This morning I woke up with the first footage of air raids on Iraqs capital city Baghdad coming to the tv-screen. Even though I want to be careful not to make this blog a political forum, it is dedicated to knowledge management and learning after all, I feel the need to make this post and clarify my position. War, once declared, is no thing to be neutral about.
The last weeks, but also the last two years, I had an increasing uneasy feeling
concerning the foreign policy style of the USA. That unease started with one
little sentence G.W. Bush said whilst declaring war on terrorism: “You’re either
with us, or with the terrorists.” Any leader that thinks in such black and white
terms arouses my unease, especially so if that person is the President of the
one remaining world power.
So, yes, I too was devastated by the news of 9/11. Yes, I do think the USA have every right to react and defend themselves against such heinous acts. Yes, I too think Saddam Hussein is a dictator everybody would be glad to be rid of. No, I feel no antipathy whatsoever towards the USA nor its citizens. No, I don’t begrudge the USA their tremendous economic and military power. In fact I think it is a good thing that there is a super power in this world, if its deeds and morals match that level of power.
When you are in the possesion of tremendous power, you have to be a wise man in wielding it. For all their human flaws and differences of opinion, post war American Presidents have tried to do just that. And I also think that the current American President thinks he’s doing that as well. But the break I have witnessed in American foreign policy in the last years seems to point in the opposite direction. And that is what makes me very worried.
MSNBC explains this shift in foreign policy in eloquent detail.

Last week I wrote about listening as attaching strings to what someone says to you from what you already know and what you think to know. That last part of the statement brings a large caveat on the scene. What if I listen from assumptions that won’t bear up under closer scrutiny and am not aware of it? Denham Grey said “it takes two to listen” rightly, even if I only partly agreed with the rest of his comment: you need the other for that closer scrutiny. In the last few days two examples of how unsupported assumptions can thwart dialogue crossed my mind.
The first example comes from my own experience as an auditor for the QA-system in our company. When doing more in depth evaluations of projects we find that often time is lost when someone works from unsupported (you may notice that I don’t use the words wrong or right, because it’s not about that) assumptions. Colleague A asks you to participate on a project and briefly describes where you can contribute. And then you assume what it is that you will do and deliver to the project……….without checking back whether your assumptions are in line with colleague A’s mental picture. When such an immediate feedback loop is absent, the next feedback moment will be when you show up with the assumed deliverables. Any changes to be made then means doing things all over again, with larger timespending and dito costs as a result. The delivered work in these cases is usually excellent, but not what was called for.
The second example comes from Mamamusings, the weblog of Elizabeth Lane Lawly, where she explores the differences between how more introvert minded people and more extravert ones approach conversation. (For this posting I treat introverts and extraverts as two different species, which they are not of course) In short introverts speak when they’re done thinking, and extraverts speak to order and form their thoughts. The intriguing part for me is when she describes how introverts tend to think that all others including extraverts only speak when done thinking, and the other way around extraverts treat the words of introverts as attempts at forming an thoughts, not as the finished product thereof. Now imagine a dialogue between an introvert and an extravert, and watch it go of the tracks. Again in this example the problem lies in unvoiced assumptions.
The obvious solution to this of course is to voice your assumptions so that they may be evaluated, but that’s no easy thing for a mere mortal like me. Dialogue should in essence be aimed at inquiry and learning, at creating shared meaning (even if only temporarily possible) and integrating multiple perspectives. And also uncovering and examining assumptions as demonstrated by the examples.
The difficulty here is that all other aspects of dialogue are content focussed: they deal with what the dialogue is about. The uncovering of assumptions is more like meta-content: it looks at from what background, from what listeners contextuality, you bring the content to the dialogue. That requires assuming two different roles at the same time in a dialogue, one inside the system and one outside it.
Taking up the meta layer of things can be very tiring at times, and also sometimes distracts from the topic at hand. I sometimes have that with blogging: in the last few days I have been blogging on blogging, but shouldn’t I be blogging on knowledge management instead? Ok, I’ve paid tribute to KM by looking at blogging from a knowledge sharing view point, but is that a true connection, or maybe just a pretense? Metablogging looks like a great passtime of many a blogger.
Might the solution of combining both layers of dialogue lie in subtly altering the way you listen in a dialogue? I’ve described listening as tieing what you hear to your own contextuality. Maybe listening has to include reviewing the responses you get from that contextuality, feelings, intuitive reactions and associations.
Listening not as the one-way allocation of input but as interaction. That would make listening the meta-dialogue, the part outside the system, and speaking or storytelling the content part of a dialogue with the results of listening woven in, the part inside the system. This is something I’m not done with yet, I’ll be on the lookout for pointers to source on this. Feel free to point out a few.

