Joe Firestone: The Knowledge Life Cycle

"Need to Know", "Need to Share"

Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:57:49 GMT

The Evening of the Deluge (J. W. M. Turner, 1843)

"The Need to Know" and "The Need to Share"

I think I'd like to take a break from "The Poverty of Communitarianism" for awhile and consider some other matters. One of these is politics. Today, the 9/11 Commission released its long-awaited report. The rare display of bi-partisan unity, directness, and commitment to the need for reform was notable in this campaign season. Lee Hamilton, the Vice-Chairman of the 9/11 Commission, in his initial summary remarks at the Press Conference accompanying the formal release of the report, said that we need a basic change of attitude in the intelligence community from "the need to know" to "the need to share". And Hamilton as well as other Commissioners emphasized the fragmentation of information about terrorism before 9/11 and the need for structural change in the US intelligence community to facilitate both an end to fragmentation and integration of information to let us see the patterns of terrorist activity and threat. Of course, there is little to argue with in this diagnosis from the point of view of First Generation Knowledge Management. The commission found "stovepipes" in the intelligence community aided and abetted by the doctrine of "the Need to Know", and the cure for that problem seems most immediately to be the integration of stovepipes and the substitution of "the Need to Know" with "the Need to Share." But will this recommendation really make us safer? Is it only information integration that we need to thwart the terrorists?

"The Need To Know" Can Mean Different Things

Of course, my answer to these last questions is that information integration will not make us safer, because we need more than just that to thwart the terrorists. In fact, what else we need is to "know" more about what the terrorists are likely to do. So apart from "The Need to Share" we also have "The Need to Know" but, of course, my "Need to Know" is not the same as "The Need To Know" Lee Hamilton was talking about. That "Need to Know" is about a situation where information or knowledge already exists in the intelligence community and access to it is restricted by security regulations in such a way that it is "stovepiped" and is unavailable to people in the community who need it to solve problems. In other words, that "Need to Know" is a negative doctrine about constraints that produces fragmentation and mal-integration of our intelligence knowledge base.

In contrast, our current "Need to Know" is about situations where the information or knowledge we need to make a decision does not exist and our problem is the knowledge gap between what we know and what we need to know. This "Need to Know" is about the need to solve problems effectively and about new policies in the intelligence community that will enable better success at making new knowledge that works against the terrorists.

"The Need to Know" and "Groupthink"

This second meaning of "Need to Know" brings us to the recent report of the Senate Intelligence Committee. While recognizing "stovepiping" as a problem, that report also attacked "groupthink" at the highest levels and attributed our intelligence failures to it. But what is "groupthink"? Stripped down to its essentials, "groupthink" is a problem solving process in which the range of tentative solutions and the range of criticism and evaluation of them are restricted so as to bias knowledge production towards the dominant opinion in the group. As much as we need information integration and to instill "The Need to Share", we need even more to ensure that our new better integrated intelligence community has healthy and "open" problem solving patterns. We need such patterns to encourage members of the community to create innovative solutions that have been subjected to and have survived our best efforts to refute them.

The danger in current proposals for a new Intelligence Directorate is not that they won't solve the problem of information integration, but that they may do so at the expense of imagination, creativity, and critical evaluation of proposed solutions to problems and intelligence estimates. In that case we will have more failures, more commissions, and more reorganizations, but no solutions to our intelligence problems.

"Fighting the Last War"

In the end, the 9/11 commission investigated 9/11 exhaustively and made recommendations for how another 9/11 can be avoided. But what about another Iraq? What about another 9/11 where the problem is not fragmentation of information, but a "glut" of conflicting information all integrated in the new National Directorate of Intelligence? If our objective is information integration, I'm sure the 9/11 commission is right in recommending a new National Directorate of intelligence with real authority over the community. But authority is always a two-edged sword. It can create the greater integration of information we need, along with a greater capacity for rapid response to threats. But, we must also see to it that the new Directorate runs an "open", adaptive, intelligence enterprise. And that means building both more creativity and more criticism into the intelligence gathering and estimation process. In reorganizing the intelligence community, we must not "fight the last war". We must build not just to fulfill "The Need to Share", but also to fulfill the real "Need to Know", the need to solve problems, to close knowledge gaps, that arise in the course of their intelligence work.

Poverty -- Summing Up Act-KM

Mon, 19 Jul 2004 03:20:54 GMT

M31

The Poverty of Communitarianism: Summing Up Act-KM

So where does act-KM fit? Is it a communitarian system? Is political communitarianism its characteristic form of politics. Is epistemological communitarianism its dominant theory of Knowledge Claim Evaluation? I'll summarize the record, and draw some conclusions in this post. But first, let's review some of the basic concepts relevant to our analysis.

Review of Concepts

Epistemological Communitarianism includes a theory of knowledge claim evaluation which makes an appeal to a consensus or community-held view as a basis for justifying knowledge claims as true and certain, or, more recently, as probable, or at least, acceptable. Epistemological communitarianism, doesn't just lead to impoverished results: it leads to holding basic ideas beyond questioning and test. It closes off the possibility of change in these ideas and thus restricts the range of adaptations and co-evolution available to us in the face of environmental change.

The alternative to justificationism is criticalism, the idea that adds to fallibilism the notion that we are rational only to the extent that we hold our knowledge claims open to continuous criticism and testing in order to eliminate the errors in them. Criticalism, like justificationism, represents a general category of theories of evaluation. Just as epistemological communitarianism is a type of justificationism, critical rationalism, comprehensively critical rationalism, critical coherentism, and critical scientific realism are types of criticalism.

Political Communitarianism is a form of political system in which decisions are made according to the perceived consensus of the system's members. It is different from Democracy in that it does not specify majority rule or formal voting as mechanisms for decision making, though it sometimes may make use of these. Instead, a group elite, with the authority to make binding decisions, attempts to make these on the basis of attempts to evaluate what that consensus is on a particular issue. It is a salient characteristic of political communitarianism that the elite views itself as representing the community and as obligated to make any decision about the group on which there is a perceived consensus. That is, the elite recognizes no limits on the community's authority to legitimize its decisions by the means of perceived consensus.

Thus, political communitarianism, like Greek Democracy and Rousseau's popular democracy, is not a constitutional political system. From the viewpoint of adaptation, it restricts membership in the system to those who accept the consensus norms, and thereby, ceteris paribus, it restricts the adaptive range of the community, because it restricts the variety of opinions, ideas, and creative expressions available to it.

Political Communitarianism in Act-KM

Act-KM is wedded to political communitarianism. You can see it in the way many group members as well as group moderators acted when Mark and I vigorously and persistently expressed views they disagreed with.

