There is a discussion on LinkedIn at present about the inadequacies of the “linkedIn format” when it comes to what I shall term “constructive discourse” – by that I mean that something is “created” as a result of the discussion.
There are basically – as you might expect – two pretty much opposing camps. On the one side you have those who are frustrated by ‘meandering’ discussions and who want a more focussed product – effectively filtering out anything that is “off-topic”. On the other side (and strangely these seem to be the minority) are those who are defending the “status quo” on the grounds that – basically – it works for them. I say strangely because my experience of the discussions is that the majority of contributors are happy to wander off topic….
I’m in both camps – yes, I know that sounds a bit strange – but I think that both sides have a point – where they are (in my humble opinion) wrong is assuming that their point excludes the other!! (which is in itself a bit of an anomaly given the nature of the group involved)
When someone asks a question in LinkedIn it would seem only polite to answer it – however, in many cases the reason for asking the question is that no one actually knows the answer – so discussion ensues – many points of view are expressed – occasionally a conclusion is reached – often things wander off into related subjects – then several conversations occur interleaved in a single discussion.
So – that is the reality of what happens. Why is it a problem? Many reasons but first and foremost there is rarely any “pulling together” of a consensus so each individual following the thread is left to draw their own conclusions – but, hold on – is that actually a problem. We are dealing here with a group of people who are capable of “thinking for themselves” and who, in many instances, have well thought through and coherent worldviews. Surely they are each capable of working things out for themselves.
Yes – for those involved – but what about capturing the “collected wisdom” for others not fortunate enough to have been there – the phrase “you had to be there” becomes literally true. Yes you can wade through hundreds of posts – but where do you start – which discussions are worth persevering with – which are not.
Whoa!!! Isn’t this simply a reflection of “real life” – assuming we can take the world of LinkedIn as something other than real life. As a learner – what do I read; where do I begin to learn about any given subject; how can I filter out the ‘dross’ and get the ‘nuggets’ of information that matter TO ME. Those last two words are important.
Ultimately the only person who can decide what I need to learn is me. No matter how good a job someone else (or some other piece of technology) does is going to be ‘right’ for me. If someone buys me a book as a Christmas present it may, or may not be interesting – but they cannot know a priori which.
Don’t get me wrong – I wouldn’t want to stop people buying me books or telling me “interesting facts” or pointing me at a journal article or blog that I MUST READ. I have written elsewhere on the essential nature of serendipitous learning for me. Where such ‘directing’ is wrong (again in my humble opinion) is not in telling me what to read, but in stopping me from reading something else.
Any ‘summary’ of a LinkedIn discussion must, inevitably, leave something out – what gets left out – that is a matter of ‘personal’ opinion – what is ‘irrelevant’ – that is a matter of ‘personal’ opinion (especially as something which is entirely irrelevant to ONE particular thread my be just the missing piece of an entirely different jigsaw) and so some possible links to good (and potentially novel) stuff is lost.
In the old days (!!!) your knowledge was what you could hold in your head – if your memory failed, then your knowledge was diminished. The ‘only’ supplementary to this was in the form of books (knowing where to look) whether owned or in a library – where you were subject to whatever structure someone else had deemed ‘appropriate’ – or personal notebooks (of whatever form) that allowed freedom to choose what was included/excluded but quickly became extremely difficult to access in any sort of efficient way.
Now – in the age of the internet; wikipedia; blogs; databases and an explosion of ‘data’ we are so much better off!!! (OK there is just a little bit of sarcasm in that!)
What we do have is the tools available to structure our own “external” knowledge in a way that is better than the personal notebooks – but lack the skills and experience to use those tools in the most effective way – why – simply because they are all “new” and (perhaps worse) every day along comes the “all singing all dancing – well nearly – even better new way” and we have to re-appraise our ideas.
For most people I suspect that is just too much effort!
I admire those who have built up impressive online repositories of information. Some examples:
Mitre’s Enterprise Architecture Body of Knowledge
(Note that this is far from a complete list – rather it is a representative selection of different ways of approaching this problem. They range from sites recording a ‘personal’ knowledge base to those collecting a reference list)
Even the least sophisticated of these are so much better than what “we had before”. Any criticism of them comes as a result of realising that they are products of their time and technology changes so fast that there is always a “better way”. In this blog – and its associated photo album and reference library and (an essentially empty) wiki – I am starting to grow my own repository. It will, no doubt, grow even more strands over time – there are already some things that I would love to incorporate.
However, I recognise that – fundamentally – it is a tool for ME – not for anyone else. Yes, hopefully others may stumble over something that is helpful – or points them in the right direction, but is it possible to design in such serendipity?
In a previous note I wrote:
So what is the lesson? Well it reinforces something I already knew – we must be diligent, careful and perhaps even over enthusiastic about linking things together in our wiki. Of course, that is not a surprise since everyone should know that the real value of any piece of data is not intrinsic in itself, but only in the way that it ‘connects’ with all the other pieces of data that we ‘know’.
It is very easy to put a few paragraphs of distilled wisdom in the wiki – it is very difficult to ensure that the maximum number of people will fall over that wisdom just when they need it!
Perversely – or is it serendipitously(?) – the very note that I wanted to find was referencing out to DIKW (that’s Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom for the uninitiated) and itself talks about the need to go beyond ‘just’ collecting data! It is only by developing and enhancing the wiki and ensuring that it is ‘well-linked’ that will take it beyond data and even information to the heady realms of knowledge and, dare we aim this high, wisdom.
I’m quite pleased that over five years later I still agree with myself!!!
Our way forward is by making connections – observing new relationships – tying together loose ends. I see little value in merely repeating ‘accepted wisdom’ – here the social network phenomenon of “sharing” is getting it partly right because each “share” creates a new link that someone might be able to follow – like the birds adding extra breadcrumbs to Hansel and Gretel’s trail rather than eating them – reinforcing the pathway.
We should all strive to create links of all types – and I am not just talking about hyperlinks on web pages. Its the people as well – and here LinkedIn has undoubtedly helped me – drawing together like-minded folks with whom I find that I can connect well – no longer limited to those that I “meet” in real life – limited as that is by geography. There is, of course, no guarantee that the “right people” will meet – however some of the barriers have been broken down. Certainly from personal experience I would never have collected such a diverse and wonderful group of friends/colleagues/acquaintances without the power of “social networking” online. (that is a whole new topic)
Another “whole new topic” is providing tools to enable really efficient searching – but in a serendipitous way, when the person doing the searching doesn’t know what they are looking for. Perhaps I’ll come back to that one another time.
I would finish this blog with a caution – this has been all about the positive – make connections – enable relationships to bear fruit – and so on. It is always easy to fall in to the trap of only stating the “do this” requirement and ignoring the “don’t do this” requirements. In this context we must try hard to avoid erecting barriers (note this is quite different to breaking down existing barriers) by using our power of “make connections” to drive thing in a particular direction.
Serendipity needs choice – serendipity needs the ability to arrive at the same conclusion from different directions – and the ability to explore new alternatives – serendipity does not need “do not go here” barriers or “this is not correct” barriers or even “here be dragons” – unless of course the warning is meant as an invitation – much like “don’t press this button”!!