Cycle of Change
From Knowing Knowledge
Figure 28. Change Cycle
Change pressures arise from different sectors of a system. At times it is mandated from the top of a hierarchy, other times it forms from participants at a grass-roots level. Some changes are absorbed by the organization without significant impact on, or alterations of, existing methods. In other cases, change takes root. It causes the formation of new methods (how things are done and what is possible) within the organization (see Figure 28).
Initially these methods will be informal as those aspects of the organization nearest to the change begin to adapt. Over time, the methods significantly impact the organization, resulting in the creation of new structures and new spaces (an alignment to the nature of change). These structures and spaces then create new affordances—enabling the organization to change and adapt. The new affordances create a new cycle of change pressures.
The fault of many schools, universities, and companies is the unwillingness to listen to the voices of those closest to change pressures and emerging methods.
| Distributed control means that the outcomes of a complex adaptive system emerge from a process of self-organization rather than being designed and controlled externally or by a centralized body. | |
| Zimmerman, Lindberg, & Plsek |
| When the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is in sight. | |
| Jack Welch |
Change is shaping a new reality under the fabric of our daily lives. Seven broad societal trends are changing the environment in which knowledge exists:
1. The rise of the individual;
2. Increased connectedness;
3. Immediacy and now;
4. Breakdown and repackaging;
5. Prominence of the conduit;
6. Global socialization; and
7. Blurring worlds of physical and virtual.
Figure 29. Changes in Environment of Knowledge
Contents |
[edit] The rise of the individual
Individuals have more control, more capacity to create and to connect than in any era in history.
Relationships are defined by convenience and interest not geography. We can work wherever and whenever. Time and space no longer limit global conversations.
People are able to connect, share, and create. We are co-creators, not knowledge consumers. Content generation is in the hands of the many. Co-creation is an expression of self…a sense of identity…ownership. We own who we are by the contributions we make.
We are no longer willing to have others think for us. We want to read what concerns us. Listen to what we want. We want only the pieces that interest us, and we want to repackage it so that it makes sense to us. Repackaging is the personalization of the knowledge created by others.
Identity—we know and can be known. We scatter our lives and thoughts across the web. Each question in a forum, each thought in a blog, each podcast, each comment to an article—these distributed pieces are splashed across the internet. They form who we are, how we think (at a certain time), and the things we believe. We are known by what we have done and said, and what others have said about us. We are laid bare.
Surprisingly, the rise of the individual creates the capacity for collaboration, socialization, and "doing things together." We expect to co-create and experience the two-way flow models of knowledge sharing and dissemination. Our identities are exposed, revealed for anyone to explore.
Weinberger recognized individuals are able to "complexify the simple" . Instead of seeing knowledge from only one perspective (the filter), we, as individuals, can contribute our opinions and views to extend the depth (diversity) of our understanding. Knowledge can now be expressed through the aggregate of the individuals—a deafening crescendo of contrasting and complementing opinions and views.
[edit] Connectedness–The world has become whole
Connections raise the potential for adaptation. The power of the human brain is derived from the capacity of each neuron to form many connections. Entities capable of connection forming are capable of adapting. The greater the number of connections possible, the more adaptive the organization.
We are being remade by our connectivity. As everything becomes connected, everything becomes transparent. Technology illuminates what was not discernable to the human eye.
We can connect where-ever (space breakdown). We can connect whenever (time breakdown).
Connectedness allows individuals to create and distribute their own materials and identity. Instead of seeing a whole, we see the many pieces that comprise the whole, and as individuals, we can create a version of the whole that suits our needs and interests.
Everything integrates with everything. Biologists use the language and concepts of physicists. Psychologists use the language of neurologists. Discoveries in one domain ripple across the network of human knowledge. Doors pried open in one discipline reveal corridors sought by others.
When knowledge stops existing in physical spaces, we can duplicate (or connect) entities in multiple spaces. Knowledge, when digital (not in physical entities like paper-based journals and books), can be combined (or remixed) readily with new knowledge. Bringing together ideas from two different books requires effort to bring the entities together (buy both books or go to the library). With digital knowledge, we can link (as David Weinberger famously wrote: "hyperlinks subvert hierarchies" ) and bring two ideas together with ease.
[edit] Immediacy
Everything is now. Knowledge flows in real time. Global conversations are no longer restricted by physical space. The world has become immediate. New information changes markets in minutes. New programs are written in hours, building on the openness and work of others. Leaders must know what happened five minutes ago, not only what happened yesterday. Our filters of information and knowledge assume delays and stopping points, so we can assess implications.
The flow does not stop today. We must develop real-time processing tools, so we can make sense of the unabated flow. We must develop skills to select what is important, store what is needed for the future, and ensure our decisions are based on knowledge that is current. Interpretation and decision making need to happen in the same speed and spirit as the knowledge flow.
Reflection (the act of thought on our actions, motivations, experiences, and world events) is becoming a lost art. Deriving meaning no longer happens at a pause point. Meaning is derived in real time.
The beauty of life always resides below the surface of busyness. How can we appreciate the quietness? Has our generation moved beyond contemplation and silence to distraction and motion? How is our humanness changed?
Does immediacy cause us to be driven not by principles, but by existing context? While context is significant in every knowledge interaction, is it a good leader? What are our guides today? Have higher ideals yielded to the now?
Our lives are being consumed by "now."
[edit] Breakdown and repackaging
It is all in pieces. Knowledge is unmoored. The selection, flow, and discussion of knowledge have all moved from controlled spaces (at the point of creation or filtering) to the domain of the consumer. We take small pieces. We mix them. We create personal understandings.
