Monthly Archives: October 2006

Talking To Children About Death

Posted on October 11, 2006 by Dave Pollard

At a time of great distress and grief, the thought of having to speak to children about the loss of a loved one can bring on an unbearable additional anxiety. We no longer live in a world where children frequently … Continue reading →

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | 4 Comments

Caledon, Canada: A Case Study in the Seeming Futility of Controlling Growth

Posted on October 10, 2006 by Dave Pollard

I live in Caledon, the largest municipality (physically) in the Greater Toronto Area, and the one with (for now) the smallest population (70,000, of which 25,000 is in the Town of Bolton, the pink area in the SE corner of … Continue reading →

Posted in Collapse Watch | 5 Comments

Dave Snowden Tackles Innovation

Posted on October 9, 2006 by Dave Pollard

Dave Snowden’s new organization Cognitive Edge is launching a new initiative to use complex system approaches to foster innovation. His thesis is that there are three necessary preconditions to innovation: starvation (what I call scarcity — a shortage of resources … Continue reading →

Posted in Working Smarter | 2 Comments

How to Deal With Complexity Day-to-Day

Posted on October 8, 2006 by Dave Pollard

In two previous articles I described this process for addressing complex ‘wicked’ problems collectively: Collective Complex-Environment Problem Resolution Process Crafting and sending a compelling invitation: to anyone with passion about and something to potentially contribute to the problem’s resolution Drafting the … Continue reading →

Posted in Working Smarter | 2 Comments

Links for the Week – October 7, 2006

Posted on October 7, 2006 by Dave Pollard

A grim composite, this week, I’m afraid, of nine articles with a single theme: rich, powerful corporations and idealogues pursuing actions in their personal interest that are disastrous for the rest of us. The Dark Side of Corporatism and Globalization: … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works | 4 Comments

Dave’s Unconventional Theories

Posted on October 6, 2006 by Dave Pollard

Back in May I described the five steps in the self-experimentation process: Decide on your objective/desired result;  Collect base-line data;  Imagine hypotheses/theories about what might lead to your objective/desired result;  Test hypotheses by changing one variable at a time and … Continue reading →

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | 1 Comment

Embracing Complexity in Your Job

Posted on October 5, 2006 by Dave Pollard

This week I started a major KM project. I can’t talk much about it yet, but it involves both natural (ecological) and social systems, so it is imbued with complexity. There’s a tendency to jump right into information architecture, taxonomy, … Continue reading →

Posted in Working Smarter | Comments Off on Embracing Complexity in Your Job

An Approach to KM and Learning that Embraces Complexity

Posted on October 4, 2006 by Dave Pollard

Several of my Knowledge Management colleagues have pointed me to George Siemens’ site Knowing Knowledge, and his upcoming self-published book of the same book (to be made available as free pdf’s as well). Much of what George says really resonates … Continue reading →

Posted in Working Smarter | 1 Comment

The Media: Numbing Ourselves to Pain And Others’ Suffering

Posted on October 3, 2006 by Dave Pollard

The purpose of the information media, says Bill Maher, is to make what’s important interesting, So what’s the purpose of the entertainment media? Watch the gruesome stunts on reality TV, the gross-outs and humiliation that passes today for ‘comedy’, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | 7 Comments

Do Bloggers Really Care About Their Readers?: A Speculation on the Nature of Relationships

Posted on October 2, 2006 by Dave Pollard

Much of our social life is spent establishing and navigating the undocumented boundaries of relationships. In our astonishingly complex modern world, we are constantly entering into (and breaking off) relationships, and watching them evolve, sometimes in unexpected ways. Each relationship … Continue reading →

Posted in Using Weblogs and Technology | 4 Comments