Monstrous Knowledge Management – This article from Ton Zijlstra’s Interdependent Thoughts blog, similar to the post I made about the KM Bandwagon devaluing core intent of KM very rapidly, which prompted comment from Dave Pollard.
Also interestingly, Ton’s next post is on the drying-up of blog-like networks. I posted on reduced blogging rates here too, but think the main point has also been made many times. It doesn’t matter which medium is used for an interactive community of contacts, there is a limit to how many (150 max some say) organised only so many ways (5 to 10 categories say) in which any one human brain can manage and participate. The media will come and go – boards, blogs, wikis, whatever, the underlying modes of human interaction do not actually change. I think Dave Weinberger’s “Small Pieces, Loosely Joined” does however have some lessons about how the sheer connectivity of web-based technologies (whichever mode is in fashion) does bring some new challenges, The one drawback I keep raising is the negative effect of speed on development of ideas. [here] [here] [here].
As Ton puts it “how to allow for digestion and consolidation between spurts of discovery” – without the fashionable mode connecting the current group of peers moving on to the next fashion too soon. Staying power required.