Shared understandings happen only when we absorb similar patterns as others…or when we create shared patterns. Today, we receive our news, our entertainment, our learning, from distributed means. Two people in the same household stitch together different understandings based on the pieces each used.
We have centering spaces where we share understandings—communities, but we all belong to different communities. We all absorb different information. We all see different knowledge quilts.
How can we relate?
In order to make sense, we extract patterns. While the world of knowledge has gone to pieces, knowledge at point-of-use requires wholeness. We still require centralization. The clearer the aim, the more critical the central model is.
Media develops conversations. Conversations develop reality.
[edit] The conduit is king
Content. Context. Conduit: These shape the meaning of knowledge.
| Content | begins the knowledge cycle. |
| Context | makes it meaningful |
| Conduit | makes it relevant, current, and available. |
Figure 30. Content/Context/Conduit
Our perception of content is too prominent in the knowledge process. When we talk knowledge and learning, we think of content—books, articles, audio files, and video clips.
But knowledge today changes that. Connections are possible with anyone, almost anytime. Emerging collaborative technologies are continuing to extend our potential to connect to content and people, but in the process, it also alters content. Content-development pace increases.
[edit] What is the impact?
We need to continually reference back to original content, due to rapid changes, but this is a big challenge. Our tools and approaches are not very friendly toward quickly changing content.
Learning and knowledge networks are correcting the existing deficiency of connections, in relation to content. In part, connections need to take a prominent role, because connections permit the formation of new content (content is sub-servant to connections).
Learning is not content consumption. Learning happens during some process of interaction and reflection. Content, then, can be a lead into learning...or it can be a by-product of the learning process.
We MUST blend content with context and conduits.
Connections, on the other hand, are a more direct lead into learning, simply because connections are more vibrant than content. Connections are more social and action-oriented than content.
Transfer this thinking to corporate environments: What is more important? What is currently known (existing content/knowledge)? What is our capacity to continue to know more (connections)?
Connection-forming tools will always create content, but their value lies in our ability to reflect on, dialogue about, and internalize content in order to learn. Content is knowledge frozen at a certain time (a magazine article), whereas a connection is a pipeline to continue to flow new knowledge.
[edit] Socialization
Socialization is an affordance of connectedness.
We are now able to socialize our activities to an unprecedented level. Technology is opening doors to conversation. Every nuance, every characteristic, can be dissected and represented in multiple ways and perspectives. The notion of what is known is confused with limitless viewpoints. Certainty is clouded by multiplicity.
We socialize with others of like interest from around the world. Everyone, no matter how out of place physically, has a mirrored companion digitally. These mirror identities and interests, however, are not without fault. We can build closed spaces where we dialogue with others who share our viewpoints…and we are no longer forced to think critically as we casually encounter contrasting views (while watching a television newscast or reading a journal article). We simply echo our beliefs to each other .
Everyone builds, produces, creates, talks. Have we merged talking with listening? When we create on the work of others, is listening the act of speaking how we interpret their perspective? In an age where everyone has a voice to broadcast, our need to listen and understand becomes more prominent.
The ability to connect with those of like-minds and beliefs compresses diversity. We must now intentionally seek views that are unlike ours. We can now exist in our own spaces and hear only those things with which we agree. Polarization is intensified.
[edit] Blurring worlds
Physical and virtual realities are blurring. Our space of existence has been defined by duality: physical and digital (virtual).. Those distinctions are rapidly changing. We buy with digital money. We build digital spaces. We exist in online worlds.
We can collaborate, run businesses, find romance, share ideas, create new software, and shape a new world—all with people we have never seen. We are developing our collective ability to function under a new skill set.
When we meet face-to-face, we are skilled at interpreting and analyzing meaning—a furrowed brow…a smirk…a raised eyebrow. We know how to function in the physical. We are learning how to function in the virtual. Tone of voice blended with the message. First text, then audio, now video. We can come to know each other without touching.
We blend our virtual interactions with face-to-face. Our water cooler conversations driven by last night’s newscast, the comic strip in the morning paper, are replaced with discussions of video logs, or content presented online (personalizing the internet with our views). The creator, the consumer have become one.
The membrane between real and virtual is thinning.
We are starting to exist simultaneously in each.
Figure 31. Knowledge Change
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1 A complexity science primer. (n.d.). Review of the book Edgeware: Lessons from complexity science for health care leaders by Brenda Zimmerman, Curt Lindberg, Paul Plsek. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.pms.ac.uk/healthcomplexity/files/Primer%20on%20Complexity.doc
2 Joining Dots. (n.d.). One liners: Jack Welch (¶ 6). Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.joiningdots.net/library/Research/one_liners.html
3 Wikimania. (2006). David Weinberger in keynote to Wikimania: August 11, 2006. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikimania_20060806_David_Weinberger-_What%27s_happening_to_knowledge.ogg
4 David Weinberger as cited in: Locke, C., Levine, R., & Searls, D. (2001). The cluetrain manifesto. New York: Perseus Publishing.
5 Barabási, A. (2002). Linked: The new science of networks (p. 170). Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing. Barabási discusses how only a small percentage of webpages link to opposing viewpoints. We are creating spaces of social and political isolation, where our ideas are unquestioned.
6 Linden Research. (2006). Second life. Your world. Your imagination. Retrieved September 6, 2006, from http://secondlife.com/ Second Life is among the first generation of game-based virtual worlds, allowing individuals to create their own identity and build an online existence.
My Virtual Life. (2006, May 1). Business Week online. Retrieved September 6, 2006, from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982001.htm My Virtual Life details the merging physical and virtual worlds. Individuals can purchase or sell property, hold concerts, book signings, and other activities previously confined to physical spaces.
