[Main Blog Post] A Big Thought Looking for a Small Name

[jprussell]

On the last Ecosophia open post, I asked if anyone knew of a word for a concept that hard started to coalesce in my mind, and while some folks had some good suggestions of related ideas, no one was familiar with the exact thought I was thinking, so I took a stab at pinning it down myself.

I'm not wholly happy with the word I settled on at the end of this one, so I very much welcome suggestions on what might work better.

Comments

[k_a_nitz]

Regarding procedural knowledge, it makes me think of Michael Polanyi (Karl's brother) and his work on tacit knowledge (Practical Knowledge is a good starting point) - and his famous statement: we know more than we can explain.

Regarding agile, most large established enterprises struggle with it because it is oriented towards building new things from scratch, whereas their essential issue is with modifying existing things (for which existing deep tacit knowledge is needed) and in some cases implementing known requirements with fixed deadlines in the form of government regulations. That and agile has yet to adequately address the accounting aspects - new code is capital expenditure, not revenue expenditure, and so the taxation treatment is different and this affects budgeting significantly for large enterprises that can't just pursue a burn rate on capital expenditure.
(I always find it funny that the original project that gave rise to agile methods (with GM or Ford I think) was a failure.)

One other thing that you might want to look at is Christopher Alexander's work "The Timeless Way of Building" which outlines the thinking which led to his "Pattern Languages". He addresses the observable fact that in Europe barns in a region are all different at the level of detail yet follow a set pattern, despite them traditionally being built by the locals and not professionals. The answer to why that is so probably bears upon what you are angling in on, and has a lot to do with tacit knowledge IMHO.

[jprussell]

Thank you for these thoughts!

1) I have yet to read either of the Polanyi brothers, but I've run into references to both before, so I'm sure I'll need to at some point.

2) Fair enough on some of the challenges with Agile in large organizations. I might argue that the accounting and government regulations are themselves forms of over-legibility screwing up what could be a more organic process, but the idea of updating/maintaining requiring a different skillset and approach to building from scratch is a good one, and one that I think not only large organizations, but also most software engineers, are poorly suited to (building new things is fun and interesting! maintenance is boring!)

3) I love Alexander's work! I couldn't think of a way to bring him up without launching into a practically a whole 'nother essay, but he was lurking behind the architecture and living space section (I likely should have dropped him at least a wikipedia link or the like). Fun Jeff fact: as I was getting out of the Army, I very strongly considered getting a "first professional masters degree" in architecture, which is a program where you get a Masters without relevant undergrad study, because I love beautiful buildings and am fascinated by how the built environment affects folks and their lives. It was largely due to reading Alexander and some related types that I realized that architecture as a job field these days is hugely biased against almost everything I like and respect in shaping human environments, so I went for Business School instead (maybe not better, but hey, it pays pretty well).

Cheers,
Jeff