Members believe that there is nothing inappropriate about writing to moderators to urge action against those expressing views they don't agree with if those views are expressed persistently. Of course, these members claim that they are bothered by such things as style of expression, length of posts, the fact that posts are "boring", and sometimes rudeness of those they disagree with. However, they almost never complain about these characteristics when posts they agree with exhibit them.

In addition, some members feel quite comfortable about sanctioning other members whose views they disagree with by commenting on their posting styles and by rudely asking them to stop posting. During December of 2003, in the period leading up to Incident One, both Sylvia Marshall and Serena Joyner spoke directly to the theory posters trying to "shush" them. On 12/08/03 there were 5 posts, including Sylvia Marshall's expressing discomfort over the strong disagreements and personal tone being expressed in the theory posts. Serena Joyner's "Drowning out the little Voices" post on 12/16/03, described her "feeling a little swamped . . . drowned out by this incessant, highly theoretical, "your camp - our camp" style discussion". She also said:

"I support debate - I dislike long-winded, highly theoretical debate when it is repeated again and again. Make your case and move on! The battle won't be won here."

Joyner's rather rude "little voice" was echoed by a chorus of 12 other "little voices", all posting on 12/16/03 all supporting her call to end the theory exchanges.

Group sanctioning of theory discussions was observed again in April after a period of 20 days in which theory discussions had proceeded without visible acrimony. Then on 04/21/04 Stuart Kay posted "Cat Among the Pigeons" a post whose title seemed to crystallize discomfort with the theory exchanges. Sylvia Marshall attacked the "dramatics" and "grandstanding" of certain posters, and Robert Perey responded to one of my replies to Stuart Kay with the words "frig me". On 04/22/04, perhaps noting that these two posts went unmoderated by Mark Schenk, Stuart Kay delivered the most far reaching series of personal attacks, labels and ad hominem comments since the theory posts started in December. David Hawthorne sent in a rare (for him) post that used labeling. Greg Timbrell followed with a comment on list culture asking Mark and I to change our posting style, and, in particular to back off close examination of the logic of the views presented by other members of the community. In effect, Greg was saying it's not the practice of this group to engage in close logical analysis of posts that are often framed in a casual way by people in their spare time and that will therefore always provide opportunities for criticism. Paul James then followed with a flat request that we take our "discourse and diatribe off-line."

After Paul James's post, the community's reaction tailed off and the theory discussion also began to wind down. Public group sanctioning of theory discussions did not return in May, but there was evidently considerable off-line pressure placed on Mark Schenk to stop further postings on similar issues that began on May 17th and continued through May 26th.

For the most part these exchanges were civil and their frequency was very dense from May 17th to 24th. There were a few conflictful exchanges involving, Dave Snowden, Mark McElroy, Greg Timbrell, and myself. On the 26th, Greg expressed his great dissatisfaction with the course of interaction in the group, in a post entitled: "I Don't Think I Can Take It Anymore". He said that he had joined the group in 02/02, had participated in great discussions, and had been fascinated by the dynamics of the group, he then said:

"But lately, I find myself becoming less interested mainly because I am finding certain contributors too dominating and extremely boring.

He then finished by saying that he would turn off automatic e-mail from the group for 6-12 months and the check to see if anything was different.

Greg's post was immediately supported by Larry Chait, who objected to the length of many posts. He said:

"I believe knowledge is best and most effectively shared when done in transmissions of five sentences or less. And so I am almost done. And now my message is complete."

At that point, Mark Schenk intervened to block posting from Mark and I (to be discussed just below), Stuart Kay immediately responded with a Haiku of appreciation, and Natalie Andrews delivered a perfect expression of communitarian sentiment praising Mark saying:

"Mark,

you are our representative - we ARE self-moderating and self-managing. It is our Will.
BTW ... Love your work .... thank you :)" (Emphasis added)

In addition, there were 8 other expressions of support for Mark Schenk, not including Greg Timbrell's graceful thank you.

Though May is notable for its relative absence of posts in which some members attempt to moderate others, behind the scenes opposition by members to the posts is reflected in Mark Schenk's posts to Mark and I and to the group at large. Though sanctioning in May was not public, members did not hesitate to use off-line pressure to stop the posts, and in the face of that pressure Greg's decision to lower his level of participation in the group triggered action by the moderator.

In order for it to work, political communitarianism needs both members who believe in it, who sanction other community members, and complain to moderators; and also moderators who are willing to serve those members. Mark Schenk and other act-km moderators seem to view themselves as servants and instruments of the community, as obligated to reflect the consensus of the members, and as dedicated to preserving the community and protecting it against "excessive" conflict caused by too vigorous interchange. This is reflected in Mark Schenk's various posts to the group during the theory exchanges. On 12/10/03 he said:

"We just need to ensure people are not discomfited by the passion descending to a level that attacks rather than analyses and critiques in a constructive manner."

In his post of 12/16/03 he said:

"What Do We Agree On? There are many more points of agreement in the various 'KM camps' than there are of disagreement. Instead of fighting to obtain the 'intellectual high ground', why not a cooperative effort to identify the points of agreement. I think a list of concepts or principles that we agree on is much more valuable than tedious debate over issues that make me wonder if we can't see the wood for the trees."

On 05/27/04 he said:

"Regrettably, we have today taken action to temporarily remove posting privileges for a number of list participants. We hope that we can devise some model or agreement by which all can continue to participate. This action has been taken in response to overwhelming input from members. I consider it a serious step, and one that will undoubtably attract criticism. In the end; however, the decision reflects our belief that a vital community, albeit imperfect, is better than no community at all."

Mark is clearly dedicated to the idea that his role is to moderate conflict, perhaps even foster agreement, and also to respond to "the overwhelming input" from members. He also thought nothing of abandoning a level playing field by restricting the posting rights of the targets of those who asked for moderation. And, evidently, he did so very much on the basis of the number of people who complained and who unsubscribed. And he did this regardless of whether the behavior of those to be censored was civil, or if not entirely so, at least far less uncivil than many of those who were doing the complaining.

His actions also suggest he believes that members of act-km have no basic and inalienable individual rights of self-expression relating to their substantive views that cannot be limited by the community at large if it decides to do so. All "the community" has to do is provide evidence, through behind-the-scenes complaints to the moderator, that it wishes to censor those expressions, and Mark and the committee of act-km moderators will act. Not only did Mark Schenk and his committee bar future postings from Mark and I (most recently for a two month period), and in relation to a particular thread (during December), even Dave Snowden, but before taking such action he and they tolerated uncivil posts from those defending prevailing views. This was done even when the expression of our views was polite, or at least far more polite than the responses of defenders of more popular views.

Relativism and Epistemological Communitarianism in Act-KM

In an earlier blog post, covering the events of 12/03, I said that the record during December indicated that the community eschewed criticalism and practiced some form of justificationism, but I couldn't conclude that epistemological communitarianism was the dominant form of knowledge claim evaluation in act-km.

