Seth Godin: Asimov to the Edges–Perceiving Knowledge

Blog Wisdom, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence
Seth Godin Home

From Asimov to Zelazny

When I was in high school, I read every single science fiction book in the Clearfield Public Library. Probably 250 books altogether.

I don't think I had a big plan, I was mostly looking for something to do. What I discovered, though, was that domain knowledge, edge to edge knowledge of a field, was incredibly valuable. It helped me understand where the edges were, and it gave me the confidence to be selective, to develop a taxonomy, to see what was going on.

As the deluge of information grows and choices continue to widen (there's no way I could even attempt to cover science fiction from scratch today, for example), it's easy to forget the benefits of acquiring this sort of (mostly) complete understanding in a field. I'm not even sure it matters which field you pick.

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Expertise is a posture as much as it is a volume of knowledge.

Reading every single trade journal, for example, or understanding the marketing, engineering and sales of your field–there are countless ways to go deep instead of merely paying lip service to the current flavor of the moment.

Phi Beta Iota:  Dick Klavans (Maps of Science) has marked the fragmented edges as well as the fragmented Strengths of Nations.  Our task now is to recreate the whole–the unification of diversified knowledge in the public interest.  There are eight tribes of knowledge, not one, or two, or three.

Koko: Microsoft Fifth Largest Linux Company

03 Economy, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), IO Impotency
Koko the Reflexive

Top Five Linux Contributor: Microsoft

By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | July 17, 2011

Linux and Open Source

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols & Paula Rooney
EXTRACT

In a Linux Weekly News story, currently only available to subscribers, an analysis of Linux 3.0 contributors reveals that Microsoft was the fifth largest corporate contributer to Linux 3.0. While only 15h overall, that still puts Microsoft behind only Red Hat, Intel, Novell, and IBM in contributing new code to this version of Linux.

To be exact, Microsoft developer K. Y Srinivasan gets the credit for helping to improve Linux. Of course, as you might guess, neither Srinivasan nor Microsoft are doing this due to any particular love tor Linux per se.

The vast bulk of Microsoft’s contributions has been to its own Hyper-V virtualization hypervisor drivers. Hyper-V is Microsoft’s 64-bit hypervisor-based virtualization system. It’s Microsoft’s answer to VMware and Linux’s own native Kernel-based Virtualization Manager (KVM).

Read full story….

Phi Beta Iota:  This is interesting–and disappointing.  Microsoft could be doing so much more.   OpenBTS, Open Data Access, Open Spectrum, and Open Source Intelligence (now M4IS2) are rapidly approaching take-off points that will see them join Free/Open Source Software and Open Hardware.  Microsoft could be central to all of this, but it evidently chooses not to.  It recent waste of Sir Richard Branson in delivering platitudes to their huge event is a real let-down.

See Also:

Graphic: Open Everything

Graphic: One Vision for the Future of Microsoft

Event: 9-15 Aug Richmond, Indiana “Listening” American Society of Cybernetics

Cultural Intelligence

The annual meeting of the American Society for Cybernetics for 2011 will consist of the following components:

  • Pre- Conference with the ASC General Business Meeting, the Annual ASC Event and Tutorials on (2nd order) Cybernetics
  • The 2011 ASC CONFERENCE ON LISTENING
  • Post-Conference Study

The ASC Listening Conference 2011 is the central three day event of our conference suite, an examination of “Listening” (understood metaphorically), explored conversationally, with evening presentations and performances.

The central conference is framed by a pre- conference meeting including tutorials of an introductory and exploratory nature, introducing and working with cybernetic concepts, and a post-conference workshop celebrating the centenary of Heinz von Foerster (who founded the society) and Ernst von Glasersfeld (who died just before Christmas 2010) where we will study selected papers with others who share curiosity about their work.

The central conference is scheduled 11 to 13 August, inclusive, The pre- conference will be 9 to 10 August, and the post-conference will be 14 to 15 August. The registration fee is for the central conference. The pre- and post-conference events are free to those attending the central conference.

Sandy Heierbacher: Native American Self-Governance

Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics
Sandy Heierbacher

Ruth Yellowhawk Fellowship on Native American Forums (Kettering Foundation)

Posted by   |  July 16th, 2011

Collective decision making began in the Americas long before the deliberations that produced the Mayflower Compact. In research done for the Kettering Foundation, Ruth Yellowhawk showed that a legacy of tribal has carried over into modern day decision making.

The foundation wishes to delve more deeply into this legacy and its contemporary applications as part of its study of citizen decision making worldwide. To continue their research, Kettering has established the Ruth Yellowhawk fellowship.

Fellows are selected on the basis of proposals to tell the stories of either historical or contemporary decision making that includes accounts of how problems were identified, issues were framed, decisions were made, and actions taken.

Tom Atlee: Two Game-Changers

03 Economy, 04 Education, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process
Tom Atlee

Dear friends,

Every now and then potentially game changing innovations show up.   Wikileaks is one of them, something that shifts the relationship between centralized power and broader national and international populations.  We don't know what exactly will happen with it, but we do know that we're on a different playing field now.

I want to highlight two other potential game changers.

1.  THE KHAN ACADEMY

2.  CREWFUND

Details below the line…

Continue reading “Tom Atlee: Two Game-Changers”

Mario Profaca: Sixty is the New Forty. Keep Going!

Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Offbeat Fun
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Happy Birthday, Robert.  Sixty is the new forty–you've got another quarter century to achieve public intelligence in the public interest.  Keep going!

Mario

Phi Beta Iota:  Our founder turned 59 today, but agrees completely with the above  sentiments, with thanks.  Visit Mario's Cyberspace Station, the Global Intelligence News Portal.

Koko: First You Burn, Then You Win

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, IO Deeds of Peace, Law Enforcement
Koko the Reflexive

 Thomas James Ball Self-Immolated in Protest of the “Justice” System

“I have 21 years of Army service going back to the Vietnam War. My loyalty to the government should be a given. It is gone. I am certain it will never return regardless of how long I might have lived.”

American Father Self-Immolates To Protest Against Family Courts

NEW HAMPSHIRE SELF IMMOLATION DETAILS

Last statement sent to Sentinel from self-immolation victim

YouTube on New Hampshire Court Melting Down

FreeKeen.com