Comments on: Knowledge Decay

By: Daniel Brown

Daniel Brown — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:43:51 +0000

Yes, Rao, thanks for your comment. I like the fact that you said that “sometimes it could be a good thing”. You are right! Very poignant! Sometimes, it’s better for us to just forget the knowledge of the past, especially when it keeps us from innovating and acquiring new knowledge.

By: Rao Kasibhotla

Rao Kasibhotla — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:11:46 +0000

This makes perfect sense; thanks for an excellent post. isn’t this knowledge decay a common occurrence in human history? Just ask modern day Egyptians or Indians descendants of ancient civilizations who doesn’t know anything about languages and culture of their ancestors. You can see this happen in companies as people leave and new people get hired.

Some times it could be a good thing. How much of that ‘this is how we have always done’ do you really want? Speaking of which, I think knowledge decay is more like knowledge atrophy and you are arguing for regeneration and I like it.

By: Joe Little

Joe Little — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:40:48 +0000

To Shannon’s point. I think this best “utopian goal” is to get the most from the tacit knowledge (and explicit knowledge) that we have. Sometimes that means converting tacit to explicit (Takeuchi and Nonaka discuss this), sometimes just using the tacit. …My 2 cents.

By: Joe Little

Joe Little — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:38:49 +0000

Good post!

So, the solution is easy, yet hard: Just-in-time knowledge creation. Especially where knowledge will decay quickly.
For more see Wikipedia, Takeuchi & Nonaka articles (by one or both), or even my blog.

By: Daniel Brown

Daniel Brown — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 02:53:11 +0000

Wow, Shannon, that’s a very sexy thought: “Is the Utopian goal of any process to lower the amount of tacit knowledge by removing ‘oh yeah’ from the knowledge gathering process?”. I will have to ponder that paradigm. I may have to respond to your question as another blog post once I’ve spent a couple hours reflecting and meditating. Dynamite thought! Thanks man!

By: Shannon "The Sensai" Turner

Shannon "The Sensai" Turner — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:15:32 +0000

Daniel. What if someone says “How do you test process x?” Would the tacit knowledge of testing process x be if the tester just knows that when an error happens it’s fine because of learned knowledge due to the time spent testing x. Is the Utopian goal of any process to lower the amount of tacit knowledge by removing “oh yeah” from the knowledge gathering process.