As We Know It

As We Know It – A truly excellent blog from Paul Kelly. Will add to my side-bar, (and blogroll when I get that organised). I blogged earlier the link to a couple of articles I picked-up from the Knowledge Board RSS Klog Aggregator, though Paul’s blog doesn’t actually appear in the K-Board blogroll (?), and I’ve since discovered that Paul has a very rich and balanced vein of philosophical thought and links on what matters about knowledge. I’ve taken off-line copies of the articles to preserve them for the future – it’s amazing how quickly important stuff disappears. (Incidentally, is it my imagination, or is Canada a hotbed of good KM Stuff .)

Blogging was for Hippies ?

Blogging was for Hippies ?Gerry McGovern [via James Robertson] says [Quote] the “hippie” period of “anything goes” in website design and information architecture should well and truly die – if information architecture is to solve problems cost-effectively, it will have to become rigorously defined.[Unquote]
I have interests in standardisation too, in fact that’s how I came to KM, but we need to be very careful not to seek standards in the wrong places. I say, we need to be careful not to throw baby out with the bathwater here. Part of the power of the web and blogging is its freedom and democracy – not very scientific I know, but true. The freedom of extensibility within common frameworks and protocols is good, but fixed ontologies can be the death of us. Democracy is the other key aspect, that whatever standards do come into play, they do so because a community finds it useful to have them, they evolve, adapt and are adopted, not “set”.

Blog Tools

Blog Tools – This from BlogComp, [via Lilia’s blog]
The main current deficiencies in Blogger Pro for me are Categorisation and RSS Aggregation. Although I host my blog content with my own ISP, I make use of Blogger’s own hosted tools and service. I’m not really in a position to have the software hosted elsewhere, unless someone would like to suggest how, in a way that is likely to be cheap and reliable ?

Incidentally, there is an error in the comparison. Blogger Pro does support e-mail posting and active e-mail notification, and it works.

Leadership by e-Mail ?

Leadership by e-Mail ? Posted this comment against this article, and again against Lilia’s blog on the same subject. No problem with the concept that “real” networks of communication tell you far more about the way an organisation actually functions than any organisation charts, roles or procedures. This is well established fact in organisations that exist with multi-project matrices, rather than single production focussed lines. HOWEVER …. The dodgy premise here is that e-mail is representative of the real communications network. Good communicators (inc real leaders and managers) tend to maximise individual telecons or face to face contact. E-Mail traffic is skewed based on people’s between-the-lines motives for using e-mail. Self-aggrandisement, lack of courage and arse-covering are three to think about.

Dawkins’ Hyper-Rationalism

Dawkins’ Hyper-Rationalism – Posted an essay on this subject after recently reading Dawkins’ “A Devil’s Chaplain”. Methinks the Charles Simonyi professor, for the public understanding of science at Oxford University, doth protest too much when he attacks lack of knowledge with scientific rationale alone.

Rorty and Dennett on Knowledge Board aggregator

Rorty and Dennett on Knowledge Board aggregator. Interesting opinions about Rorty and Dennett in connection with Darwinian Evolution, Post-Modernism and Nietzsche amongst other things, from Paul Kelly’s blog – “as we know it”. And here was I thinking I was the only one following this philosophical line of investigation in Knowledge Management blogging. I get the impression that this writer also takes the view that disagreement between philosophies does not justify one attacking the other. There is a lot of grey between binary opposites. As I blogged in the last couple of weeks I’m having unexpected problems with Dawkins and Rorty, but currently enjoying Nietzsche.

Paul has this category [Quote] – Selection Theory – aka evolutionary epistemology, holds that evolution is a knowledge process. Knowledge, whether in the form of biological adaptation or cultural innovation, proceeds by the Darwinian dynamic of trial and error, blind variation and selective retention, conjecture and refutation, etc. [Unquote] Spot on. I might perhaps add the implied converse, that knowledge is an evolutionary process too. Re-inforces the idea that truth (in a strictly scientific sense) is quite different from knowledge.