The exchanges in April and May reinforced the general pattern of opposition to criticalism and knowledge claim evaluation in the group. Criticism was generally approached in a gingerly fashion and it was the practice to end critical exchanges quickly and move on. Also, the opinion that there were many valid points of view on some issue, many ways of looking at a particular problem, and that no one point of view was better than any other was expressed on a number of occasions. Further, the view that there is no "absolute truth" was expressed in a number of posts.

In addition, throughout December 2003, and April and May of 2004, some members of the group expressed opposition to all lengthy discussions of issues, which, of course, means that they opposed all in-depth exploration of issues in the group. In turn, however, that implies they also oppose the introduction of any close criticism of the logic of ideas, in an effort to eliminate errors in such ideas, and to determine which of our many ideas is false, since this kind of exchange often requires lengthy discussions of them. All of the above suggests that the reigning epistemology for knowledge processing in act-km is not epistemological communitarianism, but relativism (a form of justificationism that denies an objective external reality or criterion for truth, and regards all truth and certainty as personal, local, and ‘relative’ to an individual – i.e., anti-foundationalist, but not anti-justificationist).

Of course, the pattern of interaction between other members of act-km, and Mark and I was different. In exchanges with us, there was a greater focus on the logic of argument during exchanges. And, of course, our posts reflected the belief that some knowledge claims were true and others false and that one of the important purposes of exchange in the group was to decide which ones were false. The pattern of practice in exchanges with us evidently created angst and controversy in the group. It was a pattern the group resisted strongly indicating that its opposition to criticalism and, critical rationalism, the specific version of criticalism that our posts embodied, and its support for relativism is a group attribute that endured from December 2003 through May 2004.

Even though relativism was the dominant ideology of knowledge processing in act-km, it was not the only epistemology characteristic of it. To see this we need to keep in mind the three-tier model I've written about in a previous post on Knowledge Management and Strategy. Focusing on that model for a moment, please note that the epistemology used by act-km members in their knowledge processing may be different from the epistemology they use at the level of Knowledge Management.

At the level of Knowledge Management, act-km members and the moderators seem to hold the idea that the theory of evaluation in knowledge processing should be relativism, and that it is beyond questioning, test, criticism, or even discussion. They all seem to believe that the knowledge claim that there are many competing "truths", all equally good, has been "enacted" and negotiated in their community, and that it is what the community believes and what it should practice. This, of course, is epistemological communitarianism. And it is the basis for the political communitarianism that proved so strong in act-km.

That is, it is because Mark and I tried to transcend relativism in the group by using close logical analysis to criticize the views of members that our posts were eventually blocked. This practice was opposed to the live-and-let-live attitude that others took toward logical analysis. Their attitude is necessary for relativism. The use of logic cannot be allowed to demonstrate that certain views are the product of faulty logic, or contain self-contradictions, or are impossibly vague, because that contradicts the idea that all views are equally valuable, but differing, perspectives on the same problem. That is, close logical analysis, when used to compare competing views, undermines relativism, and questions the basic theory of knowledge claim evaluation accepted by the act-km community. It, and the regulative ideal of seeking the truth, that we advocated along with it, are in direct contradiction with relativism. And the practice necessary to apply critical rationalism is different from the dominant practice in act-km embodying relativism. What is consistent with relativism, is the practice, common in act-km, of presenting alternative views to others, along with sharing information, even critical exchanges in which one side says "I disagree and here is my perspective." And this is the kind of interchange which normally prevails there. But again, what we don't see much of, outside of the context of exchanges with Mark and I, are attempts to say, "here is my alternative view, and I believe there are various problems with your own view, including problems with its logic". Because to say something like this is go against relativism and question the group consensus on it supported by epistemological communitarianism at the KM level.

Finally, will epistemological communitarianism in act-km spread beyond KM to knowledge processing? Will it replace relativism as the dominant theory of evaluation in knowledge processing in the community? I think there is some chance of that happening, but there are also forces maintaining relativism, as well. Relativism is favored by the desire of members of act-km to avoid conflict with one another, and to maintain a rough equality of professional status and recognition. The successful functioning of the community in sharing members' knowledge claims also favors the maintenance of relativism, since sharing in the group doesn't imply that "my knowledge is better than yours." The strong individualist and democratic tradition in Australia also works for relativism because it favors maintaining rough equality in the community.

Working against relativism is the evolution of support for certain positions and the natural desires of members of the group for individual recognition. The standards movement, for example, affords recognition to some, but not to others. It is also a model of epistemological communitarianism, no matter how frequently its supporters explain that their standards are not normative, but only informative.

Further, the more discussions in act-km focus on one or a few conceptual approaches the greater will be the tendency for that approach to be perceived as the consensus approach of the community. When that happens, the community's prior acceptance of the norm of avoiding both criticalism, and close logical analysis of ideas, will begin to favor the consensus-backed ideas. It will do this because even though new ideas can be stated in the group, they will be incapable, in the absence of fair comparison using logical analysis, of contributing to the falsification of the dominant views.

Over a period of time then, a paradigm will develop in the act-km group, and epistemological communitarianism backing that paradigm will set in. The very laxity of knowledge claim evaluation under relativism will become a barrier to change, and to the acceptance, as opposed to the mere stating of new ideas. Eventually however, even stating new ideas will become difficult because members of the group will fear looking silly if they state new ideas in opposition to the old paradigm. At that point, epistemological and political communitarianism will support each other and constitute a stable communitarian system organized around the dominant paradigm of standards and a popular conceptual approach. I'll leave it to the membership of act-km to guess which approach it will be.

Postscript

I'd like to thank Mark McElroy, my continuing close collaborator and sounding board for contributing to this and the other blog posts in this series on communitarianism. His insights have been of tremendous help in accounting for whatever quality these posts may have. And while he does not bear responsibility for my specific views, he has said that he wishes to associate himself with the general critique of communitarianism in KM list serv groups expressed in this series.

In addition to the books and classes referred to in the margins on this page, you’ll find much more information on the theories and models underlying this post at three web sites: www.dkms.com, www.macroinnovation.com, and www.kmci.org. Many papers on The New Knowledge Management are available for downloading there. Our Excerpt from The Open Enterprise . . . may also be purchased there. Our print books are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or www.bhusa.com.

Poverty -- Incident Two

Thu, 15 Jul 2004 17:21:09 GMT

Guilin

The Poverty of Communitarianism: Act-KM -- Incident Two

This post continues with my account of events in act-km in May 2004.

The Incident

Just before my post and David Paterson's, recorded in my last blog post, Greg Timbrell expressed his great dissatisfaction with the course of interaction in the group, in a post entitled: "I Don't Think I Can Take It Anymore". He said that he had joined the group in 02/02, had participated in great discussions and had been fascinated by the dynamics of the group, he then said:

"But lately, I find myself becoming less interested mainly because I am
finding certain contributors too dominating and extremely boring.

