[p2p-research] [OK] Why you never see people complaining about "knowledge overload"...

Sat Jan 23 17:06:21 CET 2010

Sam
this post fits very well into my research

sorry for not posting, just lurking cause overloading and working on
multiple tasks
joined this list as I am working on open, distributed models
to the extreme of my resources

will have to find a way of re-using your stuff

Let me know what citation to use for this post
cheers

Paola Di Maio

On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 2:55 PM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com> wrote:

> This post is not just about “quantity does not equal quality”. This is
> about volume of information and how it can affect decision quality.
> It’s also about a more scaleable and sustainable ecology and economy
> for your activities online.
>
> The technology of the weblog (and more recently the microblog) have
> led to the emergence of an *unsustainable* set of media ecology
> approaches. Your ability to track, read, digest and understand blog
> posts cannot match the exponential volume of blogs emerging on the
> internet every day (even just in the subject areas that you are
> interested in). The paradox is that the perceived model for “success”
> in blogging, online community building, and representing projects and
> businesses online is to “blog frequently”. The idea is that you become
> an “information source” about particular topics. This is fine if you
> have a strategy for being a frequent source of information. However,
> if your intent is to be a source of re-usable knowledge, then focusing
> on frequency of posting, and statistics of people looking at your web
> or blogsite could become difficult to sustain.
>
> The purpose of this blog post is to argue that blogging frequently is
> *not* as important as quality of what you write about, if you seek to
> be a re-usable knowledge source. A second purpose is to argue that if
> your success in the digital medium hinges on the fleeting attention,
> focus and choice of other people using the internet, then you are
> likely using an unscalable and non-sustainable model for success.
>
> What really makes this approach unscalable, and unsustainable?
>
> The two factors:
>
> 1. Volume thresholds
>
> 2. Nature of information, and knowledge in networks
>
> Volume of information affects decision quality
>
>
> http://holocene.cc/card_images/0000/0062/Normal_Distribution_CDF_Diagram_large.png
>
> (adapted from Morville, P. Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes
> Who We Become. O’Reilly Media, Inc., 2005. p.165, in turn adapted from
> The Paradox of Choice: Why Less is More, Barry Schwartz, Ecco, 2005,
> p.3)
>
> There is a threshold after which the decision-making quality of people
> begins to *decrease*, as the *quantity* of information *increases*.
> This means that your reader’s ability to derive value from what you
> are publishing will tend to decrease after a certain point. Finding
> this threshold is a key component in successfully participating in
> networked ecologies. The amount of people looking at your website, or
> even linking to your website, are no longer as important as the amount
> of people successfully synthesizing what you are sharing with what
> they are making, sharing and using.
>
> The nature of information, and knowledge in networks
>
> *Data and information* in networks tends to travel and replicate
> exponentially. Knowledge in networks requires transformation to travel
> and replicate. Knowledge, as it transforms, molds itself to the
> world-view and patterns of understanding of the people who synthesize
> it from their perceptions and understanding of the systems they exist
> in.
>
> So, what does this mean for you?
>
> There can only be so many widely-followed sources of information. If
> you seek to be an information source, you are competing in the ecology
> that was described by Clay Shirky in Power Laws, Weblogs, and
> Inequality  http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html You
> are fighting to be one of the 20% of the population that holds 80% of
> the wealth of the ecosystem, if you desire to be an information source
> in a freedom of choice ecology/economy.
>
> A more sustainable approach for digesting, understanding, and sharing
> for the 80% of people who will not be one of the widely-followed
> blogs, is to do it in a form that others can digest, understand, and
> share.
>
> This means that you could make one “post” to the internet in your
> entire life, that synthesizies valuable information into actual
> knowledge, and that it could then exist as a re-usable knowledge
> resource towards theory building and actual problem solving for years
> to come. This ONE “post” existing as information digested, understood,
> and synthesized into knowledge, could be more valuable than all of the
> information-relaying blog posts that you make in your entire life.
>
> Richard Adler, Paul B. Hartzog, and Sam Rose comprise Forward
> Foundation. We are new type of think tank that combines the designing,
> making, and exchanging of technology with embedding literacies about
> how to use emerging technologies and processes sucessfully.
>
>
> --
> --
> Sam Rose
> Social Synergy
> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
> skype: samuelrose
> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
> http://socialsynergyweb.com
> http://forwardfound.org
> http://socialsynergyweb.org/culturing
> http://flowsbook.panarchy.com/
> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
> http://localfoodsystems.org
> http://notanemployee.net
> http://communitywiki.org
>
> "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
> ambition." - Carl Sagan
>
> --
> This is a message from the OpenKollab Google Group located at
> http://groups.google.com/group/openkollab?hl=en
> To post to this group, send email to openkollab at googlegroups.com

-- 
Paola Di Maio
**************************************************
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
Albert Einstein
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