Sometimes you just have to write

February 27, 2010 at 5:14 pm · Filed under Boundaries, knowledge management, Learning, Social Technologies, Systems & Complexity and tagged: #KM, data warehouse, epistemologies, twitter

Yesterday, I read an article in the Economist that inspired this poem:

Twepistemologies
with apologies (and credit) to John Godfrey Saxe

There were six tweeps in Cyberspace
exploring a mistake.
“How could exec’s have gone so wrong
when so much was at stake?”
So in <140 characters
Each shared a different take.

The First (who wore a black belt)
said “defects had crept too high”
No doubt because of variants
allowed to go awry.
“So, tight controls could fix this up
(Through experts such as I).”

The Second, sketched connecting dots,
and said, “It’s very plain.
The data held the wisdom
but were siloed; such a shame.”
“A data warehouse architect
Could prevent this flaw again.”

The Third concurred but added that
“The data are one piece.”
“Economists have thought this out,
It’s story skills we need”
“We call them ‘Data Scientists’:
a sexy growing niche.”

“The IT’s just a symptom of
a mechanistic view.
They lost their innovative edge;
the workers were their glue.”
The Fourth concluded that execs
ignored what workers knew.

The Fifth (who had an OD blog)
proposed a four-pronged plan
“If we were there, we would have used
environmental scans.”
“Through PAR, effectiveness
continually expands.”

The Sixth, had followed all the tweets,
debating how to share
that complex wholes are more that parts,
where MBAs despair.
“You’re claiming truths in retrospect
for which you can’t prepare.”

And so these tweeps in Cyberspace
had shared their thoughts and fears,
from in their fields & disciplines
supported by their peers:
Their efforts to collaborate
constrained by their careers.

© Alice MacGillivray

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