So its time to turn off my automatic email delivery and take a break for
6-12 months or so. Maybe things will be different then

See you in a while."

On May 26th, Greg's post was supported by Larry Chait. Larry evidently objected to the length of many posts. He said:

"I believe knowledge is best and most effectively shared when done in transmissions of five sentences or less. And so I am almost done. And now my message is complete."

On May 27th, Mark Schenk, the moderator of the group sent the following off-line e-mail to Mark and I:

"Hi Joe and Mark,

The manner and level of your participation in the actKM group is causing considerable angst within this community. The main concerns are the frequency with which your posts contravene actKM netiquette in terms of posting length, and the prolific and dominating manner in which you are pursuing your agenda.

Due to the number of complaints regarding your behaviour and its impact upon the actKM community, and the dramatic rise in members unsubscribing (a number of whom having stated they are doing so as a direct result of your combined influence upon the group), the actKM committee wishes to advise that no postings from either of you will be forwarded to the list for at least the next two months (until August 2004).

I hope that during this period we can devise some model or agreement whereby you can continue to participate in the group in a manner that adds value to both the community and yourselves. I would welcome your suggestions as to how this might work.

This decision makes no judgement regarding either your opinions or agendas. It simply acknowledges that the manner in which you are pursuing them is having a serious negative impact upon the actKM community.

Regards
Mark Schenk
Convenor, actKm"

Mark Schenk also posted an announcement to the group, entitled "act-km Revisited", in which he said:

I hope that everyone takes time to read this message.

The ActKM Forum is a learning community dedicated to building knowledge about public sector knowledge management. It aims to provide an environment where members can create and share knowledge about public sector knowledge management issues. ActKM is a not-for-profit incorporated association that relies heavily on a small group of volunteers to moderate this group, organise our annual conference, manage the website and run our annual KM Awards.

We rely on the much larger group of people who participate and share with so much openness and goodwill on this list server to provide
the true sense of community that makes actKM what it is.

Our intent has always been for the list to self-manage, and self-moderate. This approach has proven very successful, until the last
six months, during which time list behaviour has been the cause of considerable angst for all (most?) concerned. We have continued
(with a few notable exceptions) the policy of letting the group self-moderate in the hope that 'things would sort themselves out'. This
has not happened.

Regrettably, we have today taken action to temporarily remove posting privileges for a number of list participants. We hope that
we can devise some model or agreement by which all can continue to participate. This action has been taken in response to overwhelming
input from members. I consider it a serious step, and one that will undoubtably attract criticism. In the end; however, the decision
reflects our belief that a vital community, albeit imperfect, is better than no community at all.

So, enough of the sombre tone, lets get some practical sharing happening...

Regards

Mark Schenk"

Mark's post was greeted with some favorable comment by 8 members of the group (including many who had contributed to the lengthy discussions), between May 27^th, and June 6^th. For example, on May 28^th, Stuart Kay contributed a Haiku:

"A sudden silence
Sense the quiet spaciousness
Gently to be filled"

And on the same day Natalie Andrews said:

"Mark,

you are our representative - we ARE self-moderating and self-managing. It is our Will.
BTW ... Love your work .... thank you :)" (Emphasis added)

And on May 31st, Greg Timbrell thanked Mark saying:

"For your emails of support and understanding
For exercising courage in your convictions
For relieving us of a heavy burden
For letting me be part of a community that I value
For informing me of what happened over the last week.

Now lets move on. . ."

Political Communitarianism in Act-KM in May 2004

There's not much doubt about the presence of political communitarianism in act-km in May 2004. Mark Schenk's post to Mark McElroy and myself spoke of the angst caused by our posts. He spoke of the excessive length of our posts and our prolific and dominating behavior. But what did we do?

The record shows that we did nothing but express our views and then respond to the views of others directed at us. No proof is present in the record that our posts are longer than others delivered in response to us. No proof is present that we were any more dominating than Dave Snowden or Stuart Kay, or others presenting their views on these subjects. According to the record, summarized above, our language during this period is, with one exception, less personal, intemperate, and ad hominem than the language of others responding to us. Further, no mention is made by Mark Schenk of the effect of our interlocutors' posts on the group. As the old saying goes "it takes two to tango", and we had a lot of help from others in keeping those debates going. So why were we singled out?

Adopting a broader comparative perspective, if we consider the level of conflict present in the period leading up to Incident One, and the level of conflict present during the April 2004 exchanges, the May interactions, though very frequent, were not nearly as conflictful and far less uncivil. In fact, there is a progressive increase in civility when we move from the December exchanges, through the April exchanges, and on to the May exchanges, as if act-km was beginning to adapt to the new views and posting styles Mark McElroy and I were introducing into the group.

The answer lies in Mark Schenk's statement to Mark and I:

". . . Due to the number of complaints regarding your behaviour and its impact upon the actKM community, and the dramatic rise in members unsubscribing (a number of whom having stated they are doing so as a direct result of your combined influence upon the group) the actKM committee wishes to advise that no postings from either of you will be forwarded to the list for at least the next two months (until August 2004)."

And in his announcement to the group:

". . . This action has been taken in response to overwhelming input from members. I consider it a serious step, and one that will undoubtably attract criticism."

In other words, the sanctions Mark Schenk took were motivated by complaints about our posts (that is, the "behaviour" of others, and not our "behaviour") and by unsubscriptions from the group. And Mark Schenk responded to these and to the trigger of Greg Timbrell's complaint and unsubscription, with his sanctions toward us. In doing so, Mark Schenk was responding to what he thought the community wanted, not to anything we did, and he did this without any regard to any "individual rights" that we might be expected to enjoy as participating members of the group.

Mark McElroy provided a very good analysis of the situation when, in his off-line final post to Mark Schenk on May 27th, he characterized communitarianism as:

"a type of social system in which ideas are accepted or rejected, sanctioned or not, or tolerated or not, depending upon whether or not the community consensus goes along with them.

Now the role of the moderator in such a system is strikingly characteristic because the moderator is, of course, there to exercise a "moderation" ethic. Everything is held to a community-centric test of acceptability. In communitarian systems, this is viewed as normal and quite acceptable. This is because a higher value is placed on consensus and harmony in such systems than on reason or truth. Both are expendable. Thus, probing inquiry and dialogue in such systems can only go so far. As soon as the level of discourse exceeds a certain threshold of disharmony or disagreement, communitarian rules come into play with a vengeance. The pretense of genuine inquiry is dropped, and the heavy hand of the community enforcer comes out of the woodwork - your hand, in this case.

