bamboozled 2024

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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.

“Definition: Conspiracy Theory
—A belief that the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community, who have spent their lives researching the subject, missed something you figured out in two minutes due to your superior Google researching skills.” —Meanwhile in Canada

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” —Carl Sagan (1995) The Demon-haunted World

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PKM Summit

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I just presented at the first annual European PKM Summit, with a formal presentation yesterday and a casual chat today. Next year’s summit is scheduled for 14/15 March 2025. Some of what I covered is posted at 20 years of PKM. I mentioned several projects and resources which are available on this site.

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just another blog

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I write this blog mostly for myself, though it’s great to have people join in and create conversations.

“But there’s also a part of writing, of online writing particularly, blogging, that’s all the humble without the security, that’s full of risk, that’s vulnerable even if what you’re saying isn’t necessarily personal or deeply meaningful or anything you or anyone else even really cares about. This thing we do, blogging, is crazy. Really. What a trip, what a concept, what an experience. It’s a place where the public share is instant and your little words can tromp their way across the world before you have time to regret it.”—Annie Mueller

I highly recommend reading all of Annie’s blog post — it’s just a blog (thanks to Euan Semple and Chris Corrigan for highlighting Annie’s work)

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careening toward a meaningless world

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As we get inundated with new knowledge and information regurgitated by large language models and generative pre-trained transformers — time for meaning-making becomes critical.

Meaning-making is the process by which we interpret situations or events in the light of our previous knowledge and experience. It is a matter of identity: it is who we understand ourselves to be in relation to the world around us.” —Dave Gurteen

Are we swimming in a world of meaninglessness?

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worldwide synesthesia

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Marshall McLuhan has influenced much of my work and I have used the tetrad from the Laws of Media many times to understand emerging technologies. A recent article in The Free Press by Benjamin Carlson was a refreshing read by someone who had just discovered McLuhan. I started reading McLuhan’s work in 1995.

I first stumbled upon Marshall McLuhan a year ago on YouTube. Within a minute or two of watching a clip, I was amazed: here was a man who, in 1977, seemed to be describing the dislocating experience of living in 2023, and he did so with more insight than people living today. That the words were coming from a craggy, mustachioed man in a rumpled suit only enhanced the eerie feeling. Here was a professor-as-prophet. McLuhan says, in part, to his TV host … I shared the clip on Twitter and it went viral with more than 6 million views —The Prophets 2024-03-02

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blogging is enough

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This blog turned 20 last month — dead blog walking. One of the big challenges that the growth of AI [GPT, LLM, etc.] presents us is connecting with people — not machines — for our sensemaking. A personal blog is a human way to connect. There is no algorithm to filter what others read. They can subscribe, on their terms, and with their chosen technology thanks to real simple syndication (RSS). The great thing about blogging is that there are few rules. You can write as you like, when you like, and as often as you like.

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skill erosion

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If you don’t use it, you will lose it. Automate what was once a skill-developed process and those skills will decline.

“Cognitive automation powered by advanced intelligent technologies is increasingly enabling organizations to automate more of their knowledge work tasks. Although this often offers higher efficiency and lower costs, cognitive automation exacerbates the erosion of human skill and expertise in automated tasks. Accepting the erosion of obsolete skills is necessary to reap the benefits of technology—however, the erosion of essential human expertise is problematic if workers remain accountable for tasks for which they lack sufficient understanding, rendering them incapable of responding if the automation fails.” —The Vicious Circles of Skill Erosion (2023)

One key factor in understanding how we learn and develop skills is that experience cannot be automated. Increasing automation requires that the Learning and Development (L&D) field must get out of the comfort zone of course development and into the most complex aspects of human learning and performance. To understand learning at work, L&D must understand the work systems. Now they also have to understand skill erosion.

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commuting waste

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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.

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” —André Gide (1869-1951)

“You steal from one person and you’re a thief. You steal from everyone and you’re an AI company.” —Aral Balkan

“I’m going to exaggerate slightly, but it seems like one of the first applications of any new technology is making things even shittier for artists.” —Neal Stephenson, on generative AI

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dead blog walking at 20

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Twenty years ago I started writing this blog. Over 3,600 posts later, it’s still my main tool for making sense of my work and the world.

Only a few months after I started blogging, I heard Tod Maffin, a Canadian digital journalist, on CBC radio state that blogging was dead — already! But I saw my blog as a tool for work, and not necessarily a way to make money, so I marched on — dead blog walking.

What has my blog been good for?

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