In an article on the passions that (should) drive blogging, Jim McGee eloquently answers the classical challenge ‘people just don’t want to share’:
Discussions about knowledge management in organizations always raise the issue of sharing with the argument that people will be reluctant to share out of fear that their efforts will be appropriated by others. This is rooted in a industrial product metaphor of knowledge. See knowledge work as craft, however, and the sharing issue dissolves. Craft workers exist to share the fruits of their creating. A true knowledge craft product embodies something of the soul and personality of its creator. You share it with others not so they can copy it but so that they can find inspiration in using it in their own craft.

As Lilia picks up a comment by Denham Grey on blogs from KnowledgeBoard, Sebastian Fiedler adds his responses to those points of comment:
Denham Grey: At times I think k-logs are hyped by a few evangelists (converted bloggers). If you look closely at the record, things are not all that rosy:

reciprocity is very poor – bloggers tend to say this does not matter, it is
more important to be heard, to ‘voice’ or ‘push’ and publish your view

‘community’ happens from individual enclaves – bloggers retreat to their
spaces to reply, the common ‘space’ is then fractal, distributed and walled – it
lacks cohesion

the ‘record’ is fragmented even categories and RSS feeds do not produce a coherent easily readable discourse

empathy is low – most times it is about branding and spreading my memes
Sebastian reacts: If you want to apply Weblogging and personal Webpublishing as a tool for “organizational change” you might want to choose “groups” or “communities” as your unit of analysis. Like Lilia I tend to focus on the (networked) individual, but then my background is psychology and education… so what else would you expect? 😉 Here are my initial comments on Denham’s points of critique:

reciprocity… Actually, I don’t think I fully understand what Denham is trying to say here. People do not only engage in personal Webpublishing and Weblogging to be heard. They also use it as a “listening” and “recording” device. One of the most interesting aspects of personal Webpublishing to me is the fact that I don’t have to “push” at all. I can quietly begin publishing (talking) to myself and simply wait and see what happens. This of course requires patience and the believe that holding a conversation with yourself is fun and interesting regardless of an “emergent” audience. By taking this personal conversation in the open I open opportunities for chance “meetings” that can develop in more stable relationships with growing reciprocity.

‘community’ happens from individual enclaves… And how is this
different in other parts of life? “Commom spaces” in modern societies tend to be “fractal”, “distributed”, and occassionally “walled”. Why should I even expect
cohesion? I would say that cohesion needs to be constructed and imposed by the individual.

the ‘record’ is fragmented… So are all of my records. Do you hold
“a coherent easily readable discourse” with anyone – including yourself – over
time? If you go about any personal learning project do all the books, websites,
conversations, etc. quickly add up to “a coherent easily readable discourse”?

…most times it is about branding and spreading my memes. That is largely a matter of personal style, your interests, and intentions. On
Seblogging I have chosen to explicitly focus on other people’s voices. This
project is certainly NOT only about spreading MY memes… Tell me about your
purposes first and then let’s talk about the pros and cons of personal Webpublishing.

Through Lilia Efimova I found Micah Alpern’s microblogosphere search tool
(go see Micah’s weblog).
As a search tool to search my own blog, and the ones I read, was something I already had on my wishlist of improvements for my blog, I’ve imeddiately added it on the left hand side, directly below the blogroll.
Great work Micah!