Indeed, why have "moderators" at all? Only communitarian systems require them. That is, they need to moderate deviations from the norm in order to keep things in conformance with the community, consensus point of view. They need to moderate! Anything that threatens the prevailing paradigm is destabilizing, unwelcome, and must be censored - must be moderated. Ideas that threaten the status quo must be stopped, their proponents excommunicated, and the harmony and moderation of the group restored.

. . . In addition to the authoritarian and capricious role conferred on moderators in communitarian systems, there is the unchallenged assumption that any list member can approach the moderator, declare a breach of the communitarian ethic by some other member, and legitimately expect that the moderator will bow to their wishes. Members are free to engage in capricious witch hunts with the full expectation that moderators will bow to their wishes."

And all this is justified and motivated by the idea that the ultimate source of legitimacy in communities is the community itself, that only it has rights, and that its will must always be realized. Natalie Andrews made my point well in her post supporting Mark Schenk's action:

"Mark,

you are our representative - we ARE self-moderating and self-managing. It is our Will.
BTW ... Love your work .... thank you :)"

Mark Schenk was only acting in accordance with "the General Will" in blocking our posts.

Postscript

Poverty -- Road to Incident Two: Part Three

Wed, 14 Jul 2004 18:16:37 GMT

Peaks

The Poverty of Communitarianism: Act-KM -- The Road to Incident Two: Part Three

This post continues with my report of the act-km interaction leading to incident two.

Winding Down

In the first post of May 21st, I replied to Stuart Kay's "loud agreement" post saying:

"I think we are mostly in loud agreement, and I think it's true that in many organizations, Management strategy-based KM allows KM to encourage criticism, including criticism of management strategy, because the managers are wise enough to know that such criticism is good for them and the adaptive capacity of their organizations. Having said that, surely you can see that to define KM as an activity that must be aligned with corporate strategy, is to both exclude from the scope of KM, activities that are not aligned with corporate strategy, and also to provide a license to autocratic organizations to use KM in ways that are not consistent with its mission of building organizational adaptive capacity?"

Dave Snowden then responded to my previous comment on his post by thanking me for a "reasoned reply." He went on to explain further what he meant by "linear definition", explaining that it required a sequential relationship between strategy and KM. He also pointed out that Boards sometimes do concern themselves with KM, but that he thinks that the general trend of an increase in Board influence will begin to be reversed as the memory of Enron fades. He also mentioned factors other than too little Board influence that may account for corporate scandals.

Stuart Kay then sent in a reply to my post to him saying that he could see that the outcomes of KM's subordination to management-based strategy I pointed out previously were possible but that my statement was "loaded with assumptions" that "are not universally true." Dave Snowden then responded to Mark's post. He criticized "the extreme response to the use of "naïve" " and expressed his irritation at not being able to engage in conversation on multiple list servs without being subject to postings of this type. He also stated that such postings can destroy participation, but that "openness has its price." He declined to modify his original statement.

The next post was my response to Dave's post to me. I began by agreeing with most of what he said and then continued:

"but I also think that organizational forms can constrain the development and content of ideational structures over time, and I have problems with the notion of "inevitability" here. In any event, I think that a KM function that is Governance-based can help to keep the enterprise "open" and distributed in its problem solving capability, and I will, along with others who are beginning to write in this vein (Mark, Dale Neef, Don Tapscott, Bill Hall, and others), continue to make the case."

Dave then responded to me off-line, sending a note in which we exchanged final thoughts on the role of Governance-based KM from the point of view of dynamics in a complexity framework. We also both agreed that we had moved much closer as a result of our discussion.

The next post was Mark's response to Stuart Kay's question: Mark suggested that openness in knowledge processing would prevent some people from lying, cheating, and stealing, and would expose others. He also suggested that it would enhance innovation, and ended by saying that all of the above was of fiduciary concern, and "that is why KM ought to report to the governance function . . ." My next post was a response to Bill Hall's contribution relating our Governance-based approach to KM to complexity and autopoiesis and to Popper's work. I thanked Bill for making the connections, followed with some references to literature and then argued against the view that the Governance-based approach was "naïve", "utopian", or unrealistic. I pointed out that many innovations are initially viewed in these terms, that labels liked these often indicate opposition to the change involved, and that while there are many reasons of convenience that may explain such opposition, these are not reasons for believing that the Governance-based approach is wrong, or unrealistic, or naive. It is just evidence that the Governance-based approach to KM and The New KM, more generally, is a social innovation. In the next post I replied to Stuart's claim that I made universal assumptions saying "I did not think I said they were universally true. All organizations are not autocratic and all KM activities are not inconsistent with strategy. But how do these facts impact the point I was making?"

Jeff Popova-Clark then responded to my earlier post asking: "So are you saying that you are basing your disagreement with AS5037 on the assumption that management will create goals that are inconsistent with the long-term goals (or purposes for existence) of an organisation?" Bala Pillai began the exchanges of May 23 by agreeing with the case I made in my response to Bill Hall for the view that the Governance-based approach is not "utopian". Bala urged that we not simply assume limitations in our choices and possibiities. Bill Hall then answered Raymind Cheung's post by offering simple definitions of "knowledge", "management", and "knowledge management". Anne Day thanked Bill, while saying she did not have time to read every little bit sent to the list.

Stuart Kay then responded to my last note to him by saying that while I didn't claim that my assumptions were universally true my conclusions were based on them and that if my assumptions were not universally valid, then neither is my conclusion. He then said: "To adopt your principle from the other debate about definitions and standards, your conclusion is therefore falsifiable." I answered quickly and asked him which assumptions and conclusions he had in mind. Stuart answered and quoted a passage from our (Mark's and mine) paper on the Governance-based approach and showed that the assertions in the sentence were not universally valid and were "falsifiable". Stuart then quickly sent in another post in which he said:

"I dispute your conclusion that KM <cannot> be management based if that conclusion is based on the foregoing assumptions which I think are falsifiable. I also dispute your conclusion that the governance based approach results in <entirely different priorities> than a management based approach, again if your conclusion is dependent on those assumptions which I think are falsifiable."

Bala Pillai then posted a response to Bill Hall's definitions saying: "KM is the art of fueling the impossible, the possible and the acumen to know when to do which."

David Rymer began activity on May 24th by responding to my critiques of AS 5037. He offered the following criticisms along with frequent appeals to the authority inhering in standards committees and the ISO. "First your "Governance" model as an emerging area of development currently lacks the demonstrated track record or wide spread level of adoption in this country required for incorporation in a standard." Second, "your focus on Governance vs Management seems to have limited application in Government and community organisations which are major constituencies for the committee." Third, in his organization (The Law Council of Australia), the practitioners also manage and are on the Board so the problems we refer to are not applicable. Fourth, he finds the language I use "too linear, managerial, mechanistic and process oriented to adopt in my own day-to-day KM interactions." Fifth, he characterizes the Governance-based approach as one that "sounds like a 90's solution to an 80's problem when we're trying to work out what 2010 will look like!" And sixth, "The vast majority of people who criticise AS 5037 appear never to have read it!"

