Ben asks:
> How can "chunking" be done (a la John Holland) without consuming
> an inordinate amount of resources?
> How can the "chunks" be stored for later retrieval and re-examination?
I think they are best not stored as "chunks". It's the thinking of
"chunks" that don't match logically complete packages that is key. As you
say later, if these are stored as narratives (ie. "learning histories",
anthropological records, etc.) and available both whole (large chunk) and
via something like FolioViews hypertext (any size small chunks to be
determined later) then the ideal that I know is achieved.
Barring the latter high tech approach, the best is to have an index with
multiple sources of entry (ie. original participants, experts, interested
visitors, others with similar problems, cyberlibrarians,etc.) so that
those who come later can see patterns and what are considered key elements
*by other independent intelligences*.
Ben goes on to mention another important part of the "chunk" which is
context, circumstances, reasoning tried, etc. These are not to determine
what is appropriate so much as to bring more of the picture to combine
into new chunks with existing circumstances.
One of the problems of this approach is:
> The problem I face is that the ideas you're talking about are very
> "abstract" for the average manager who is more concerned with meeting
> performance objectives than he/she is about critically thinking about
> their business. I'd be very interested to hear how you overcome this
> obstacle in your work.
How this is overcome, in its simplest terms, is to make the knowledge
creation and increased organisational intelligence part of the
corporations definition of "performance objectives" and to build in the
same kind of feedback, rewards, etc. for these results as for the more
usual kind.
If getting ahead as a function of "critical thinking", then managers would
be more likely to learn it and do it.
--Michael McMaster : Michael@kbdworld.com web:http://www.vision-nest.com/BTBookCafe/TIA/TIAmap.html "I don't give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity but I'd die for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>