What, Why & How do we Know ?
P2P Networks Will Replace WWW. New Scientist article (via Robb) about IRIS, US government funded P2P Network. I’ve believed P2P was the future for a couple of years, ever since being amazed at the power of Napster (and Kazaa since). Notwithstanding the technology aspects, P2P is much closer to what knowledge really is. [Check out with Graham at Empolis / Bertlesmann.]
[Post Note – More like the WWW will “continue to evolve into” a P2P network.]
Hitting the Right Buttons. Feature from Salon (via Curry) about subconscious triggers exploited in advertising.
The Human Side of Knowledge Management. Slides (pdf) (via Seb and Thomas) from John Seeley Brown, plugging his book “The Social Life of Knowledge”. Basic message is knowledge is socially constructed, so design any system, be it physical office organisation, training courses or computer applications to encourage social interaction – “conversation” metaphor. He’ll get no argument from me. [Some good graphics to re-use elsewhere – Rate of processing power / storage capacity doubling periods + plus the community law, knowledge value equals 2 to the power of n connected users. Explicit vs tacit knowledge iceberg, and several more including the obligatory BCG 2×2 grid and “virtuous circle” cliches.]
History of the Blog from Rebecca Blood.
Metaphors We Live By. From JOHO’s booklist. Blogged several earlier mentions about how metaphorical aphorisms often seemed closer to the truth than any apparently rational view of a reality being described. (Part of my main thesis in fact as “many a true word”.) Bizarre, but here’s a book by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson on that very subject. Hmmmm. I’m due to start a new book this week too ?
JOHO also comments on “Affective Computing” by Rosalind Picard [Quote] Raises questions about our assumption that rationality is the king of consciousness. [Unquote] I should say so.
JOHO’s Weinberger is also one of the contributors to “Cluetrain”. Ref The Cluetrain Manifesto : The End of Business as Usual. Intersting that an “e-biz” dot.com marketing hype book should still draw rave reviews in 2002. Good stuff about how it’s “humans” actually communicating even if the medium is the web. The human interactivity theme is very evocative of Douglas Adams thoughts on the web. This one caught my eye [Quote] No.29 (of 95) Elvis said it best: “We can’t go on together with suspicious minds.” [Unquote] IMHO – there is clearly an element of trust across a hyperlink, presumed or negotiated, about the communication you’re about to receive. [Post note – Just started reading Eco’s “Kant and the Platypus”, and he also talks of communicating knowledge being like a contract.]
[Quote] If you only have time for one clue this year [and can’t be bothered to read the other 94], this is the one to get… “We are not seats, or eyeballs, [or hits], or users, or consumers. We are human beings, and our reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it.”[Unquote]
randgaengeAnother interesting Radio Userland K-Blog from Thomas N. Burg. Uses some neat features of the Radio blogging system.
This, below, is one of my earliest posts from 2002.
[Here I’ve simply added a couple of links to later (better) posts:
The Meme of Maslow’s Mojo (2011) ,and
Motivation 3.0 – The Pink Way (2013)]
I’ve made countless references to Maslow ever since I noticed that Pirsig’s levels of “value” (absolute quality or goodness) appeared to mirror it and recently since Foucault seemed to reinforce this impression. I always warmed to Maslow since pre-MBA management training days so I thought I’d better check out how good my memory was with a Google search. As usual I have unashamedly rolled several different theories together in my head – better to build and synthesise than to discard one theory in favour of another. Quite frankly IMHO, Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs can be (and often is) re-stated in words and varying levels of granularity that make Hertzberg’s (binary) Motivators and Hygiene Factors, McGregor’s (binary) Theories X and Y, and Ouchi’s Theory Z all just special cases of Maslow’s more general case. Most criticisms of Maslow can similarly be countered by judicious choice of words, and by remembering to treat his pyramid as an analytical framework, rather than some prescriptive methodology. These theories come predominantly from “management science” domains, but Pirsig and Foucault seem to say they represent something pretty fundamental about human social organisation and values – or even, dare I say, of any higher order intelligent beings natural or artificial.
Bearing in mind my original declaration of consciously viewing information and knowledge from a “human intent” perspective, then perhaps it becomes apparent why I see these drivers as one fundamental part of any knowledge model.
The Apothecary’s Drawer. Interesting mixed culture / science / history / writing blog from Ray Girvan (Link via Seb) with main site home pages containing many interesting (and classified) links. Picked up a link from there to Kuro5hin – “Technology and Culture from the Trenches” a lo-noise bulletin board with democratic moderation.
[Post Note – I’d forgotten until I re-looked recently that Ray’s tag line was actually “an eclectic and sceptical look at topics near the triple point of science, arts, and culture”.]