On May 25th, I offered a detailed response to David Rymer's post. To his first point, I replied that we were not proposing the idea of the Governance-based approach as a standard but pointing out that making alignment with strategy a requirement of the standard is the problem, not failing to endorse or approve of the untried Governance-based approach. I also said that since the standard that had been proposed excluded Governance-based KM as a possibility, it was demonstrably false. I also said that no amount of conventionalism and positive support for such a definition from practitioners and standards committees in Australia, or elsewhere in the world will remove the prima facie difficulty in contending that Governance-based KM is not KM. I then answered his second and third points by saying that the example he gave from his own organization in which practitioners, management, and board membership overlap, doesn't speak to whether our approach is generally relevant or not to those organizations where there is little overlap. I then pointed to many examples in government where Governance-based KM may have been helpful.

I next answered his fourth point concerning my language by pointing out that he was engaging in labeling and asked him to document his charge with quotations. I then described his fifth point as an ad hominem attack, and as a second exercise in labeling. Then I answered the attack anyway by asking some very leading questions about the relevance of the Governance-based approach to contemporary problems. Finally, I answered his last point by saying that it:

"is either another instance of an ad hominem attack, or simply irrelevant to my post. But in case you meant it to be relevant, I point out that it is not a comment on whether my criticism in any way misconstrues AS 5037. If you believe it does, let's see your analysis with appropriate quotations, If you don't think it does, then what's the point of implying that I've not read the AS 5037 definition of KM?"

This last exchange with David Rymer was somewhat conflictful. I hope it is clear however, that it was David who produced three unmoderated efforts at labeling or ad hominems, and that I only answered these, pointing out their logical status and invalidity.

Stuart Kay then offered a response to my reply to David, saying: "I expect I am going to cop flak for this, but I am foolish enough to do it anyway... ", Stuart proceeded to claim that, contrary to my implication in responding to David, the Bush administration engaged in high quality knowledge processing since it did a very effective job of suppressing information that didn't accord with their policy, and exaggerated information that did. I responded to Stuart by listing the Bush administration's shortcomings in knowledge claim formulation, and knowledge claim evaluation, including their failure to be self-critical and to consider alternative points of view about the post-war occupation, and the implications of what the consequences would be if their assumptions and forecasts were wrong. I summarized by saying that I thought their manipulation of the US into war was masterful, but that their calculations about what outcomes they would need to cope with were incompetent. David Paterson also responded to Stuart asking why his comments should "create any flack."

In my next post I'll describe Incident Two.

Postscript

Poverty -- Road to Incident Two: Part Two

Fri, 09 Jul 2004 20:40:41 GMT

Clouds at Sunset

The Poverty of Communitarianism: Act-KM -- The Road to Incident Two: Part Two

I'll continue my account of the road to incident two by describing further group interaction on May 20, 2004, a very busy day of exchanges.

Sharper Disagreements

Stuart Kay then entered the discussion with a lengthy, entirely civil, contribution centered around a fictional illustrative example entitled "Lost in Translation". After relating the example, he said:

"So where does this leave us? It seems to me that it leaves us at the point that KM is both a governance and a strategic alignment issue.

'Knowledge' itself is critical to the success of any organisation ('knowledge' is an integral part of governance). KM as a discipline, or a 'knowledge organisation' within an organisation, is only 'necessary' if essential to the survival of the broader organisation; if not 'necessary' then it is 'useful' to the extent that:

- knowledge sharing within the organisation is not optimal; and
- the benefits of the KM function / knowledge organisation outweigh its costs.

Is there, then, in the debate on this list a simple misunderstanding? Is one group talking about clever use (management) of 'knowledge' (implicitly and naturally integral to governance; and necessary for organisational adaptiveness), whilst another group is talking about the separately identified functional process of 'knowledge management' (an explicit component of the function of governance)? Is it really a difference in conceptual paradigm or is it in the shift of knowledge processing from the implicit to the explicit, or vice versa, that the difference in views arises?"

The next relevant post was my reply to Robert Kay's earlier response. I expressed appreciation of the standard committee's recognition that there are multiple definitions of KM and that their own was not absolute truth. My reply then focused on presenting various questions in order to confront Robert with the difficulties in his position that the "standard" definition was merely "informative" and not prescriptive. I explained that if it was not prescriptive, but was informative, it had to be descriptive. But if it was descriptive how could it be a standard, and why was it not true or false? I also replied to Robert Kay's argument that we should do standards now, by saying that I didn't think the choice was between doing standards now and waiting for some distant day when everyone will agree on what KM is. Rather, I said, we could just wait (say 5-10 years) until we have more general agreement on important principles and concepts.

Dave Snowden responded to Stuart Kay's post with an expression of approval for his illustrative example. Raymond Cheung responded to Dave's earlier post with the observation that our discussion had lost track of the original query and with request for simplification of the whole discussion and specifically for others to provide simple definitions of "knowledge", "management" and "knowledge management." Next, I responded to Dave Snowden's "naïve" post by pointing out that:

"We all know that Management has great power in organizations. The issue here is whether Governance-based KM can moderate that a bit by creating an independent center of power in the organization and introducing a more Open Enterprise in the knowledge processing realm. We say it can, you say it can't. But your arguments just above don't really speak to that question."

I then proceeded to express agreement with his point on "retrospective coherence," and I agreed that corroboration was needed for theories, and not merely support.

I next replied to Stuart Kay's post, by agreeing with some of it, but also disagreeing at various specific points. I summarized my discussion by saying:

"I think Mark and I are talking about both general adaptiveness and about formal structures that should be subordinate to Governance, but not to Management. And it is because we are concerned about adaptiveness that we favor the Governance-based approach. In my view, once again, KM is a function that is always present in human systems. In its informal state it is not subordinate to management and its strategy. When we institutionalize KM by establishing formal knowledge organizations, the question arises, "where shall KM be located in the formal organizational structure?"

Our answer is that it should be located within Governance because:

High quality knowledge processing resulting in high quality knowledge in use is of vital importance for all organizational functions, and KM is for creating high quality knowledge processing. Just because, as you have shown, other organizational functions are more vital than KM for immediate survival, Management will generally be biased against the KM function, constraining it in various ways over time. This is likely to result in lower quality knowledge for the organization as a whole, making it less adaptive than it otherwise would be. To prevent this, we must recognize the conflict of interest between Management and high quality KM and entrust oversight of it to a function that is less involved in day-to-day concerns than Management, and more involved with the longer-term fate of the organization. That function is Governance."

