Complex Knowing

A few miscellaneous items from the past couple of weeks that highlight the limits to and evolution of analytical approaches to decision making and decision support:

• "When Knowledge Management Hurts" - This short article by London Business School professor Freek Vermeulen discusses a study asserting that incorporating formal knowledge into decision making can actually result in worse decisions. I don't have time to discuss the actual study (link in article), but it's worth looking at if you are a KM practitioner.
• Unintended consequences are inevitable when services are made mashable. This slashdot posting discusses Google having to shut down free SMS message after a popular iPhone app overwhelmed Google's servers.
• "The Rise of The Social Network System" - a short article on social hyperconnectivity...it's about linking contexts. I'm always slightly surprised by articles like this in light of how much science fiction has explored this area in the past few years. Also, Tim O'Reilly's discussion of the article.
• Lots has been written recently about the decline of newsprint. Clay Shirky has a nice overview of the rise and decline of this particular asynchronous hardcopy Few-to-Many media channel. It's nice to see some historical perspective in something as ephemeral as a blog post.
• Finally, Deloitte has posted a study of mining safety in South Africa that was done using Cynefin. If you've found this framework a bit abstract, this study might help you better understand one way it can be used.