A *Formula* for Intellectual Infrastructure

It is amazing how you see links to what you truly believe in and are passionate about in just about everything - which at first seems unrelated - you come across. I took a break from work last week during which I caught up with a book called "Small is Beautiful" by EF Schumacher. I was thrilled to find some material for this blog therein and more importantly food for thought.

Schumacher's book was written in the early 1970s and focuses on the importance of preserving the environment through appropriate economic policies and actions. He questions the then economic policies and wonders if our obsession with economic growth at the cost of the environment and people's real needs (employment, manageable growth rate, development of rural areas) will leave us in dire straits. How true. Today, more than 3 decades later, one of the most critical issues for all governments and human beings on earth is the depletion of natural resources, global warming and unabated industrial growth that comes at severe intangible costs.

In one of the chapters, Schumacher talks about the need for an "intellectual infrastructure" strategy in order to help developing countries. And it has an uncanny resemblance to a typical knowledge management strategy, in my opinion. 

Schumacher's intellectual infrastructure plan reads as follows: (Rephrased Extracts)

1. Communication - To enable workers to know what other workers are doing and to facilitate direct exchange of information

2. Information Brokerage - To assemble and distribute relevant information. The essence being not to hold all the information in one centre but to hold information on information or know-how on know-how

3. Feed-back - Transmission of problems from the field to the groups where the solutions exist

4. Sub-structures - Creation and co-ordination of action groups and teams for assistance (champions) within the field - that is, within the target audience themselves

It takes me back to my reflection that KM strategies need the three Tipping Point Cs - Communication, Champions and Context.

What do you think? Does your KM strategy follow these principles and ideas?

Preserving India's Knowledge

Almost three years ago, I posted about my discovery of the Bangalore-based FRLHT – Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions - and remember vividly that I was quite excited about it at that time. Now, three years of evolution or rotting (depending on the way you look at it ;-)) later, I followed the Twitter profile of a person (Mani) who happened to retweet one of my tweets (this is a distraction, nevertheless, in case you are curious what my retweeted tweet was about and are lazy to click on the link, let me tell you. It was about a KM product company – Trampoline Systems, if you want the name as well - that is adopting a crowdfunding approach to finance its future) and found something there that rang a huge bell in my mind and brought back memories of my spotting the FRLHT office bus. When I glanced through Mani’s recent Twitter updates, I was lucky enough to spot one of his tweets about the existence of an organization called CIKS - Centre of Indian Knowledge Systems! One look at the organization’s home page and I was mighty impressed by their projects, vision and achievements. Not surprisingly, as I glanced through the Trustees page, I realized that the key person behind FRLHT is one of the members of CIKS as well. That bell in my mind was spot on! Ding Dong! :-)

CIKS seems to focus on preserving India’s agricultural knowledge amongst other things and speaks of some inspiring and admirable project areas to help India’s rural population through well-designed programs. Most of the projects revolve around organic farming methods but I guess the scope and potential for expanding this concept is immense! Not many weeks ago, I was having a conversation with two of my friends about the possibility of using KM in non-profit ventures and for social benefits and we’d touched upon areas like Education, Agriculture, Health-Care and Infrastructure. CIKS is a brilliant example of what can be done in the agricultural arena. More so because of the rich agricultural history that India has. Even though the focus at present seems to be only on preserving conventional agricultural knowledge, it would be quite easy to extend it to facilitate sharing of knowledge across farmers, providing them with the platforms and practices to network, collaborate and innovate! If proven to be a success here, I can’t think of any reason why it can’t be replicated in the Education and Health-Care sectors as well. Speaking of Education, I am reminded of India’s traditional and inspiring Gurukul system.

There is an urge to come back and look into this at length and expand on the ideas…..but what do you think?

|| and > (Pause and Play)

From here

Leonardo da Vinci spent countless hours ruminating upon things of the spirit as he worked on his famous canvas of the Last Supper. He spent so much time meditating in the cloister that some of the monks in the community became concerned. They remonstrated with the artist about his wasting precious time and money. "Why do you spend so much time with us in prayer when you have come here to work?" they wondered.

Leonardo answered, "When I pause the longest, I make the most telling strokes with my brush."

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Hmm. In today's world, such pauses are considered to be nothing less than a crime. Especially in the corporate world. Ironically, lack of such pauses is what causes permanent gaps in the long run. Permanent gaps that smack of chaos caused by people who did not initially want to stop for a while.

Something tells me that most people will gradually and ultimately slow down when they need to and go in search of a life and work that allows them to take in life the way it should ideally be. I know of some people who have held their own in such a blind, meaningless and merciless world. These are people who have, paradoxically, escaped herd mentality but tapped into the wisdom of a wiser 'world'. Hats off to these folks! They've found the guts, faith and conviction to take the less-trodden path and lead the way for the rest of us....toward a more serene and fulfilling future.

Being busy can be addictive (Like Calvin says, "Everybody is a slave to routine"). We need more and more people who can overcome this addiction and free the world from its clutches. People who can make it a better place to live in - for the current crowd and generations to come. We may not be able to save the world from its eventual fate but we can at least make the remaining parts of the journey more meaningful.

Spiritual thinking, as I know it, would advocate that we need to be calm and composed even when surrounded by such chaos, ambiguity and uncertainty. If one were to rule out the thought of running away from such a world, it leaves us with the next best (to my mind) option. Pausing, slowing down, taking breaks, experimenting, introspecting and being happy with a life that's 'different'. These may be the wisest ways to continue to be in the 'real' world and yet lead a more meaningful life. Such a style of living, I guess, will make us less desperate to change the world in one master stroke and have faith in its (and our own) evolving destiny.