for the field. interestingly they quote my two statements on the unique features of crews in full. However their failure to take those features into account and their general assumptions about taxonomies indicate that either I did not explain myself well, or they are wedded to their three fold classification and do not want to brook any challenge. On the assumption that the former is the case, I will clarify the statements and deal directly with their comments on crews, after a general discourse on their three fold classification which I find unhelpful (this is not simple retaliation, I really don't like it).

My podcast with Jon Husband on social computing continues to have a high take up, including six commentaries from Luis Suarez which start here and conclude here. Luis is also a Mac convert who works for IBM and his reflections on sitting in a room of Thinkpads is entertaining and educational. Reading the various links while working on the next release of SenseMaker™ (due in the new year with a Facebook application amongst other good things) got me thinking about some of the differences and similarities between social computing in general, and in an enterprise environment.

A great letter to Therapy Today from Janet Low on the issues associated with blind adoption of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in the UK which was the subject my earlier post Animal Farm. For those not on up on the plot we are seeing an attempt to create a single approach to therapy which focuses on solving problems by making people happy rather than by understanding what the problem is in the first place. The arguments seem to be ideological and economic rather than based in any real professional discourse. It is even more worrying with the use of computers to replace therapists, and linked initiatives to teach people to set up happiness lessons in school. This is Big Brother magnified, a Brave New World (to mix my literary metaphors) in which contentment is instituted by Government fiat to remove problems by creating a compliant population.

Driving (or rather being driven) up to Leeds this evening I was asked about different adoption rates for new ideas. I responded that one of the major problems in the US and the UK is the anti-intellectualism of a majority of management. They don't want to handle a concept, and have an proclivity to simple easy to understand solutions. All these despite dealing with high levels of uncertainty and situations where tradition simplistic recipe book approaches have failed. In Asia if I use a word which is unfamiliar they ask me to explain it, in the UK they dismiss it as jargon. If you speak to French, Italian or Spanish managers they have all studied philosophy at school. At my son's school the worst insult is swot. We seem to be breeding for ignorance rather than for innovation.

We had the obligatory family outing to see The Golden Compass last weekend. I was nervous going into it, a similar feeling to the first of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. A series of books that I had read and enjoyed; would the cinematic version betray the original? It was also more important than the other blockbuster, namely the Harry Potter films. Much as I enjoy Harry, Pullman is to Rowling as Milton is to Ayers (that is a bit harsh, but you get my point).

Some time ago Nick Carr, who for me writes one of the most intelligent technology blogs, made an offer to apply for a free advance reading copy of his new book The Big Switch. I am not sure what the criterial for success was but I am pleased to say that I made the cut. I skimmed it quickly when it arrived and intend to settle in to read it in more detail over the holiday period so take it for granted that I recommend it.

I thought I would start what will be a series of blogs with his final paragraph:

Shawn has created some controversy through his recent claim that The term 'knowledge worker' is now a meaningless concept, Matthew has countered, with the support of Stephen Collins, to the effect that Shawn has missed the point, failing to recognise that the term still has value in communication. I want to assert that both protagonists are wrong, mainly because of the way they frame the problem. This is of course an minor controversy between friends. If you want a contrast look at the handbags at dawn controversy between two philosophers, Colin McGinn and Honderich reported here which is a spectators delight.

One beautiful night on the banks of the turbid Amazon, Painted Jaguar found Stickly-Prickly Hedgehog and Slow-Solid Tortoise sitting under the trunk of a fallen tree. They could not run away, and so Stickly-Prickly curled himself up into a ball, because he was a Hedgehog, and Slow-Solid Tortoise drew in his head and feet into his shell as far as they would go, because he was a Tortoise; and so that was all right, Best Beloved. Do you see?

Now attend to me,' said Painted Jaguar, 'because this is very important. My mother said that when I meet a Hedgehog I am to drop him into the water and then he will uncoil, and when I meet a Tortoise I am to scoop him out of his shell with my paw. Now which of you is Hedgehog and which is Tortoise? because, to save my spots, I can't tell.