Already in January I promised Denham Grey to write something about blogs as a medium for knowledge sharing. Denham and I seem to have different views of the capacity of blogs in this regard (Read his comment on KnowledgeBoard regarding blogs). Promises are often easy, sometimes even lightly, made, and it is in extremely busy weeks as I have been having recently when others fill my agenda that it proves enormously difficult to keep them. However the time has come to start fulfilling some promises, in an attempt to regain some of my authenticity as John Moore would have it. (Yes John, my promise to you regarding links on trust will be as well).
Blogs and knowledge sharing it is then. In recent weeks both Denham Grey as well as Lilia
Efimova and Sebastien Paquet have put their thoughts on this in words.
In the posting before this one, I have described my thoughts on listening as the road to obtaining new knowledge. Taking this stance on listening as a starting point knowledge sharing is what? Sharing knowledge is where a storyteller recounts a story that is particularly relevant to the listener at this time, otherwise it would fall on deaf ears, and no sharing would take place, only broadcasting. Knowledge sharing takes place in dialogues, wether in real time or not, where all parties take on the role of both story teller and listener. In practice this is not often a clear cut case: I acquire knowledge by listening to different storytellers, with knowledge sharing moments on parts of the eventually obtained knowledge. Knowledge sharing is a sort of information bartering.
From any piece of knowledge I cannot describe who shared it with me:
it is the resulting amalgam of all information inputs on a certain subject, of listening to multiple storytellers. Sometimes I can name influential sources, sometimes I cannot. Learning is mostly a voyage of discovery, a journey of listening, where only in the end, not along the way, I might have something to say on what brought me to my goal. It is an evolutionary process, with no clear view of what will be the red thread and what will be dead-end sideroads at the start.
What can help me along on my road of discovery is relationships, storytellers who can point to other storytellers. This is the bartering part I referred to in the last paragraph. This is certainly no clear lineair picture, but that’s just what it is: pretty chaotic and semi-random.
I myself quite like that chaotic aspect, it brings on the wonder and magical feeling of discovery I had when I was a 3 yr old, and the world to me seemed like an enormous place with no end of exciting treasures, hidden just so I could have the pleasure of finding them. I had lost that feeling by the time I was 8, and regained it in my mid twenties. So maybe I’m not the person to talk to about the demystification of learning through sharing. Let me just say that in knowledge sharing I think these factors matter: storytelling, listening, the right moment for listening (see former posting: contextual ripeness), dialogue, and relationships.
What do blogs do for me in this sense? It’s a place where I can tell stories. Stories that originate from me, are packaged in the context of me. However I do not broadcast these stories, since I don’t think my blog a broadcasting medium although a blog could well be. Ross Mayfield has some interesting posts on different settings for blogs from broadcasting to private channel. (Blogging Bubbles, Repealing the Power-Law, and especially Distribution of Choice) My stories are stories I use to accomodate my listening, I recount, and thereby interpret and give a place to what I listened to in my own mental context. By telling these stories publicly I also put the information I can barter you as a listener for in the window. This is not something I can do in a forum, or on a bulletinboard, because there it is not only me that determines the context of my stories. In my blog I do, you can retrace my steps by scrolling down on this page, and see the amalgam of impressions that went into forming my opinion for yourself.
I think that is important, more important than the actual outcome, to be able to see the road that led there, and which sideroads were passed. So that I, or someone else can decide that it is time to retrace my steps and turn into the sideroad. I hate minutes from meetings that only say what was decided. I can see that from your actions. I am much more interested in what made you decide: a blog works at making those processes visible.
Wikis only make the (collective) product visible in comparison, even if that product is never quite finished (and thus fulfilling David Weinbergers 1998 prediction about the end of doneness). (For a telling example of how listening is determined by the listeners context see Gary’s blog where he also refers to Ross Mayfield‘s blogs on powerlaws and blog networks, but then to illustrate his musings on emergent democracy and the role of trust. I use the same references in a different context. In both instances the listener determines the value of the story, while Ross’s context that made him publish it is probably totally different.)
Places where this story was picked up, and commented on:
Seblogging
Mathemagenic
Synesthesia
Making Connections
RU Weblog
Ming the Morpho Mechanic
Ross Mayfield
Stir
This text is not finished yet: I need yet to address relationships through
blogging, and what the road of discovery and dialogue look like in the
blogosphere. Especially because not all of that takes place on the face of the
blog.