• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

DB Kay & Associates - Strategic Consulting for Sustainable Knowledge Programs

  • Home
  • What We Do
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • Training & Workshops
    • KCS Workshop – Apr 2023
    • KCS Overview – Apr 2023
    • KCS Coach Workshop – April 2023
    • KCS Workshop – May 2023
  • Who We Are
  • Contact Us

Summer Reading! Too Big To Know

June 18, 2012 by David Kay

Well, we’re done with the Hunger Games, and the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is so 2011.  But backyards and beaches beckon—what’s a knowledge geek to read in the sun?

Plenty, as it turns out!  Over the next week and a bit, I’ll be sharing one favorite book a day that I’ve read in the past few months (although some have been out for longer.)

I’m going to start with my absolute favorite: “2b2k.”


Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren’t the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room.  David Weinberger (@dweinberger). 

I admit it: I generally don’t like books about knowledge.  As an every-day-in-the-trenches knowledge practitioner, I generally find them either hopelessly academic or breathtakingly obvious.  So I was gobsmacked by this book, both deftly written and profound.  It would have been excellent entertainment, except for the fact that it upended a lifetime’s worth of assumptions about knowledge, and especially authoritative knowledge.

The book’s premise is that the way we have approached knowledge is an unhelpful hangover from a world of scarcity.  The filtering mechanisms we use to whittle the world’s information down to the very most authoritative knowledge have far more to do with the limited supply of paper and shelf space than the way that knowledge works in the real world.  Cluetrain Manifesto co-author Weinberger argues that accepting the inevitability of information overload, and developing mechanisms to filter forward the most relevant, is the only productive way of engaging with the world.

In a Too Big to Know world, curation is replaced by an unbounded network of links: links from assertions to the facts that support them to the sources for those facts. And also, links to the assertions’ counterarguments and their networks of facts. He explores the implications of abundant knowledge in in many disciplines: policymaking, science, books, and leadership, to name a few.

As a KCS advocate, the idea of moving from scarcity to abundance, and from authority to relevance, is satisfying and nearly self-evident…in knowledge bases.  And “the world’s knowledge is doubling every X years” is a familiar theme.  Still, applying these same big ideas to the wider world is unsettling.  I’m looking forward to reading this again next year after a little soak time—it’s an excuse for more time at the beach, right?

ps – It’s not QUITE like being at the beach, but at least it’s bicoastal.  If there’s someone on your team who should get the KCS bug, especially if they’re near Silicon Valley or Boston, check out our July 10-12 workshop.  New: get KCS Practices Certified before you leave!

Filed Under: KM, Resources

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Albert Clarkson says

    June 19, 2012 at 4:25 pm

    David,

    Hi. Suggest you try THE SHALLOWS, by Nicholas Carr. I admit, it’s probably more of a desert book than a beach book.

    Al

  2. Albert Clarkson says

    June 19, 2012 at 4:25 pm

    David,

    Hi. Suggest you try THE SHALLOWS, by Nicholas Carr. I admit, it’s probably more of a desert book than a beach book.

    Al

  3. David Kay says

    June 19, 2012 at 5:25 pm

    Al – Thanks for the suggestion! It’s on my list, especially after receiving such rough treatment at @dweinberger’s hands. “IT Doesn’t Matter” is one of the most interesting and provocative articles ever, but it seems like Carr is going for a much bigger target here.

    Ludd lives on 🙂

    d

  4. David Kay says

    June 19, 2012 at 5:25 pm

    Al – Thanks for the suggestion! It’s on my list, especially after receiving such rough treatment at @dweinberger’s hands. “IT Doesn’t Matter” is one of the most interesting and provocative articles ever, but it seems like Carr is going for a much bigger target here.

    Ludd lives on 🙂

    d

Primary Sidebar

Search This Site

Upcoming Events

Apr 4
April 4 @ 8:00 am - April 6 @ 3:00 pm

KCS Practices & Certification Workshop – Apr 2023

Apr 19
8:00 am - 12:00 pm

KCS Overview – Apr 2023

Apr 25
April 25 @ 8:00 am - April 27 @ 1:00 pm

KCS Coach Workshop – April 2023

May 2
May 2 @ 8:00 am - May 4 @ 3:00 pm

KCS Practices & Certification Workshop – May 2023

View Calendar

Subscribe to the Blog

Subscribe to our blog and receive a FREE guide to recognizing good and bad knowledge sharing cultures, as well as eleven ways to improve yours.
* = required field

Categories

AI and ML Announcements Coaching Content Management Culture Customer Experience Intelligent Swarming KCS KDE KM Knowledge Representation Lynchpins Measures Program Management Rants Resources self-service Social Support Strategy Technology Uncategorized Video Voice of the Customer

Footer

Recent Posts

  • Use Strategy to your Advantage
  • Change Management and KCS
  • What Does the KCS Council Do?

Stay Connected

    

Contact Us

talk: 408.568.3551
fax: 408.354.8187
info@dbkay.com
18275 Knuth Road
Los Gatos, California 95033

© Copyright 2023 David Kay & Associates · All Rights Reserved ·