My wife has said I like to think about thinking. And, recently at a girl's get away during charades one of the hints was a person spending a lot of time thinking, and then typing. Thinking more, then typing. And, they guessed Dave Ohara. :-) So, outside of work even in social neighbor time, I have the reputation of thinking a lot and writing a lot.
One of the interesting problems I have been working on is what can change the data center industry. Information architectures is what I have been study lately.
Then yesterday, I saw a talk by John Leslie King Titled - Knowledge Infrastructure: Mechanism and Transformation in the Information. One of the slides that got my attention was this one.
The role of the Academy in a systematic collecting of information for a crowd-sourced knowledge.
A great point was the knowledge in a perspective of reason for existence, and how what's obvious leads to thinking what's hidden.
The other big concept John discussed was Epistemology.
Epistemology
i/ɨˌpɪstɨˈmɒlədʒi/ (from Greek ἐπιστήμη (epistēmē), meaning "knowledge, science", and λόγος (logos), meaning "study of") is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge.[1][2] It addresses the questions:
- What is knowledge?
- How is knowledge acquired?
- To what extent is it possible for a given subject or entity to be known?
Much of what John King presented is in this PDF. The last paragraph summarizes the opportunity.
Epistemic infrastructure grew up around selection processes evolved by curators, librarians, and archivists to filter knowledge according to professional norms and standards, subject and domain knowledge, and attentiveness to the needs of user communities. This kind of systematic collecting builds trust in knowledge resources. A knowledge economy built on digital information will likewise depend on clear indicators of quality, authoritativeness, and authenticity. The lessons from the building of epistemic infrastructure in the 19th and early 20th centuries are powerful guides in this evolution. The knowledge economy will undoubtedly need new tools as it grows, but it already has a great deal of capacity and capability in the traditions of museums, archives and libraries. Handled carefully, this traditional epistemic infrastructure will simultaneously build the value of knowledge in the society and decrease disparities between information “haves” and “have-nots” with respect to ability to acquire, evaluate, manipulate, and generate information. This infrastructure is modern society’s most vibrant and effective resource for dealing with extraordinarily challenging and conflicting demands. Those working at the forefront of the knowledge economy should recognize and strengthen it.