Like many others I have been watching Dave Pollard's postings within a mixture of interest and growing concern for several months now; especially since a discussion in San Jose where I discovered the degree of his engagement in Second Life. His Christmas Eve posting on polyamorism disturbed me greatly. OK I didn't have Matt's ironically expressed desire to find Dave's MIC and spray graffiti on the walls, burn down the buildings and glory in its destruction but I am concerned.

Faced with some of the major issues of the age (or any age for that matter), Dave seems to be advocating a path of withdrawal to a small community, coupled with an unconventional attitude to sexuality which has disturbing historical precedents. To make it clear, I have a lot of respect for Dave, I think his concerns about the ecological and economic structure of our society are spot on. But, and it is a very big BUT, I think his current direction as to the solution is dangerous, and has an historical pattern of danger which looks to be repeating itself.

I was a little surprised by the nature of Shawn's reaction to my disagreement with his original and bold assertion that Drucker's concept of the knowledge worker was dead. He made a serious, if controversial statement and I put some effort into a considered reply, which also attempted to take the debate forward.

I have said before that there is something deeply personal about the blogosphere, it allows communication which is both public and intimate.  This post, from the first US soldier to die in Iraq this year, written in anticipation of his death can only  have a profound impact, whether you agree with his opinions or not.  My thanks to Dave for the link.

It speaks to the voice social computing provides to those who might otherwise be voiceless. 

An interesting bit of writing from David Aaronovitch in The Times, after Iowa but before new Hampshire.

When it comes to choosing people to rule over us, I have long suspected misogyny was even stronger than racism. Iowa has never elected a woman in a congressional or gubernatorial election. So sure, you can have the safe, smily, “witty”, mixed-race guy, but let's not go for the scary woman. Who wants to be pussy-whipped by a Glenn Close or Meryl Streep career bitch every time there's a State of the Union address? Shouldn't they really (oh, whisper it) be at home with the kids?

Thanks to Thinking Meat for this article in the Economist.  It challenges the idea that our Pliocene hunter gather past was some form of ideal society.  Romanticism without evidence was a de facto theme of my recent concern about Dave Pollard and his polyamorous intentional communities.  I have given up there by the way, see the comments here.

Now there is a lot we can learn from that past, but we need to be careful.  It is not only the danger of idealism, but also of naive scientific determinism.  I have the Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology on the table beside me and it has some great material.  However an evolutionary disposition, does not make a certain type of behaviour inevitable, it just makes it more likely with the right environmental trigger.  It is the old nature/nurture argument again: nature creates dispositions, but nurture provides the stimulus, and therein lies our pragmatic responsibility.

A great line (the title) from Caroline Green's class in California, in the context of their use of the Cynefin Framework for sense-making. One of the main problems with normative/recipe book approaches to organisational issues is that they focus on what you should do now, as opposed to firstly understanding the nature of the system within which you have to make a decision.

The above quote is from Dylan Thomas one of the great (if not the greatest) poets of the last century. A complex character best summed up by another recorded statement: I hold a beast, an angel and a madman in me, and my enquiry is as to their working, and my problem is their subjugation and victory, downthrow and upheaval, and my effort is their self-expression. I love the contrasts in that statement: the balance of subjugation and self-expression. His Under Milk Wood (I have the Richard Burton recording on the iPod) is a unique culture artifact, that teases and tantalises at the same time. Here to illustrate that is the wakening poem of the Rev. Eli Jenkins. The third verse always comes unbidden to my mind whenever I return to Wales and gain sight of its mountains.

An interesting set of presentations down here in Tampa, Florida over the weekend. More reflections over the next week, but one of the things that came up in questions reminded me of the transformatory nature of complexity thinking. Someone asked me how you created the trusted environment prior to engagement. My response (including some follow ups) was two fold:

I spend a lot of my time doing conference keynotes, presentations to companies and tele-conference support for the network. Some of these are private, some open such as the master class coming up in Belfast for Anne McMurray. In the vast majority of cases these events are targeted at people new to the concepts and implications of complexity theory, or the scientific use of narrative. Often you have to overcome confusions (complexity with systems thinking and narrative with story telling) but I have been doing this for some years now and its not hard, it is also enjoyable and for reasons I have never fathomed it is never boring despite the repetition. No audience or presentation is ever quite the same and the questions are always the most interesting part.

