Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 15:53:37 -0500
From: | Mark W. McElroy |
mmcelroy@vermontel.net Organization: Macroinnovation Associates, LLC |
To: | jmaloney@collaboratory.com |
Subject: | Knowledge Theory |
John Maloney
wrote on November 22, 2000...
Thanks for copying me on this exchange. I have followed it with interest.
Mark, you've done a nice job of capturing and leading a lot of the thought in this area.
John Maloney wrote on November 22, 2000...
If the 'knowledge theory' is simply an academic exercise or ontology, then fine.
However, from my review it seems as if there is a belief or predicate in the large-scale, unbounded, and mechanized production of useful knowledge. This is a false & dangerous presupposition.
I agree, althought there's nothing mechanized about the KMCI model or my own ideas, so far as I know. In fact, we've tried very hard to stay away from such reductionism and have placed our bets, instead, on the existence of knowledge nonlinearities, if you will, in human social systems.
Still, the fact that we base our thinking on the view that there are knowledge life cycles in play does not equate to mechanistic thinking. Even wildly unpredictable and emergent systems can be characterized by such cycles. In complexity science they're called "strange attractors."
John Maloney wrote on November 22, 2000...
Productivity is an economic term invented long after living systems were "innovating," last time I checked. If that's Porter's notion of innovation then I disagree with him. If it's only productivity we're all after, then we might as well forget about sustainability because the former is often achieved at the expense of the latter. I'm not interested in the econometric bias to knowledge and innovation if its only about productivity.
John Maloney wrote on November 22, 2000...
Or "can be" linear and mechanistic.
John Maloney wrote on November 22, 2000...
Well I guess we disagree there. First, the explanation you say is missing from complexity theiry is precisely the one that I think complexity theory offers. CAS theory, in particular, is nothing if not a theory on how capricious, unpredictable and ninlinear learning happens in living systems. That's its jaw-dropping beauty. As for OL, I would tend to agree with you there. In fact, I have argued that practitioners of OL should spend more time thinking about CAS theory as a source of inspiration for understanding HOW organizations learn.
John Maloney wrote on November 22, 2000...
However, new wealth-producing processes require a much higher degree of individual intellectual & creative effort. In this environment, knowledge management must strive to enhance & expand zones of collaboration, sharing, learning, play, context, content, expression and community for individuals. It does not involve rigid, cybernetic processes of identification, codification, control, production and maximization, for example. The KM pursuit is an environment of effortless sharing and unconscious collaboration. The objective is to maximize the efficiencies & effectiveness of mental concentration, cognition and imagination, not "production" of knowledge.
Yes. I agree with all of that. In fact, I declared that view as comprising a "second generation" of thinking on KM in a paper published a year ago in KM magazine, and which is freely available on my website.
John Maloney wrote on November 22, 2000...
John Maloney wrote on November 22, 2000...
Well, I would agree that we have totally mastered the practice of unsustainable food production, yes. Thank you for substantiating the distinction I made in my Porter comment above.
John Maloney wrote on November 22, 2000...
Exactly. All of which adds up to my general idictment of industry as practitioners of unsustainable innovation on a massive scale. I argue that not only are businesses subject to measures of sustainability, but so are their innovation processes and practices, as well.
John Maloney wrote on November 22, 2000...
Agreed. They practice "first generation, supply-side KM." Very shallow.
John Maloney wrote on November 22, 2000...
"Every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might be made only if the decisions depending on it are left to him."
It is from "The Use of Knowledge in Society," which I recommend.
Thanks, John, for the feedback and pleasant dialogue.
Mark
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