Harold Jarche

fields of knowledge

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Stay in your lane. Stick to your knitting. These are perhaps the worst cliché words of advice anyone can give in our interconnected, networked world.

For much of history, particularly since The Enlightenment, our societies have been quite adept at creating classifications and creating fields of work and study.

At the end of the day, fields represent a specific kind of research machinery: a collection of rallying cries, norms, funders, and bureaucratic arrangements that are designed to output new insights about the world at large. Fields rise and fall on the strength of their ability to deliver knowledge and useful ideas. Researchers – particularly the good ones – coalesce around productive fields because they are also the most effective engines for pursuing the questions they want to pursue. At the end of the day, that is what matters. —Field Essentialism

Fields are often created to be useful but they can also be used for power and control. I remember visiting the Apartheid Museum in South Africa and one of the rooms showed all the laws around race that had been in place during the apartheid regime. These started as a few laws but more kept being added as there was no way to make a complex field merely complicated.

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a rude awakening

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“It might be down to the time of year; it’s always quieter in the summer months but it feels a bit different right now.

Firstly, it feels like there has been a BIG pause because of ChatGPT and other LLMs. It feels like people are still getting their heads round what they can do, their effectiveness, quality, etc. And when they do look at it, they don’t ‘get’ how they’ll use it.” —Andrew Jacobs 2024-08-09

I have witnessed this same malaise in the business world for the past year. If it’s not an AI initiative, it does not get any attention. The bad and the ugly aspects of this new flavour of machine learning are dominating the IT sector and all it touches. Here are some recent examples shared in our community of practice.

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we fight, they lose

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

Note: Regular readers may have noticed that my blog posts are rather infrequent at this time. I am taking a break from blogging through the Summer and intend to be back this Autumn. There are over 3,500 older posts always available to peruse here.

“Everyone is tired because individually we’re trying to do all the things that can only really be achieved by communal living.” via @gemelliz

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” —John Kenneth Galbraith (2002)

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work and learning 2024

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Work is constantly evolving but technological and social changes are accelerating certain aspects of work. Working from anywhere has exploded since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and does not look like it will disappear. The digital workplace requires unique skills in collaborating in distributed teams and cooperating in knowledge networks.

The most recent technology to influence how work gets done is artificial intelligence — specifically generative large language multi-modal models (GLM). The rate at which these new technologies are being integrated requires agile sensemaking from workers adapting to the changing human-machine work interface. It is highly likely that the pace of change will continue and even accelerate.

While we cannot predict the future of work or know how GLMs will develop, we can assess what human meta-skills are necessary to individually and collectively understand working with smart machines. There are three meta-skills that can help us adapt to a future of work with smart machines.

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ITA Jay Cross Award 2024

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The Internet Time Alliance Memorial Award in memory of Jay Cross is presented to a workplace learning professional who has contributed in positive ways to the field of Informal Learning and is reflective of Jay’s lifetime of work.

Recipients champion workplace and social learning practices inside their organization and/or on the wider stage. They share their work in public and often challenge conventional wisdom. The Award is given to professionals who continuously welcome challenges at the cutting edge of their expertise and are convincing and effective advocates of a humanistic approach to workplace learning and performance.

We announce the award on 5 July, Jay’s birthday.

Following his death in November 2015, the partners of the Internet Time Alliance — Jane Hart, Charles Jennings, Clark Quinn, and myself — resolved to continue Jay’s work. Jay Cross was a deep thinker and a man of many talents, never resting on his past accomplishments, and this award is one way to keep pushing our professional fields and industries to find new and better ways to learn and work.

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understand and speak up

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

Note: Regular readers may have noticed that my blog posts are rather infrequent at this time. I am taking a break from blogging through the Summer and intend to be back this Autumn. There are over 3,500 older posts always available to peruse here.

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” —Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD)

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road kill

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Q. You know what AI is best at?

A. Propaganda”
—@GeorgeSnorwell

“I saw a post that asked: why is divestment political but investment is not? And I can’t stop thinking about it.” —@JackieGardina

“When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane you also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution … Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress.” —Paul Virilio, Philippe Petit, Sylvère Lotringer (1999) Politics of the Very Worst

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another earth day

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.” —Jonathan Swift, via Ron Dyck

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the bad & the ugly

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The capitalist AI future is bullshit by design — AKA ‘mansplaining as a service’.

“Today’s highly-hyped generative AI systems (most famously OpenAI) are designed to generate bullshit by design. To be clear, bullshit can sometimes be useful, and even accidentally correct, but that doesn’t keep it from being bullshit. Worse, these systems are not meant to generate consistent bullshit — you can get different bullshit answers from the same prompts.” —Anil Dash 2023

What are the benefits of AI adoption in organizations? Not good for many workers it seems.

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rebuilding trust

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“Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.” —André Gide (1869–1951)

How do we rebuild trust in expertise in a world filled with conspiracy theories and distrust of institutions?

Experts and leaders have to shift their values toward transparency, honesty, and humility in their communications and actions, being upfront about the limitations and uncertainties of their knowledge, acknowledging mistakes and failures when they occur, and being open to feedback and critiques. By showing that they are not infallible or above accountability, experts can help to dispel the perception of elitism and disconnection from the public.” —Joan Westenberg 2024-04-09

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