I have been playing around with a way to describe a complex system in such a way that you ca move to a management approach which has some coherence.  It is still in its early stages, but it is starting to inform the design of narrative databases and I have used it experimentally with some success.  I am, as a part of that starting to introduce a vocabulary for a range of intervention methods (and software variants to SenseMaker™).  This is a balance between being accurate/authentic and being comprehendible to managers who do not have to invest in a detailed understanding of complexity theory.  So for comment but please no derision, here it is (and it assumes knowledge of CE methods and techniques)

Nicky Wire of Manic Street Preachers interviewed in the Arts Guardian recently reflects on Cynefin in respect of the influences on their development.  I was also triggered into reflection this morning flying back from Belfast to Cardiff.  The clouds cleared as we came over the Irish Sea.  Ynys Môn emerged and I could clearly see Moelfre where my parents retired after a life of public service.  Shortly after that the hospital where they both died four years ago could be seen atop a low hill outside Bangor.  It will be four years tomorrow since my father died, my mother's aniversary will follow shortly after on St David's Day.  I could see the beaches on which they had played with their grand children, the pub near red wharf bay where we would go to eat and the cliff walks that are my fondest memories.  We then crossed the estuary at Deganwy where we moored the boat for years and thence to Llandudno where we learnt to sale.  Crossing the Clywdian Hills I could see the paths and hill tops where I walked as a child, lowly in comparison to the massif of Snowdonia which we had just left but no less pleasurable in my memory.  Mold, or Yr Wyddgrug where I went to school from 5 to 18 passed underneath and the plane then turned to the right over Wrexham and followed the Welsh Marches (memories of fossil hunting trips, castles and long distance cycle rides) before following the line of the Brecon Beacons (memories of walks in happier days) and thence over Merthyr following the line of the Cardiff road before looping into the the airport.  A short journey of 30 minutes, but with memories of the best part of fifty years.

The memories continued today.  I got a bus from Cardiff Airport into the centre to meet up with Steve, Michael and the development teams.  It went around the houses visiting Barry (memories of Barry Island during the holidays and crazy golf), then through Penarth (Jurrasic period, lots of ammonites and Thayers Ice Cream) then into Cardiff under the shadow of the Millennium Stadium (memories of many a rugby match good and bad).  I am staying at the Angel Hotel which is part of rugby legend; its where the ticket touts gather.  In the afternoon we went to Cardiff Bay for lunch by boat into the docks.  Now highly developed with the Opera House, the Welsh Assembly building and many another development which will be familiar to all watchers of Doctor Who.  In my parents days this would not have been a safe journey!  In my Grandparents day police went here in pairs.  Half of my family comes from this area.  My Great Grandfather was Head Gamekeeper to the Marquis of Bute, he died and the whole family were thrown out of their tied house and ended up in the docks in poverty.  Through moral courage, political activism and education they escaped, and now (the supreme irony) I would like to move back to a converted warehouse flat, next the the site of the near slum which two generations earlier the family fought to escape.

One of the really interesting things when you start to deal with fragmented narrative (of which blogs are a subset) is the realisation that you are returning to an older oral tradition in which stories evolved in their retelling.  In the western tradition by allowing Andersen and the Brothers Grim to formalise our stories we froze them at a point in time and terminated their evolution.  They are of course strong stories so the remerge all the time in novels and films, but the oral tradition faded. 

In part that was because we no longer lived in environments where telling stories was the only form of entertainment and knowledge transfer.  I grew up with radio and conversation before the television arrived at the age of 11 (I am not so old, but my parents resisted getting one for years).  That increased social isolation and one to many communication.  With the growth of the blogosphere we return to many-to-many interactions, and as those interactions increase in a virtual world patterns emerge and stabilise.  Our community is no longer the extended family around the camp fire, it is anyone with access to a computer. 

