Posted by Michael Kran on June 16, 1997 at 22:29:06:

In Reply to: Deep Blue vs. Kasparov: Lessons for Knowledge Management posted by Yogesh Malhotra on June 14, 1997 at 16:52:25:

I'm side stepping your question for just moment to bring up a different slant on Deep Blue vs. Kasparov.

Surely chess has its origins as a game. I haven't checked a recent authoritative history of the game, but last I read (some 25 years ago), it was a game played by Persian kings both as a distraction and to sharpen their military thinking.

While just a game, anthropologist (of which I am not one, I'm a historian by training and an accountant by profession)serves to socialize and educate member of society. Chess too probably served a role as part-entertainment, part-education.

My point is that "Deep Blue vs. Kasporov" focused on the game, not the social context. If chess is a battle, then the machine may have won this battle but we still and still have a war to fight.

If we see "chess as metaphor", then "Deep Blue" works within the metaphor, within the logic and interworkings of chess qua game. But it hasn't touched the social context within which chess is embedded.

The fact that Deep Blue used the brute force, or "brawn power" of technology, rather than the "brain power" of technology shows that even when using technology we have a ways to go in our understanding. We can reproduce the result, but not the process.

Creativity, leadership, and cooperation between colleagues are still much needed in daily business life. This will be the case even with the best systems currently envisioned by knowledge management today.

[None of this is intended to take away from the historic event and the efforts that went into making it possible. To many, including myself, I have my work and chess is a just a game. For others, such as professional chess players, chess is work. I guess its a sign of increasing specialization that something that starts out as a game a few thousand years ago, ends up as a profession and a business in its own right.]

If in the process of learning and playing chess, it teaches us something about thinking deeply and not making snap judgments, then most KM systems could also use some rethinking. Most are not thought of intelligent tutors raising the capacity for clarity of thinking and cognitive abilities of the company employees. Yet, just that, not information, or even process, is increasing important.

Fortunately, there is work that does look at the social and cognitive roles of knowledge management systems. One that stand out the the work done at the Institute for Learning> I have only had time to read some of the members work, but for me taken as a group, IRL has come closest to my vision of how people operate in real organizations and how they need to be supported in the future. I'll cite the work of William J. Clancey, since I have read it most recently. But the strength of IRL, for me, it that it represents a dynamic, but re-inforcing, community of practice.

It includes (in no particular order): Etienne Wenger, Penelope Eckert, Brigitte Jordan, and Melissa Cefkin. And many others, whose work I have not yet had time to read.

All the papers seem valuable. If I were to pick a group of interest, partly because I read them most recently it would be a group by Willaim J. Clancey:

Work Systems Design
Brahms: Simulating practice for work systems design
Knowledge, practice, activities, and people (with Maarten Sierhuis)
Developing instructional technology in practice
Practice cannot be reduced to theory: Knowledge, representations, and change in the workplace
Guidon-Manage revisited: A socio-technical systems approach
Formal modeling for work systems design

• William J. Clancey

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Follow Ups:

• Knowledge Creation: "Game" or "Work": On Motivation and Commitment Yogesh Malhotra 02:03:03 6/17/97 (17)
  • Question Edgars Ivbulis 13:46:34 11/16/98 (0)
  • Re: Knowledge Creation: "Game" or "Work": On Motivation and Commitment Michael Kran 13:37:03 6/23/97 (15)
    • Re: Knowledge Creation: "Game" or "Work": On Motivation and Commitment Neil 19:29:15 6/02/98 (0)
    • Integrated Theory of Motivation kimberly 11:58:15 10/12/97 (13)
      • Re: Integrated Theory of Motivation Tania Claudia 03:42:10 3/23/98 (3)
        • Re: Integrated Theory of Motivation frances Huang 20:29:49 10/06/98 (1)
          • Re: Integrated Theory of Motivation Editor 12:10:23 10/12/98 (0)
        • Re: Integrated Theory of Motivation frances Huang 20:29:44 10/06/98 (0)
      • Re: Integrated Theory of Motivation Deb 17:42:17 3/19/98 (6)
        • Re: Integrated Theory of Motivation Susanne Rix 01:19:31 12/11/98 (0)
        • Re: Motivation Theory Joseph Denson 22:54:46 5/02/98 (3)
          • Re: Motivation Theory Kate Henry 13:22:17 11/02/98 (1)
            • Re: Motivation Theory kate henry 13:42:55 11/02/98 (0)
          • Re: Motivation Theory Neil 03:14:16 6/04/98 (0)
        • Re: Integrated Theory of Motivation Deb 17:43:56 3/19/98 (0)
      • Re: Integrated Theory of Motivation ruth winter 09:38:03 10/27/97 (1)
        • Re: Integrated Theory of Motivation w 07:53:56 12/02/97 (0)

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