Dave Pollard's environmental philosophy, creative works, business papers and essays.

trust your instincts

< £ Salon Bloggers & >

	April 24, 2003

LET US BE LUDDITES, CONTINUED Alas, a Blog asked the following question on Tuesday: If you could name one single piece of technology (and I will leave the individuation problem up to you) the elimination of which would most improve life on earth for us humans, what would it be? Almost fifty people have suggested their answers to this question. Before you read what they said, think about your answer first. Then go here , read the original post and its fascinating comments thread, and add your two cents. 9:46:24 PM  trackback []  comment []

WHAT'S YOUR 'KNOWLEDGE BEHAVIOUR'? Five years ago I had the opportunity to speak to a group of Canadian press representatives about the future of the news media. They listened to me because I buy their newsfeeds and publications databases for our company's intranet. They didn't like my message. I told them the news motto for 2003 would be "less is more", that buyers and readers would want less 'raw' news data and more "what does it mean" analysis. Now I think I was wrong, for two reasons: People often don't trust the media to be logical, complete and unbiased in their analysis (though for some reason they do tend to trust them to be complete and accurate in the 'raw' news they report, 'embedded' journalism notwithstanding); and Some people are just news junkies, with an insatiable thirst for 'raw' news for its entertainment value, for its own sake. They don't really care what it means. It's today's water cooler, boardroom and coffee klatsch chat fodder, forgotten tomorrow. During the Iraq war, The Agonist was offering minute-by-minute details of troop movements and other events, with no time for real analysis, and was drawing two million hits per day to his blog. On the other hand, the 'most e-mailed' New York Times articles are frequently editorials and op-ed pieces, which I'd guess means the senders think they're useful or at least inspiring analyses. What are we to make of this? In the field of Knowledge Management, we recognize a spectrum of 'knowledge behaviours', illustrated in the chart at right. These behaviours reflect each individual's level of trust in their information sources, and their attention span, appetite and available time to process information themselves. At one end of the spectrum ('A' on the chart) are news junkies who either don't trust anyone to analyze information for them, or don't care what it means. At the other end ('D') are those that trust others (their parents, their president, or their preacher) enough to allow those others not only to interpret the news for them, but to prescribe appropriate action. These people probably own a lot of surplus duct tape these days. Most of us, of course, vacillate along this value chain. We trust some sources implicitly and others not at all. We usually trust major media to at least aggregate the news for us, and often allow analysts and editorialists we know to give us their take on what it means. Bloggers' posts, too, range from 'just the facts' to far-reaching essays and calls to arms. This blog is usually rated 'C', and those that enjoy exchange of ideas and opinions should be at home here. News junkies, and those looking for life's instructions, will probably have more fun elsewhere. Among Salon blogs, I think Ted Ritzer's WIFL is an excellent mostly-type-'A' blog, while The Raven is the consummate type 'B', and Toby is an outstanding type 'C'. I've occasionally tried my hand at type 'D' posts, but as this thread will attest, bloggers who attempt to pontificate to an unfamiliar and sceptical audience do so at their peril. Even if you're a Rush Limbaugh preaching to an uncritical choir, it's all about building trust, and especially these days, trust takes time. Stories are a clever mechanism to present type 'C' and even type 'D' knowledge as type 'A', in advance of building trust. Most religions are thus built on books of stories, and it's a prime means of teaching children with short attention spans. Even business is taking stories very seriously these days, as I'll explain in a future post. 11:59:01 AM  trackback []  comment []

MORE EXTRAORDINARY WEBSITES (RIGHT-BRAIN EDITION) Here's the third instalment of How to Save the World's rundown of extraordinary weblogs and websites: Earful of Philosophy: Philosophy Radio is a set of over one hundred audio transcripts on a wide variety of areas of philosophy, including Dawkins on memes, Ignatieff on human rights, Greenfield on consciousness, Kingwell on happiness, Safdie on aesthetics, Lakoff on neuroscience's debunking of classical philosopy, and of course Monty Python's philosophers' drinking song. The RealAudio transcripts are culled by editor T.Hancock mostly from programs like BBC's In Our Time , CBC's Ideas , and several NPR programs. Public Radio at its best. Art and its Influences: The website of international artist (and eloquent blog-commenter) Timothy Stotz (self-portrait reproduced at right), with its rich reproductions of Stotz' paintings and sketches, contains a statement of the artist's view of art, which includes this pronouncement: "Painting needs no historical justification or placement, it only needs to give life to beautiful things, and give life to its viewers. Not joy or despair, mysteries or facts, ideals or realities, but life. The full picture." This site also includes a remarkable chart showing the influence of artists on other artists through the ages. A Place to Think: Carlos Arribas' Mysterium is a "journal of poetry, art, ideas, opinion, and the numerous personal obsessions". An island of calm and articulate reflection in today's ocean of frenzy and rhetoric. Blogosphere Map: Mikel Maron at BrainOff has an awesome Flash-based real-time world map of Blogosphere posts. While I was watching, Kriselda's Different Strings post on the new Coronex worm flashed up. Watch This Space: Today the inimitable Esther Dyson started her own Weblog, Release 4.0 . Should be worth a read once it gets going. Ecological Design: The Ecotecture journal has two features that are quite distinctive. First, it's an "open source" journal. It's written by its subscribers, and editor Philip Wenz just fills in what's missing. Secondly, the focus is on design, using human creativity and ingenuity to make huge advances in products, processes and technology by improving their design rather than by invention. It's a neo-Fullerian approach. Wenz calls it "empowering our readers to solve environmental problems". It's far from perfect, and some of the writing is a bit amateurish , but it's the idea of a collaborative open space focused on finding design solutions to specific problems that's important. Don't miss the delightful interview with the Gaia movement's field marshall, Fritjov Capra . 1:21:41 AM  trackback []  comment []

© Copyright 2004 Dave Pollard. Last update: 19/02/2004; 2:42:56 PM.