The Network Singularity: Recent Comments

Comment on The Weakness of Strong Ties

Angela Dunn — 2011-12-11T22:43:58Z

Your post is spot on John! I will ping John Hagel and Valdis Krebs who will have more to say. Weak links are also the source of serendipity. "“We need serendipitous encounters with people because of the importance of the ideas these people carry with them and the connections they have,” “The Power of Pull” by John Hagel, et al. Please see my more in my post "Are Weak Links Key to Realizing Good Ideas?" http://blogbrevity.posterous.com/ideachat-nov-13th-are-weak-links-key-to-reali.

Also, see my prezi on the value of weak ties and "superconnecting," in "Innovators are Conversation Architects". http://screenr.com/w4F

Thank you for an interesting and valuable read.

Angela Dunn
@blogbrevity

Comment on Marketing Confusion

kaizen consultancy — 2011-12-02T11:31:25Z

Business ultimate goal is to earn profit. Providing jobs for people is one benefit that society can get in establishing businesses.

Comment on Tapping Into Social-Media Smarts

Donald V Steward — 2011-11-29T04:35:50Z

PROBLEM SOLVING MAY BE MORE THAN JUST KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
For the purpose of this article I will contend that the goal of knowledge management is to solve problems.
The problems faced by society today are becoming much more complex than they used to be. Where once they could be solved quite easily as many individual problems, due to advances in communications and greater connectivity, these many problems have now become so intertwined that they must be solved as large, more complex problems. That’s not easy.
Unable to solve these problems, people resort to using oversimplifications and fallacious reasoning, which results in problems not being solved, frustrations, anger, and hostilities. This, for example, has left us with a gridlocked Congress unable to do anything more than argue and threaten to shut down government by not passing the frequent continuing resolutions necessary to keep government operating. So we have government by threat and accusations rather than government by negotiations.
We need to find a way to solve these complex problems to avoid disaster. Fortunately, there exists a way. Unfortunately it has not gotten the attention it deserves because people are still convinced it cannot be done. Sometimes when the future has arrived, it takes several decades to recognize its presence. But our current problems are so serious that we may not afford the time to recognize that now these problems can be solved.
Solving problems requires more than just information. It also requires working with the relations between various aspects of information and the ability to use logic with these relations in order to understand their implications and solve problems.
The Explainer is a running beta version of a program that helps people with different perspectives collaborate to collect and discuss the cause-and-effect relations that define the situation from which a behavior may arise. We use some license by calling these relations ‘knowledge’.
People are fairly good at collecting these cause-and-effect dots. For example, ‘Joblessness’ is caused by ‘Businesses unable to hire employees’, which is caused by ‘Businesses unable to sell their products’ OR ‘Businesses unable to acquire funding to maintain and extend their businesses’. And ‘Businesses unable to sell their products’ is caused by ‘Joblessness’. The Explainer program makes it fairly easy to directly enter these relations without the need for the intervention of a knowledge engineer to translate them into a form the computer can recognize.
Then given a behavior, the Explainer does the abductive logic to find what explanations would produce that behavior. But since each explanation may predict other behaviors as well as the one intended, the Explainer uses deduction to find these other behaviors so that they can be tested as to whether they occur. If an explanation predicts a behavior that does not occur, it is ruled-out.
See http://problematics.com/articles/ARTICLE-B.pdf.

Comment on The Support Economy

David Hawthorne — 2011-09-10T12:47:59Z

Good to hear from Shoshana again. I'd like to hear more about the role of 'cash.'If more than a metaphor, I have trouble with the way 'cash' tends to "pool" in the system and becomes a sinkhole of speculation. Also, am I quibbling if I think individuals only create value when they act socially?

Comment on origin of knowledge management

Peter Kinnon — 2011-09-02T00:47:28Z

According to the evidence-based model advanced in "The Goldilocks Effect: What Has Serendipity Ever Done For Us?" (free download in e-book formats from the "Unusual Perspectives" website), the "Internet Singularity" may have even more profound consequences.

Comment on Whither Fordism

Igor Palmer — 2011-08-26T16:45:29Z

One of the major reasons why KM systems fail: they are data volume based systems effectively shutting off a potentially KM system by burying useful/expert know-how under a massive pile of dud data. Dud KM systems are built everywhere, for it is chic to boast about KM system, for dud KM systems are useful in propagation of knowledge organisation myth and they also provide sanctuary for the inept KMers. With dud KM systems, KMers can herd employees into Communities Of Practice (COPs), organizing all sorts of shallow discussions around a cooler or in war rooms, or knowledge sharing workshops, etc. Garbage and gossip is always liberally available and shared happily. On the other hand, acquisition of expert or highly useful knowledge requires expertise, few have. The source of knowledge must be managed prudently, not squandered by casting pearls of knowledge before swine.
Knowledge sharing could succeed in Affinity Groups (AG) environment, where the minds even from different disciplines bond for a Common Purpose (CP). Affinity and the CP are far stronger stimulants to share knowledge than COPs. People are complex creatures, Knowledgeable People are impossibly complex; herding them into COPs they did not ask for, will not stimulate their minds to share knowledge. Of course AG and CP are only as good as the KM who puts such environment together, thus even within the best AG environment, knowledge sharing is not assured. AG is merely an environment. A truly outstanding KM will be able to facilitate knowledge interchange.
As a long time researcher of knowledge, cognitive dexterity as well as a practitioner of knowledge diffusion, I am persuaded that there is no such thing as Knowledge Management beyond the minds of those who possess the knowledge. The owners of the knowledge are the mangers of their knowledge and they manage it according to:

1. Environment they operate
2. Emotional impulses.
3. Commercial consideration.
4. Ulterior motives.
5. Prevailing circumstances.
6. Cultural & ethnic baggage, bondage and taboos.
7. Ethical predisposition.

After many years in the KM arena, I find the KM circus amusing, with its colourful balloons filled with He, floating everywhere. Occasionally, usually just before the performance review a KMer pricks a KM balloon producing a loud bang to the amazement and delight of the busybody KM crowd and the lousy management.

"Solid arguments are lost on shallow minds. Yet what else are we to use? We are bound to give them reasons; but we are not called upon to give them understanding." - Charles Spurgeon

We live in a woeful KM era where bangs are applauded, vulgarity is passed as being piquant or avant-garde and sloganism is mandated. Measurable results gave ways to eclectic slogans that tickle bosses' senses. Lord Byron described his society so aptly: "Society is now one polished horde, formed of two mighty tribes, the bores and the bored."