William Welsh wrote:
> >Excellent point! Recently I've been thinking about concepts. It takes a
> >lot of words to describe a concept. If we could represent concepts as some
> >type of object -- pictoral ? -- that can be combined or manipulated to
> >describe a much bigger picture that would be great!
>
> >Math is symbolic of much deeper things; systems archetypes allow us to
> >pictorally describe cause and affect over time and space; how could we
> >better represent concepts?
>
> >Could we increase the rate at which we learned if we could find a
> >different way to deal with concepts?
>
> Ben,
>
> I'd hate to spin us off into another of our recent semantical whirlwinds,
> but I thought concepts were representations. As such, I use them in my
> work (scenario development in complex wargaming) AS objects that can be
> combined or manipulated to describe a MUCH bigger picture. I can answer
> emphatically that the rate of learning does increase through this use of
> concepts. In many instances, the whole of what we are trying to create,
> in my case, a conceptual "battlespace," can only ever be inferred. The
> tools we have developed, based on affinity diagrams, allow subject matter
> experts to manipulate volumes of activity in relation to other large scale
> "core" activities simply through concepts. This, in turn, allows the rest
> of us involved in exercise design to understand the necessary
> interrelationships being represented and provide the appropriate level of
> synthetic (simulation/scripting) activity that saves us from having to
> actually place large forces in the field in order to train effectively.
My response came in haste. Life has been rushing by, and I've had limited
time to read and respond to my e-mail. I apologize. I don't think my
message was very clear, so I'd like to clarify.
In designing messaging systems we (at Novell) developed a symbolic
language that consisted of geometric shapes (circles, triangles,
rectangles, and so forth) with each shape representing a different
component of the messaging system. Each component has very specific
responsibilities, and interfaces with every other component (with some
components never directly interfacing) through various mechanisms.
In teaching others to design a GroupWise messaging system, I would begin
by introducing the symbol and the basic concepts it represented. Each
subsequent course, I'd "drill down in complexity" revealing exactly what
that component was doing and how it interfaced -- or did not interface --
with the other components. By the end of the training, I could have an
extremely intelligent and logical conversation with the participants by
using the symbols as a language.
As engineers we solve complex problems by depicting the problem with these
symbols. I might say to a colleague, "have you ever thought about . . ."
and then draw the picture; he might say in return, "no, that's
interesting; I wonder about. . ." and then rearrange the picture. We each
understand what the other has said, but we've used very few words. The
conversation is saturated with implicit meanings. Of course, at some point
the symbolic representation of the messaging system had to be translated
into a traditional design and implementation plan, but that required very
little time as the design was already complete and all pertinent factors
had been considered and resolved.
In a very real way, those precious little symbols simplified -- if not
enhanced -- the way we communicated about very complex systems. They were
also used as teaching tools. They became (and still are) a "learning
language" that every engineer in my department speaks (or uses) fluently.
Perhaps such a "learning language" could be created and used in discussing
any complex system (including, but not limited to, organizations).
-- Ben Compton The Accidental Learning Group Work: (801) 222-6178 Improving Business through Science and Art bcompton@geocities.com http://www.e-ad.com/ben/BEN.HTMLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>