Knowledge Ecology

Knowledge ecology involves two things, what you yourself know, and how you are embedded in the environment of your life.  Your own knowledge gives you the ability to choose.  Your own knowledge gives your thought engine power.  The environment you are embedded in offers the range of possible choices.  We call the environment where you are working a "useful common".  Building a network of people who you communicate with is enlarging the useful common that is available to you.  Choosing what to do now, drives your learning engine, and changes the range of possible futures.  That is all you can do today, or any day. 

Adapting to Change

Knowledge management has failed to become a key part of business strategy.  Too often we have tried to manage the "knowledge" we think we have in computers.  We are offered something like the Google solution to our lack of knowledge.  That reflects a basic misunderstanding of what knowledge is.  Everywhere, neglected, is the concept of having one's personal knowledge, primary knowledge developed by living a real life and trying to do real things.  Your Open Future begins with understanding the importance of the knowledge in your own head.  Each of us needs to learn how to respect and manage your OWN knowledge.  Begin to do that by finding ways to record your own primary experience.

In social networks you can share your primary knowledge with other people, and invite them to enlarge your understanding and direct you towards the best options.  In the process of explaining to others what you are thinking, you confirm and deepen your own understanding.  If you save to your hard disk your own writing, you'll always have access to it. (Well maybe, if you keep backups.)  By using desktop search capability you can get access to your previous thinking on all the topics you've shared with other people. 

If developing a knowledge ecology is problematic for you, improve the diversity of the environment you work in.  Business and professional social networks are available to you.  Join LinkedIn (15 million members) so you can find people and so other people can find you.  Join one or two professional lists.  Find a social network where specialists are discussing topics that interest you.  These activities will expand your knowledge of the world, and will help you to "see" in new ways.  We learn best from people who are "like us", and over time in the process of conversation with people you don't know, you may begin to see both the common ground, and the potential for sharing ideas and mutual learning.  This potential exists, all you need to do is unlock it, develop your membership of diverse groups.