Its no surprise that the forms of the oral tradition tend to re-emerge in this space.  I am looking forward to returning to South Africa in a few weeks time to run an accreditation programme and do some other work.  Africa has never forgotten the oral tradition, and the growth of scalable computing allows a new way of working, which is not constrained by the codification and process strategies of anglo-saxon thinking. 

As some of you will know there has been controversy in the ActKM list serve on the subject of surveys. No one has yet attempted any serious defense of questionnaires, although one academic who provided a weak one is now arguing that the debate should cease which I will count as an admission of failure. Graham, while not defending such things directly has been taking me to task for not providing information and arguments that in my view would require me to write a book (which I am doing, all too slowly but not on research methods per se). This morning he focused his question and I provided a more detailed answer (thus denying him the last word at least for the moment) which I share below.

You will need one bit of context - I have argued that most surveys are so context free that a random answer is as valid as a considered one. Given that academics need surveys complete to meet nonsensical performance measures I get my children (as an act of charity) to complete them at random, in part fulfillment of the obligations that gain them pocket money.

Graham has also created some new HTML which I like, but for which there is no current representation

I woke up to eager anticipation of Wales v Italy later today, two hungry cats and emails on research from Joe, Graham and Stephen in the ActKM list serve.  I have replicated my answer below with quotes, so that readers not on the ActKM list will understand the context of the reply.  If you want to see the originals then join ActKM!

I plan a sentimental trip today.  Yesterday I enjoyed a great audience of Welsh Government people in the lecture theatre at the National Museum of Wales.  A great venue, banked seats and a stage that looked like it had witnessed public operations!  We were right next to the geology department which triggered memories.  Back in the 60's I was an enthusiastic amateur paleontologist .  While I grew up in North Wales, we still saw Cardiff as home and returned there in all school holidays to sleep on the floor of the family house with cousins.  Ammonites could be found aplenty on Penarth beach with the added attractor of Thayers Ice Cream on the pier at the end of the day.  I used to take what I had found into the museum and was befriended by some of the staff when meant I was allowed into said department from time to time. After a day in the museum (all of which was fascinating) it was a short walk to a pint of  Sasperella in the arcade.  Funny to walk past the Geology Department again almost 40 year later having delivered a lecture!  However the Sasperella is long gone.

So today, as it is the 1st of March, which is also the anniversary of my Mother's premature death, I plan to return to Penarth Beach and the surrounding area before watching Cardiff Blues against Munster in the early evening.  When my mother was the same age as my son her father took her to the Arms Park on a regular basis and one of her effects was a bootlace she tore off the boot of a Welsh Fly half as an enthusiastic teenager at the end of a match.  I have replicated the tradition, but the best we have managed to salvage is an autograph from Mike Ruddock (and I had to go to Canada to get that).

While I was in South Africa last week I met some interesting people.  That included a long conversation with Mark Van der Merwe who is doing some great work using mobile phones as a mechanism to ensure compliance with drug regimes.  Its not an easy area, but the work it vital and we are looking for some ways to work together.  One of the clever things they are doing is to distribute packs of playing cards (in very large numbers) to people.  The playing cards use cartoons to get across simple and important messages relating to AIDS awareness.  I have shown one example here.  Its a good example of the way simple small scale interventions which tell a story can make a contribution to one of the great problems of the current world.

It's always a pleasure to witness the moment that someone decides to come over to leave the darkside of the force. More of that later, first some reflections on a week in Australia which has ranged from workshops, thought an accreditation course to an interview for the What I'm Reading section of Boss Magazine.

It is also a part of a rather frantic five weeks of travel which started in Copenhagen, moved onto Pretoria and now Australia. Next week is Washington, Atlanta and New York followed by Hong Kong (with a nice bonus at the end) and hopefully a massive celebration in the middle, although one could do with more loyal supporters.

