Not everything that counts can be counted

The rat is more effective as it can process 2000, not 20 samples a day. This is a great image Rosetta Stone and example of exploring what we don't know. Know recommending Theory U and Presence which triggers an allergic reaction in me against idealistic and sometimes pious (in the negative sense of the word) approaches. Another good example though, the traditional healer in the village given a mobile phone to allow direct contact to hospital experts rather than building hospitals 100s of miles away. Reduction of material mortality by 50% in three years by linking knowledge bases in novel ways at low cost. Real stuff this, don't replicate a western model in Africa but build in evolutionary ways on the potential of the present (my words there but I think this is what he means).Another Einstein quote now: Not everything that counts can be counted, not everything that can be counted counts Einstein again. Again I agree with this and I can pick up in my closing keynote with some SenseMaker? examples as this is a IT audience in the main. Drawing to a conclusion now with some good lists. The role of the leader is to relentlessly spread the word on the importance of knowledge sharing and learning, give recognition to supporting behaviour and above all walk the talk, teach by example. this latter point is key, actions of leaders say more (and stories spread faster) than motiviations speeches, emails or other forms of communication, in Rosetta Stone Software action all meaning is encompassed (not sure about that, its mine not Nick's but it sounds good). He argues here that incentives need to be aligned which I am less sure about. I get a hint that he is also uncomfortable as he says the langauge of appraisal was misinterpreted and gamed, something that conforms with my own experience. Some key lessons learnt now. That allows recall via semantic analysis tag clouds etc. There are issues of scalability, tagging requires consistent use of language. I really admire people like Patrick Lamb and Shawn who can do this, but I can't even use the fiveteen categories on this blog and I've never got into tags. Use of language changes over time and its difficult to find things or see wider patterns. High volume ambiguous signification This is the area which has been a large part of my and Cognitive Edge's focus since we left IBM. Its the basis of SenseMaker?. The principle here is to move to multiple forms of capture (we are now using pens and iPods as well as web sites and this will extend over the next year or so to allow increasing levels of pervasive capture both as stories, but also as a part of operational processes, linking narrative to more formal systems. Key to this is self-signification in ambiguous structures. You could almost make a cylinder of the framework above in respect of ambiguity. If you're not familiar with the approach then this University of Surrey video goes through the whole thing (and its patent pending by the way). The point is that ambiguity is key to effective search of high volume material. This is a summary post so I'm going to leave it there for the moment.The real point of this post was (i) to create a wider context and (ii) to argue Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin) a key Cognitive Edge principle, different things work in different contexts. Saying my approach is right, their approach is wrong may be right in some contexts but its not true in all. Narrative or Story is a fundamental aspect of what it means to be human, its a lot bigger than its practitioners.