the poetics of knowledge sharing
July 10, 2005 @ 6:46 amOn Monday, July 18 at SRI — seminar abstract: Advances in repository technology have not “solved the problem of knowledge sharing.” The problem does not arise from the “noun-like” properties of “knowledge” but a failure to grasp the “verb-like” qualities of “sharing.” This distinction is related to that between product-centric and process-centric approaches to knowledge management; but the characteristics of a verb-based strategy have origins that precede knowledge management and reach back to the time of Aristotle. Furthermore, they are based not in Aristotle’s investigations of logic but in the principles of his “Poetics.” It is demonstrated how this study provides instructions for making knowledge sharable; and the lessons of those instructions are shown to apply to both work practices and technologies that support those work practices. Keywords: knowledge sharing, imitation, work practices, narrative, Eureka, distributed cognition, learning, innovation, communication, Web-based communities