Interesting to see a discussion opening up in the UK on the nature of participative democracy. It would appear that the Government is considering compulsory voting and a degree of proportional representation through the medium of a second preference. Also linked to that are proposals on capping donations to political parties and campaign spending. I’m encouraged to see that someone is prepared to think more radically about this.

An interesting day in Hong Kong, all good and brightened by some outstanding service from the duty manager at the I started the day having walked through a rain storm at the Yacht Club to give a presentation to CIO connect who are establishing themselves here and look to be an interesting organisation (presence in the UK, Germany, Italy and now Hong Kong). From there to the Foreign Correspondents Club to hear a provocative talk from Chandren Nair who said many wise things and one foolish one (more later on that). Thence to the Jockey Club for an interesting meeting on issues relating to the capture and use of knowledge in an IT workforce (part of the subject of my keynote tomorrow). That was followed in the evening by a great dinner with good company - old friends such as Leif Edvinsson and new ones. A fascinating conversation with some intelligent and well read people that ranged from the Troubles in Ireland, to Daoism, alternative histories and Deluze.

To all those who asked, yes today is my birthday not an April Fool's joke and thanks for all the good wishes which came in not to mention the cute April Fool from Shawn which I may deal with later in the week.  True to form I spent most of said birthday on a plane returning from a great week in Hong Kong. I had a lot of work to do so avoided sleep attempting to do a fast time adjustment.  That meant watching a lot of films, I need distraction to clear an email backlog!  Sweeny Todd was a delight, Helen Bonham Carter taking on where she left off in portrayals of decadent evil from the last Harry Potter film.

However the most moving was The Great Debaters, in the art movie section and I strongly recommend it.  It's the story of Wiley College in Texas  whose debating team took on the might of Harvard back in 1935.  For a black team to even get there, let alone win was an achievement and in major part due to the drive of the radical poet, then teacher Melvin Tolson.

I was in a taxi from Belfast International AIrport this morning and as we came in we passed a police station - no longer surrounded by wire fences and watch towers. I suggested that at least one (see picture) should be preserved as a heritage site so that we could all remember how bad things were. His view was different, he wanted them all wiped out to get rid of the memory. Now I still think I am right. Not only is the security architecture in places like Antrim and elsewhere a key part of our history, but the imagery of its physical presence is more effective than a history lesson.

The degree of change here since turn of the century is massive, and more noticeable if you only visit from time to time. In the old days walking the streets of Belfast was an interesting experience. I still remember in 1976 being told it was not safe for me to go out because I looked like a Protestant; I was in a catholic area at the time. I still remember that vividly, including the terrible wallpaper in the room, as it was said with deadly seriousness. Now Belfast is a vibrant developing city with an occasionally competent rugby team which has failed to stand up un recent years.

Anyone know what has happened to Boje's planned book Story Telling Organization?  It was due out from Sage last June and I pre-ordered it from Amazon.  I got the normal this book is delayed emails, then a this book is no longer available.  Checking the Sage site this morning there is no mention of it anywhere although there are still web references.  I have a love hate relationship with Boje's work so I was looking forward to it.

How about this then!

I do believe that there is a "correct" interpretation of Hamlet, and also that we can select among interpretations and find the interpretation that is closer to the truth than its competitors. Of course, however, even if we someday find the "correct" interpretation, we have no way of knowing that we have found it. It is, I'm afraid, our fate to be able to find the truth, sometimes, but unfortunately always to be less than certain that we have found it.

I have been looking for some time for  a simple quote which summarises the poverty of taking too strong a critical rationalist perspective and I finally got it this morning courtesy of my eternal protagonist and more recently friend Joe Firestone in a response to a series of intelligent posts (i.e. I in the main agree with him) from Michael Olsson on the ActKM listserv.