Jeff Popova-Clark responded to my response to Robert Kay by making the point that "the Governance-based approach to KM (as described by your paper) is consistent with KM being aligned with strategy (i.e. long term strategy = purpose of organisational existence - see my previous post)." He also pointed out that "a definition does not need to attempt to be "the truth". What it needs to be is functionally useful. A definition can be merely an agreed (but otherwise arbitrary) standard by which everyone agrees to adhere." Mark McElroy (still on 05/20/04), responded to the "naïve" charge in Dave's earlier post with a lengthy message whose challenging flavor I can best convey with the following quote:

"Naïve is it? I see. Is it naïve to say that boards are elected by stockholders? Is it naïve to say that boards are accountable to their stockholders? And to regulators as well? Is it naïve to say that CEOs are hired by boards? Is it naïve to say that boards are meant to hold CEOs accountable? Is it naïve to say that stockholders expect them to do so? Is it naïve to say that boards owe their stockholders a fiduciary duty to exercise oversight over the affairs of the organization?"

The remainder of Mark's post was full of other sharp rhetorical and sarcastic questions and other comments that expressed sharp disapproval of Dave's views. It also conveyed the sense that Mark was responding to a perceived insult in Dave's characterization of our view as naïve.

Robert Kay followed Mark's response to Dave, by responding to my previous response to him. Robert indicated he would not try to resolve our differences on standards, which were unresolvable, and he repeated his views that AS 5037 could be used as a starting point for learning. He then proceeded to argue that most of my points seem to go back to requiring that definitional standards be true, and that he couldn't understand that because sometimes I seemed to agree with him that there is no absolute truth about these things. He then asserted that standards could not be absolutely true because they were incomplete. I followed Robert's post with an answer to Raymond Cheung, referring him to one of my blog posts. Stuart Kay then responded to Mark's response to Dave by asking: "Are you suggesting that good KM in a governance model (or any other model) will prevent dishonest people, or people with political agendas, from lying, cheating and stealing?" Stuart also responded to my post saying: "Mostly I think we are in loud agreement." He then proceeded to comment on a few points. First, he claimed that a general statement Mark and I had made in our paper on the Governance approach was not universally valid. He also argued that many organizations were like his own in that even though KM was aligned with Management-based strategy it was also possible for it have input into strategy.

After Stuart's post I replied to Robert Kay. I stated that I thought we had come to a stopping place in our exchange except for one point. Then I replied to his contention that I seem to require "truth" in definitions by saying that I only require that they survive testing and criticism and thus not be demonstrably false. I ended by summarizing my views on the problems of AS 5037. Next, I also replied to Jeff Popova-Clark's post. I began by pointing out that the Governance-based approach is consistent with the long-term strategy of enhancing organizational adaptive capacity. But it is not necessarily consistent with strategy as formulated by Management, which may well be inconsistent with that goal, and I reiterated that it was this point that Mark and I were making. I then answered his view that definitions need not be true, saying that nominal definitions were conventional, but that real definitions such as KM definitions said something about the world and therefore should not be false. I applied this idea to the AS 5037 and KMCI definitions of KM pointing out that AS 5037 was surely false because it excluded Governance-based KM.

In the next blog post I'll report on the exchanges of May 21st and beyond.

Postscript

I'd like to thank Mark McElroy, my continuing close collaborator and sounding board for contributing to this and the other blog posts in this series on communitarianism. His insights have been of tremendous help in accounting for whatever quality these posts may have. And while he does not bear responsibility for my specific views, he has said that he wishes to associate himself with the general critique of communitarianism in KM list serv groups expressed in this series.

In addition to the books and classes referred to in the margins on this page, you’ll find much more information on the theories and models underlying this post at three web sites: www.dkms.com, www.macroinnovation.com, and www.kmci.org. Many papers on The New Knowledge Management are available for downloading there. Our Excerpt from The Open Enterprise . . . may also be purchased there. Our print books are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or www.bhusa.com.

Poverty -- Road to Incident Two: Part One

Sun, 04 Jul 2004 22:07:53 GMT

Junction of the Thames and the Medway (J. W. M. Turner, 1807)

The Poverty of Communitarianism: Act-KM -- The Road to Incident Two: Part One

When the April theory exchanges ended on the 27th, interaction in act-km wound down for awhile. Over the next few weeks it primarily consisted of announcements and exchanges of information. Subjects included social network analysis, people taking intellectual capital with them when they retired, and organizational forgetting. Exchanges involving a greater degree of disagreement began again on May 17th, and evolved to Incident Two on May 25-27, after a high density of postings during the days leading up to May 25th. I'll describe these exchanges in a number of blogs, both to provide enough detail to give a feeling for the content of the exchanges, and also to provide a basis for analysis of the style of political interaction and knowledge claim evaluation in the community.

Initiation

Maureena Lockyer-Benzie, a newcomer to KM, asked (05/17/04) whether "the definition (AS5037) is the most appropriate. Other definitions would be appreciated." AS 5037, is the consensus-based definition of KM offered by the Australian Standards organization.

David Williams began the responses with a definition (05/17/04) based on the idea of an organizational process that uses knowledge and intellectual assets to generate organizational value. Later on that day, Patrick Lambe responded by referring to exchanges on the same subject in October 2003 that generated a lot of heat. He also said that a phenomenological definition of KM is that asking for a definition of it will produce a fight but no clarity in the concept, and he then offered the following view:

"A standard is a terribly useful thing for that very purpose - we can just pretend it's true and go about our normal business."

In other words, a standard definition is good because it resolves conflict, but not because it really introduces any clarity into the subject, or helps us to delimit its scope, or represents an addition to our knowledge.

On May 18th, Georges de Wailly stated that he agreed with Mark, and went on to state that KM is the activity of getting "the right information to the right person, in the right time, and in the right context". He also characterized KM as a "logistics of information." I responded to Maureena also by stating that there was no consensus in KM on a definition and referred her to a paper by Mark and myself discussing the issue. I also called her attention to a recent blog of ours on a Governance-based approach to KM, and pointed out that it was in conflict with AS 5037. Mark then responded to Maureena and Georges and took the position that KM definitions are "utterly political and counter-productive” and that we should not be concerned with definitions, but rather with purposes and value propositions. He then want on to criticize AS 5037 for making KM's alignment with strategy a definitional requirement, a move he characterized as the "strategy exception error".

Jeff Popova-Clark (still on 05/18/04) responded to my post on the Governance-based approach by reading our blog post and then by stating that he agreed that KM should not be subservient to short- and medium-term goals of organizations, but that it had to be subservient to the long-term goals because they are "equivalent to an organisation's very purpose for existence. . ," and if ". . . KM is not subservient to the organisation's purpose for existence then KM is using organisation resources for purposes other than the purpose of the organisation." Bala Pillai, next, supported Mark's post on definition, and Kate Andrews responded to Mark by saying that her experience indicated that organizations are relaxed about the idea that "knowledge processes should align with organisational intent." She also expanded on this point, ending by asking, reasonably: "I wonder if, when we focus on practice, some of the heat goes out of these topics?"

