16 posts tagged “knowledge management”
I attended the mind of Buckminster Fuller's talk at Bucky Group last Saturday. The talk is conducted by Bucky Group member - Titus Yong. He shares what he seen at the Buckminster Fuller's exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
He also talks about what he thinks about how Buckminster Fuller thinks. I recall what he says and express it in a diagram.
Whole Wide World
Whole - seek synergy
Wide - seek knowledge across disciplines
World - seek inspiration from our World
I like to introduce my idea of intuitive future wisdom.
Intuitive future wisdom is a kind of feeling that a person that one don’t understand now will give one wisdom if one makes efforts to learn from him or her.
The funny part is how can one feels that one can learn from him or her when one don’t even understand them. I don’t have an answer yet. Let’s make this an enquiry and find it out together. My current guess is the greatness of their work.
I had this feeling about 8 years ago when I was introduce to the works of Buckminster Fuller by a friend of mine - Joo Hock. Thanks Joo Hock. I still don’t understand almost all his works except his personal efforts in learning. I am still trying to learn from him.
One person that is alive that makes me feel the intuitive future wisdom feeling is Kevin Kelly. I feel I can learn a lot from him but I don’t seem to understand his ideas now.
The usefulness of this idea for me is that I use it to understand why I am willing to keep learning from someone that I might not understand after 8 years. When I come across a person to learn from, I ask myself, do I have the intuitive future wisdom feeling? If yes, I will invest the efforts to learn from him or her.
Who have made you feel the intuitive future wisdom feeling?
What did I observe?
Customers don’t just buy products and services from companies. They also learn from them. They don’t just learn things that will benefit the companies’ sales. For example, if they learn how to protect their love ones by buying life insurance, they might buy life insurance from AIG who offers them a free seminar on financial planning.
They also learn things which will not help companies’ sales. For example, when they watch a video on personal development at Talks@Google, they don’t use Google more.
It will be interesting to see:
Will more companies releasing their in house learning resources to the public?
Will customers prefer to buy from companies that they have learned from versus normal companies?
What do I called this observation?
Companies as learning resource
One of my favorite pass times is meeting up with friends to chat about ideas that I discovered. As I observed what I do during these discussions, I discovered that I basically behaved in 3 ways:
I broaden the idea.
I deepen the understanding of the idea.
I connect the idea to another idea.
I came up with a diagram to show how I behaved in these discussions.
I name the diagram the Conversation Triangle.
It consists of 4 points
I = Idea
B = Broaden Idea
C = Connected Idea
D = Deepen Understanding
6 relationships
IB = Action of broadening the idea
IC = Action of connecting the idea to another idea
ID = Action of deepening the understanding of the idea
BC = Action of connecting the broaden idea to another idea
BD = Action of deepening the understanding of the broaden idea
CD = Action of deepening the understanding of the idea that was connected to
Education systems are educating people out of their creative capacities. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children.
Sir Ken Robinson
TED 2006 Feb presentation
Recently Rochelle ( my friend ) told me a story. When Columbus ships came to America, the Native Indians could not see them coming. They thought their ships will clouds.
After reflecting on this story, I came to understand that we cannot see something that we do not know. If I am an Native Indian, how can I see ships when there is no ships in my World? How can we see what we don't know? How can we see what we can't see?
John Naisbitt says discoveries grow out of something that is already there. Ripe apples had always fallen to the ground but Isaac Newton saw "the deeper meaning." The Earth has always circled the sun but Copernicus and Galileo observed the evidence and make the connections. Geniuses often build on details that many people can spot but can't connect.
There are things we can see but others can't see. There are things that others can see but we can't see. Let's help each other to see what both of us can see.
The John Naisbitt paragraph is taken from page 42 of his book - Mindset.
Thanks for the story Rochelle.
2. Things fail when it is not design to deal with changes.
3. One can reduce one's ignorance by learning more about oneself and the World around us.
4. Sharing what I discover about myself and the World around me is intellectual philanthropy.
5. There is power when one knows one can be wrong.
6. There is always more than one way of seeing and doing things.
7. Listen to people who have unpopular views.
8. Do one's own thinking.
9. If one does not make choices, choices make one.
Look out for:
Connections between what one don't know and what one knows.
Connections between ideas.
Connections between you ( the person who is looking at this list ) and me.
Why should we generalized instead of specialized?
Sense from:
Operating manual for Spaceship Earth
Buckminster Fuller
Page 40 - 41
Arkana
ISBN: 0140194517
A type of bird which lived on a special variety of micro-marine life. Flying around, these birds gradually discovered that there were certain places in which that particular marine life tended to pocket-in the marshes along certain ocean shores of certain lands. So, instead of flying aimlessly for chance finding of that marine life they went to where it was concentrated in bayside marshes.
After a while, the water began to recede in the marshes, because the Earth’s polar ice cap was beginning to increase. Only the birds with very long beaks could reach deeply enough in the marsh holes to get at the marine life. The unfed, short-billed birds died off. This left only the long-beakers. When the birds’ inborn drive to reproduce occurred there were only other long-beakers surviving with whom to breed. This concentrated their long-beak genes.
So, with continually receding waters and generation to generation inbreeding, longer and longer beaked birds were produced. The waters kept receding, and the beaks of successive generations of the birds grew bigger and bigger. The long-beakers seemed to be prospering when all at once there was a great fire in the marshes. It was discovered that because their beaks had become so heavy these birds could no longer fly. They could not escape the flames by flying out of the marsh. Waddling on their legs they were too slow to escape, and so they perished.
This is typical of the way in which extinction occurs through over-specialization.
What happened?
Four Points Hotels ( part of the Starwood Hotel Group ) is looking for a Chief Beer Officer ( CBO ). The position's role is to:
Evangelize Best Brew program
Tour breweries
Attend beer fests
Sample beers
Select beers for hotel's bar menus
Host beer fests
Document beer related activities
Impart beer related knowledge to other staff through a blog
What do I think about this happening?
This is a interesting idea. Guest can enjoy better taste experience at Four Points Hotels. Four Points can brand themselves as the top of the mind brand for beer at hotels. Staff can learn all about beer from their CBO.
What do you think this happening will cause?
Will the hotel industry starts to value other non work expertise besides drinking?
Will copy cat hotels come out with other drink chief officers ( like wine )?
Will the hotel industry starts to have other expertise specialists?
Will the hotel industry capitalized on inter-organization knowledge sharing?
