Keywords and taxonomies can bite us in the rear end. We spend lots of time making assumptions about what we know, but so much of the time we get tangled up in the unspoken assumptions around the labels.
I am researching and writing on two arenas now. First, I’m writing on how search, Google, and what we create as learning experiences in schools are building up friction for change. That research has delved into the worlds of keywords, natural language, and the politics of taxonomies and knowledge. I’m a big fan of Morgan’s work on organizational metaphor (Images of Organization, 1996), so this examination of taxonomy of words as knowledge drivers resonates strongly with me.
The second project is about how we use narrative in organizational routines. I did not know clearly that this was about “routines” until this week. I had been dwelling and searching on pre-decisional structures, decision making, knowledge management, information bias, politics of information, organizations, and all sorts of other great keywords and concepts. The keywords within those circles all play into each other and lead me into other research papers in other related journals in the same realm.
This week, I delved into a musty library copy of Nelson & Winter’s Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (1982) to re-think about routines as core structures of narratives of how organizations function. I then tucked into research referring to that work from 2005 until now. A whole world unfolded that interrelated with my second project and that had not unveiled itself as I was not looking for “routines.”
I am enjoying my new iPad tremendously. I’ve gotten the hang of sliding my fingers to scroll, as well as pinching and unpinching to zoom in and out.
Yet twice yesterday I turned to my lovely computer flatscreen on my desktop computer with the absentminded control action of sliding my hand or tapping. A few seconds each time would pass before I realized that I’ve already tried adapting that behavior to my oh-so-last year tried and true computer.
I chuckled. Part of my amusement was my slow recognition of the gaffe itself as I stared blankly at the screen.
My mental glitches also reminded me of the days of my first digital video recorder, now many years ago. I caught myself at movie theaters trying to grab the DVR remote to rewind to see a scene again. I caught myself doing that five times before my brain caught up and adjusted my user interface context expectations again.
I’m also amused at the sight of my teenagers tinkering with my iPad’s user interface, though with different assumptions. They expect the iPad to ride along in their lap like their cellphone does while they are on the laptop at the same time. They love the slick shifts between elements, but have voiced frustration that it can’t multitask on the same screen like their traditional computers. Having to focus on one screen at a time for them is their cognitive break.
Pardon me while I tap on the screen again to publish this post…
I wish this topic wasn’t top-of-mind. I have several friends facing major health challenges right now, with each family following different pathways to communicate to friends and concerned loved ones. In this era of instant communication, how do you keep people apprised on the heart-wrenching changes in traumatic health issues?
Each family has been pursuing different paths:
Google Connect with Blogger — Sadly, the most recent addition to this story is from the family of a friend this weekend. In her 40’s, she collapsed during one of her kids’ sports events, needed CPR, and has just come out of a hospital-induced coma. Her immediately family is dealing with hour-by-hour issues as well as all of the well-wishers who are very concerned. They chose Blogger/Blogspot and Google Connect for people to subscribe to updates. Just implemented, the blog already has more than 60 people signed up as Followers and it has been read by nearly 250 people. I cried just reading the fragile updates. Things are looking up, but with gigantic uncertainty on what happened or where things are going.
Caring Bridge — This is a full service for these types of issues: http://www.caringbridge.org/. I’m aware that it exists, but have found no friends using it, at least right now. Many know of it, but have chosen other solutions.
Plain old email — Another friend has nearly 100 people following his chemotherapy. His lovely wife is sending a bulk email out every week or so to everyone, with very detailed updates. She is aware of services like Caring Bridge, but feels this is more personal.
Nothing — The flip side is one of my dearest friends, who is having an awful battle with complications from chemotherapy and surgery. He has stopped communicating with people and often won’t answer his phone. He….doesn’t want to both people. He….doesn’t want to keep answering the same questions. This breaks my heart. I’ve been sending him updates from my trips and adventures and occasionally get a quick note back, but he has pulled back from communication.
Facebook — I’ve been part of quick bursts of support for sick children, car accidents, surgeries — the abrupt traumas of life — that have been shared by caregivers/loved ones on Facebook to garner support. The beauty of telling the story once and having outpourings of digital support within minutes has such power and heart-felt warmth.
None of our traumas are new. We’re all getting older and our threads of lives more fragile.