Early on May 19th, I responded to Kate Andrews by agreeing that sometimes the heat goes out of this topic in practice. I also asked her whether it wasn't true that if KM is normatively defined as needing to be in alignment with management strategy, that this provides a normative foundation for Management to constrain KM from encouraging norms and practices of critical evaluation of Management strategy? Next, I replied to Jeff Popova-Clark, attempting to place his remarks in a still broader perspective and pointing out that the Governance-based approach contended that KM should be aligned with the goals and objectives emerging from Governance, whether long-, medum, or short-term, rather than with the goals, objectives, and strategy emerging from Management. Kate Andrews then responded to my earlier reply by reiterating her point of view that KM should be aligned with organizational intent and that in her experience KM was dedicated to change and not the status quo.

Dave Snowden (05/19/04) next added a civil post objecting to the either/or orientation of the conversation up to that point with respect to both strategy/KM and KM definitions. He emphasized the importance for KM success of it being in alignment with corporate strategy, and also the role of definitions of starting or staging points for further development of ideas. He wrote about the co-evolution of concept and practice and presented the view that cases that are not specifically generated to test a theory, cannot provide support for it. Following Dave's post, I responded to Kate Andrews by agreeing with the substance of her post, but I also pointed out that her reply had not, in fact, addressed my two questions.

Later that day, Mark McElroy responded to Dave Snowden's post. He agreed with Dave's point that for KM to be a success, Management needs to take it seriously; but also pointed out that if KM is mandated by Governance, Management will be required to take it seriously. He went on to make the point, in contrast to Dave's strong implication, that there is plenty of evidence supporting the idea that Governance-based KM may work, and that there is also much evidence in recent corporate behavior that Management strategy-based KM does not work very well.

The next post, by myself, at once responded to the first post on definitions by Mark McElroy, an earlier post by David Williams, as well as one by Patrick Lambe. The thrust of it was to characterize definitions as elevator speeches that we could (a) accept by convention, or (b) view as synthetic statements that might be false. I illustrated the view that definitions are synthetic statements by critiquing David Williams's offering, and also by applying that view in relation to standards and Patrick's view that standards are a convenient way to avoid conflict over key concepts. I also referred the group to a recent blog post of mine explaining my view on definitions. In the next post on definitions and standards (still on 05/19), I responded to Dave Snowden's post on these questions. I agreed with much in his post, as indicated in my response to Mark, but said that I thought that the AS 5037 definition of KM was off the mark because it excluded Governance-based approaches. I then discussed the clear difference of opinion on the merits of the Governance-based approach to KM, but indicated that we had reached the end of argument on this point in previous exchanges, in my book with Mark, and in recent posts on my blog site. Finally, I indicated puzzlement at Dave's reference to "linear definition" in his post, while endorsing the notion of co-evolution of theory and practice.

Bill Hall then contributed a post in which he complimented the forum for the conversation on the 19th about definitions and alternative approaches to KM, and then proceeded to discuss organizations viewed as CASes and the implications of this view for KM. Referring to my work and Mark's, Bill indicated that working independently of us, " but from the same broad epistemological base provided by Karl Popper's later works . . . I have come to very much the same conclusions as they have about the roles and practice of KM in organisations." Bill also indicated that he thought the majority of the difficulties people have with our views is paradigmatic in nature and that he hoped that papers he was working on would bridge the communications gap. Megan Smith then offered some comments relating Gary Hamel's views on deep organizational change and innovation to the comments on organizational purposes made by Jeff Popova-Clark. She asked for comments on Hamel's emphasis on widespread employee participation in developing innovations and strategy. Mark quickly responded to Megan, pointing out that he very much agreed with Hamel and that macroinnovation was about implementing ideas about innovation very similar to Hamel's.

Intensification

Kate Andrews (still on the 19th) contributed a very short response to Mark, in which she asked:

"I wonder if others see the irony in eschewing KM definitions and standards, and advocating for diversity at the same time as characterising a strategy alignment view as 'not to be taken seriously' and 'unsustainable'?"

I responded to Kate quickly, saying:

"To eschew standards and favor diversity doesn't mean that one can't have a position of one's own, and be very critical of some alternative positions. It simply means that one must be committed to the ideas that one may be wrong, and that KM is still sufficiently young to warrant a great deal of caution in committing to standards that have not yet stood the test of time and criticism."

Until this point, the conversation begun with Maureena Lockyer-Benzie's post asking about definitions had been conducted in a very civil way focusing primarily on substance. It was largely devoid of personal attacks, ad hominems, or labeling, and had not exhibited any hints of political communitarianism.

At this point Greg Timbrell posted a response to Kate Andrews's last post. He said:

"I feel a need to respond to your post in Haiku

You speak your wise thoughts
A philosopher responds
All is lost"

And then he proceeded to inform the group of the Haiku form. In the context of my response to Kate and the back and forth between us, I think this may be seen as the first instance of labeling to occur in the course of the discussion. A number of Haiku posts, which I will not review here, followed Greg's post and proceeded in parallel with the theory discussion. One of their functions seemed to be to provide an outlet for unease or frustration over the increasing density and intensity of the theory discussion

The next important theory post was from Robert Kay, who responded to my post responding to Mark McElroy, Patrick Lambe, and David Williams. Robert referred to his experience as a member of the committee producing AS 5037, and said:

"Do any us believe that the definition in the Standard is the absolute truth on the matter - not to my knowledge. Do any of us believe we could come up with a definition that would satisfy everyone - not really. This is why in the final Standard there will be a statement alerting readers to the fact that there are multiple definitions. The definitions people use are going to be related to the context they work in, their personal histories and the histories of the contexts in which they are undertaking action - amongst other things. Consequently any definition is by definition going to be incomplete (this is not the same as false or incorrect). This is also why the Standard is intended as an informative document - not a prescriptive one."

The exchanges on definitions and standards continued on May 20th. The first post on that day to address itself to these issues was by Dave Snowden who responded to both my posts and Mark's. Dave explained what he meant by "linear definition", but without explaining why the term "linear" was properly applied. In the process he asserted again that it wasn't important whether strategy preceded KM or vice versa since these would interact. He then went on to say that he thought that our view on Governance was "naïve". But in using that adjective he did not merely "label" our view, but proceeded to explain why he thought it was naive: specifically because in most organizations Executive Management has its way with Boards anyway. The implication of this is, I suppose, that it doesn't really matter if KM is located in the Governance or the Management function. He then reiterated a previous point he had made about whether cases not developed to test a model should be used to support it. After a paragraph of argument he concluded: "Retrospective coherence is not 'evidence' that can prove a theory, it's an indicator of a possible new experiment."

I'll continue my account of the road to incident 2 in my next blog.

Postscript