Jim, your comments are wonderfully provoking. I will be exploring
this are for some time based on this conversation. I think the
organisational knowledge of the support structure (secretaries, clerical,
adminstrators, etc) does not exist as knowledge but as local
practices. This process becomes knowledge only in the emergence from
an interplay of a variety of people, factors, etc.
If that is the case, then maybe we should be making the practices
available as the representations of knowledge. I'm not sure about
this but have a feel that exploring it will produce some useful
stuff.
I'm not sure that the emergent can be displayed except after the fact
and then its kind of like accounting - historical and too late. If
the emergent is that kind of process which cannot be compressed nor
calculated except in the complete detail of playing out in real life,
then I think no representation is possible. I'm not sure yet whether
to make that case.
This area has potential gold. The immediate gold is to prevent us
from wasting resources on impossible tasks and misunderstanding. The
longer term one is to explore to see what can be revealed that will
be helpful.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk