Dave Snowden. Matt Mower has posted some great notes from a talk by KM guru Dave Snowden: Cynicism and Serendipity.
...For 20-30 years we've operated a model of the human brain closer to cybernetics than neuroscience. The assumption is that thought is a logical, rational, linear process. This is wrong. So is Myers-Briggs and all these other attempts to put people into boxes. It is reminiscent of Brave New World... The human brain is adaptive. The way we see the world changes according to context. Disruption changes brain patterns and the key thing in human intelligence is patterns. We match stimulus against patterns to know how to act. The brain creates patterns. Hence KM has a problem: We cannot codify patterns for use in text books...
3rd generation approach to KM (Post-SETI - Nonaka) separate knowledge into:
- context
- narrative
- content management...
Trust is not a property. It's an emergent property. You can't make people trust each other. You can't train people to have qualities. It doesn't work...
Many other gems in this long post, good frameworks, worth a full read. [Ross Mayfield's Weblog]
I'm writing this in one big rush. When it flows, it flows. Sorry for any instances of poor English. First draft and all.The entire article from Matt is worth reading. While I disagree with some of the details Snowden discusses (i.e. Sometimes he falls into the same mode as others, that everyone can and does think alike), from my viewpoint, Myers-Briggs was useful but can be misused, as can any tool. I was skeptical until I took it. It described my thinking very well. I believe that as a species we have evolved wildly different ways to react to the environment. Groups and societies that promoted these different processes were able to examine problems with a diversity of viewpoint that monocultures could not. They were the ones that found innovative solutions.
The problem with most KM systems is they act as if people will react the same way. Here he is correct. Nonaka is, in my opinion, correct in his model of how knowledge is created. It requires human interactions. However, some people move information from tacit to explicit forms very well. Others do not. A KM system that requires everyone to interact the same way will fail.But tools that come closer to modeling actual human interaction, diversity of thought and extremity of viewpoint will help create very innovative and creative companies. The creation of knowledge from information allows decisions to be made. This is the most vital purpose of knowledge. Tools that remember that people think differently, that some are linear, some are chaotic, some are detail-oriented, some daydream, will create the most nimble organizations. These will be the organizations that can create knowledge faster from the huge information glut we have today. They will be the ones that succeed.
The scary thing for most businesses is that there is no process for this. Here Snowden is right on. You can not go to a business school, get an MBA and create such a company. It has to emerge. Just as natural selection is cruel - it does not permit the most elegant solution to survive, only the one that works well enough to allow more offspring - so will the selection of successful companies. You will see. One group of people that is comfortable with chaos, that sees patterns and reacts quickly, will love these new technologies. The other group that adores process, that knows exactly what it will be doing 6 months from now, will hate it.
How do I know? I worked at a company that was well stocked with both types. Most of the scientists loved that idea that we would have to change our research direction on a dime and explore new cul-de-sacs, just to make sure they did not lead to new areas of study. But even here, there were a few who felt that they had to control everything, that all the steps along the path had to be planned out first before you could proceed.
A good organization finds ample room for both of these, and the several other modes of thinking. In this way, the organization can gain the positive aspects of each approach while using the pluses of one path balance the minuses of another. It is like a great marriage where each partner fills in the gaps of the other. KM systems that are designed to help only one mode will fail.
I've mentioned this before but while I was at CalTech, I participated in a nice little experiment. The quest was to see how much information could be removed from a stenciled word and still allow you to read the word. I am sure the investigator felt that most everyone would begin to fail reading the word when the same value was reached, say with less that 40% of the original letters being present. What he found was that people fell into 2 groups. Although I can not remember the exact fraction, at some point, one group would fail to decipher the word. No matter how long they looked at it, they would never figure it out. The second group could read the word and could continue to decipher the words even as more of the letters disappeared. Eventually, a second threshold was reached where no one could figure out what words were on the stencils.
I was in the second group and it was very weird. As more information was removed, say as you has less than 50% of each letter present, I could still tell what the word was instantly. But at the 1st threshold, I no longer could get it immediately. But after about 20 seconds, the word would just coalesce and I would know what it was. At this point, the letters were just a collection of dots but they would rapidly change from random dots to a real word. Once it clicked, you knew what it was. As I said, weird.
But what it demonstrated to me is that humans have at least 2 different paths to deciphering visual information and that one group is able to decide what pattern is present when very little information is available. Others require more hard information to see the pattern. While there was no effective Myers-Briggs test then, he was able to place the two groups into general thought patterns. Those that hit the first threshold and could go no further tended to be very linear in their general thought processes, needing hard evidence to move forward. The second group tended to be the non-linear thinkers.
So we had an instance where the ability to resolve a visual pattern seemed to follow a general approach to creative thinking. That there may be very different hard wired patterns to creative thought in the brain and that the physical manifestations of this follow in some rough way what Myers-Briggs observes is interesting. One thing I got from Myer-Briggs is that there is no 'best way' to think. Each type has its advantages and disadvantages. A learning organization knows this and finds ways for each group to find its own, best level. KM needs to recognize this.
Now it is late and I have to get up for more soccer tomorrow. I'll upload this now. Forgive me for any misspellings and for grammer bad (see;-) Maybe I'll fix them tomorrow. 11:07:00 PM 
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