Knowledge is Dialogue – Interesting post from Jerry Ash, with thread including Denham Grey and myself.
Liked this “Nobody ever came up with a great idea all by themselves.” – Thomas Edison.
Denham says – in a conversation – It is not the terms, but the distinctions & meaning that are important. Can’t disagree, almost a truism. I included the George Bernard Shaw quote earlier that “The problem with communication is the illusion that it has happened.” One phrase I use almost daily with colleagues, at the interface between business / technology domains, is “Why use one word when a sentence will do.” Essentially people at either side of a dialogue need to be very comfortable with each others context of understanding before reducing any novel, complex, indistinct, or otherwise ill-defined concept , to a jargon term. Inventing jargon and acronyms is a deadly recipe for mis-communication. Jargon should be allowed condense out of mutual dialogue.
(I have a nasty habit, an affectation perhaps when communicating orally – which I now understand – of putting key words in many of my communications in “scare quotes” – which is shorthand for saying “I think I know what I mean when I use this expression, but I know it’s possible you don’t understand the same thing, so if we’re not sure, then assume the rest of the communication is void and invalid. So when responding please feed this term back to me in your own words. Closed responses like yes I agree or no I disagree are invalid.”)
Dialogue ? Conversation ? or, if you prefer, Storytelling ? David Gurteen’s review of Extraordinary Minds by Howard Gardner “the architect of the leading story — must ever be in contact with human beings, trying out the story, making adjustment, monitoring their reactions, and repeating the cycle indefinitely.” Gardner says of Gandhi.