One of the reasons  that we moved to Lockeridge some 15 years ago is its proximity to Avebury.  For those who don't know the area, many of us think it far more interesting that the more popular Stonehenge.  It's a world heritage site and there are a mass of wonderful sites in the area from white horses carved into the sides of hills to the mystery of Silbury Hill.  I found this brilliant photograph on Flickr of the stones by bristol_bound who from the rest of his photostream has a sense of light and composition which is a delight.  I have a couple of favourite walks from the house here.  One takes me up through neolithic field systems littered with sarson stones, known locally as Grey Wethers (they look like sheep) then dropping down on the old London-Bath mail coach route to Avebury as the sun sets.  It's always a mysterious experience at dusk and you find yourself looking over your shoulder in fear from time to time.  The other takes me up through one of the remaining ancient forests of Britain, at the right time of the year saturated with bluebells, and thence a long exhilarating ridge walk following the Wans Dyke, ending up with a pint of 6X at the Wagon and Horses in Beckhampton.  My earlier post today dealt with the aesthetic of a play, opera and rugby match.  This one with the human interaction with landscape over 4,000 years.  A sense of being situated, of belonging is important to all humans.

One of the questions asked yesterday at the Durham Seminar (Podcast and slides available when I get home tonight on a working network) was what recommendations the panel would have as to the future of a MBA in a Business School.

I'm getting worried about some aspects of the `Wikipedia.  The problems I reported earlier have continued with more encounters with Wiki-facists.  As a part of that battle I have now heard stories of Wiki-stalking and see evidence for myself of pervert structures being built up.  No ecology can survive unrestricted predation without damage, and possibly fatal damage.  So, in this post I start with my story, move to contributions from an anonymous third party and then open up some questions for future discussion.

I just returned from a performance of Birtwistle's Punch and Judy in the Young Vic.  It was his first opera composed over forty years ago, before the latter opera's of Brittain with whom he overlaps.  I think that Bertwistle, Maxwell and Adams in different ways are the three greats of modern opera, and comparable with the creativity and originality that characterised the period around the turn of the last century: Verdi and Puccini but not Wagner.  No one is in the same league as Wagner, although Bertwistle's most recent, The Minotaur comes close.  One of the very different things about tonight's performance was that it was in a very small theatre, in the round.  Queuing to get in I discovered the composer behind me!  Sitting to the side, at times I could have touched the singers.  You could see the sweat on their brows and the intensity of the experience was grated for its increased intimacy.  The brilliance of the work is the way he takes a common story, Punch and Judy and translates it into a complex series of interactions; the juxtaposition of violence and sex, of brutality and sensitivity to give two examples.  Opera for me is a complete experience, and Wagnerian opera transcendent .  Everything is there, music, drama, art and the voices of great stars you feel physically, you don't just hear them.  It's also a living art, for over 200 years now we have had a continuous flow of high quality original material.

Many years ago when I spent some days with Thames Water field staff one of the water quality inspectors, learning that I was an occasional (and lackadaisical) ornithologist took me up to the top of the Chiltern Escarpment.  We laid on our backs and waited, and a few minutes later a pair of red kites swept over us at a height of a couple of meters to take advantage of the thermals.  It was a glorious sight.  When my parents were alive I used to take the long route between Marlborough and Moelfre, passing over the moorland above Llanidloes past Llyn Clywedog to Machynlleth.  It was rare not to see red kites on that trip and the glories of the trip compensated even if there were none.  The photos at the end of this post should illustrate that.

This blog was stimulated by two things:  (i) A useful post from Doc Searls on advertising in the context of Microsoft and Yahoo, and (ii) a barb in an otherwise friendly series of tweets (I will leave the author anonymous) which said No offence, but getting the feeling you can take the people out of IBM, but never the IBM out of the people.  The tweet was based on a point of view that saw our open source methods yet proprietary software model a little contradictory.  Now I have not taken offense (although IBM phrase considered in isolation is offensive) in part because I think the position deeply confuses the concept of open source with that of not having to pay for things.  It also fails to understand that all business models make money somewhere, the issue is where and (to my mind the most important thing) the degree of transparency of said business model.  This also links back to the dependency of freeware on advertising.

One of the key aspects of managing a complex system is the switch from fail-safe design to safe-fail experimentation.  The nature of a complex system means that we cannot know in advance what will happen, so we cant design for a desired outcome.  Instead parallel and possible contradictory