Entertain or Empower?

Ok, maybe it's a false dichotomy, but I think it's at least a contrast worth mentioning.

Neil Postman's classic "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business" has been one of my favorite books since I read it in the late 80's. In it, he asserts that an image-centric age (TV, etc.) is inherently unable to engage in deep rational discourse.

He may overstate the case, but I think he has a point. His focus was political discourse and education, but the same observation has been applied to televangelists, popular scientists, and in this satirical video, to television news.

So, what does this have to do with enterprise KM? If you're trying to convey concepts of any complexity, you face a real challenge: how to convey the knowledge to an audience whose frames and micro-narratives lean toward entertainment. This is not just a challenge of a short attention span...it's also a challenge of a lack of practice in thinking about complicated cause-effect structures.

Sophisticated tools and visually sophisticated audiences often equals flashy pablum. I suppose that's ok for Madison Avenue, but I'm not sure how effective it is for in-depth education, especially where training budgets are tight.

We've all had talented teachers who had a knack for engaging, challenging, educating, and empowering students without wasting their time with superficial entertainment, so we know it's possible...but that's a topic for another post.

I generally don't like making a negative statement without pointing out some possible solutions, but in the interest of space, I'll limit this post to highlighting the challenge of corporate communication and education in a culture that is visually hyper-literate.