We have always picked up the phone, but the connections were one-by-one or saved for the tragic story after the fact to share in a Holiday Letter. We now live immediate, connected lives. Instead of the “reach out and touch someone” world of long-distance calls, we now have quick touches and digital gestures of warmth and support.
We don’t just share the funny games and today’s news, but we also share our hearts, health, love, and amazement at the brittle details of our worlds and lives.
May you not need this post and may you think of how to build support around others from it. And may you add other suggestions into the mix that you see in your worlds.
Funny things happened on the way to Madrid and Pamplona….
I was just chatting with the charming lady next to me, a New Yorker returning home, as we were taxing in at JFK Airport in New York. Then the plane stopped and the pilot came on, saying there had been an airport security breach at Terminal 8 and we would be waiting to find a space to pull in for 30 minutes to up to several hours. Groans were heard throughout the cabin. I quickly calculated that I had about a three-hour cushion for my next flight, which was heading to Madrid to catch my connection to Pamplona. The crew made other announcements about avoiding lines to use the toilets — not my present concern — and didn’t tell us anything else.
I got on my Blackberry. Four other people around me got on their version of Smartphones and we all began to contact friends and check out the situation. We quickly learned from a blend of Twitter, Yahoo, friends’ notes, the Washington Post online, and Reuters that some guy two hours earlier had accidentally gone through a airport employee door. The pilot — did he know for those last two hours and didn’t want to tell us until he knew more information?
I tweeted at @maremel my frustration with the scene. My Twitter feeds to my Facebook, and I got some nice commiserating comments. About two hours later, after an hour of waiting on the tarmac, another 15-20 minutes waiting for the jetway to be rolled out, walk time to cut around the massive crowds in the Terminal to get to the AirTrain to get to Terminal 7 to wait for my next flight.
So, over a sandwich, I read my email on my Blackberry. Lo and behold, a very nice New York Times reporter had read my Tweet and wanted to talk with me about my experience. She and I had two quick phone calls from my waiting spot on the floor of the Iberia Airlines gate. I called my husband afterwards to chuckle at the irony of my heading to Spain to teach about digital media and having a Twitter note turn into a NY Times interview!
It turned into a few lines of the article itself: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/nyregion/17JFK.html. that’s turned into emails and Facebook comments from friends to see if that was me. (I supposed there probably is another 47-year-old Gigi Johnson somewhere.) What a way to start a trip!
It also is ironic that a year ago when I was here I Tweeted about my masters’ class, and that Tweet was read by the Higher Universities of Technology in Abu Dhabi, who is having me come there to teach next month. The world is small and Twitter is making it smaller in all sorts of weird, wired ways.
Interesting 10 year reflection on AOL/TWX by Gerry Levin and Steve Case. You can enjoy it yourself with the embedded video below from CNBC, but here’s some snippets of interesting quotes and comments:
— “Worst deal of the decade…apparently” (referring to recent NYT article) — “It’s not a supermarket — it’s a mall” (describing what the Internet business became versus what they had anticipated as a valued walled garden) — “We’re not a capitalist country anymore” (commenting on how government regulation has taken control of major companies)
Mea culpa with comments about needs for compassion and missionary zeal — seemingly at a loss from other people and not themselves — and evidently Levin’s fault that the company didn’t have it. Would that have made a difference? Very interesting rear-view mirror…
Compassion and love? Vision and execution. Losing that when they put the companies together. Blaming it today on the baggage, Wall Street, and not innovating for customers. Who was going to innovate and how were they rewarded for it? Not much on too much hype and not enough creating something new.
Citing positive examples of Time and Turner integrations — not the best of examples either and the level of friction and loss had been tremendous.
“Going to the mountaintop of expectations” and “falling from grace” — strangely self-grandiose, biblical, and not a rolling-up-the-sleeves humility
Comparing community of AOL to Twitter…”AOL was the Internet.” Sounded vaguly like “coulda been a contenda.”
“I would want to be on the forefront of the media somewhere and not holding the old media bag.”
You’d think that they were reading what I just spent the last week writing…which will show up as excerpts here soon. Happy 2010.
Keywords and taxonomies can bite us in the rear end. We spend lots of time making assumptions about what we know, but so much of the time we get tangled up in the unspoken assumptions around the labels.
