Codification and Organics Knowledge - Essay Example

Codification The term codification covers significant latitude and thus numerous attempts at definitions have been made based on how different individual understand it in in their diverse immediate contexts. One of the most popular definitions was posited by Thomas Davenport, who suggested that codification is the act of converting knowledge in a format that is easily accessible to those in need of it by rendering it as compressively, formally and explicitly as it possible (Davenport 1994, p.121). In the 21st century in which a majority of the human activities are driven and supported by information technology, the internet is arguably one of the most successful avenues through which this dissemination and proliferation of knowledge has been facilitated. Through engines such as Google and Bing, knowledge has been catalogued in such a way that one only needs to look up a search term and they will instantly navigate through a labyrinth of information to locate what they seek or the closest their search engine can get to it. Using; laptops, tablet and smart phones, many of today’s generation more so the youth literary have a virtually infinite and ever expanding supply of knowledge at their fingertips. Nonetheless, this begs the question; does access to knowledge mean that humanity is becoming more intelligent and knowledgeable or does it simply mean we have better access? I carried out some informal research on this, and the answers were rather interesting. Among my friends for instance, whenever there was an argument or someone was searching for some information, it is common practice to whip out smartphones and “Google” the issue and in most cases the answers would be available within seconds. As a result these days is has become it is easier to settle arguments with the internet actin as a sort of arbitrator , as a result it is common for people to refer to their gadgets in an argument to prove their argument or prove the opponents wrong. However, while I have to concede that the internet was often invaluable in providing my friends the information they need; I have come to realize that instant information does not always amount to one being necessarily more knowledgeable or smarter. It occasioned the emergence of a culture of result oriented enquiry in which people are more concerned with getting results and rarely question the methods through which these were arrived at. This puts to question the supposition that having constant and immediate interaction makes us understand it better; this paper discusses the results oriented culture and the possible ramification it portends for our education and knowledge system. Google provides answers to nearly every query directed at it in nanoseconds, it provides quick, and diverse knowledge with minimum investment in the part of the user. It is the quintessence of information sharing and for most people it is the main source of social and academic material. This is sharply juxtaposed with traditional methods of research and study, to elucidate on this, consider a student researching on feminist literature in 1995 and another one later in 2014. The former’s information would be limited to the books in their school library and in most case their research will commence with a hypothesis which is applied with little or comparative study or even full understanding, the student would likely spend a lot of time in pursuit or literature from different physical sources and consulting their teachers and other resource people since in comparison to today there was very little to go on. The 2014 student on the other hand will simply key in the search terms for their paper and instantly have access to thousands of online sources from all over the world, they will also see numerous similar studies on the same subject and before they commence their work, they will have a fairly good idea of what is expected of them. While the later may spend a whole week investigating the subject matter, the modern learner will have all the information they need in minutes and all they have to do is sort between what is relevant and what is not. The corollary of is that the internet has severely delimited our capacity for active research and hypothesis formation by providing quick fix results. Through search engine optimization (SOE) techniques, Google will crunch the question posited and provide a solution that quickly summarize knowledge to in the perception of the user. Essentially one gets results before they have understood the methods through which this way acquire, this creates an illusion of their power over information and their perceived ability to manipulate it. However, when one considers the matter incisively and critically, they will realize that the internet is only blunting our research skills and to great extent creativity since we no longer have to exert our mental faculties to get information. When one knows that they will get answers, they lose the motivation for originality, in fact a critical reading of many project and term papers written todays will show evidence of picking data from different source, which are easily accessible as eBooks and online journals, and regurgitating the same to create an illusion of originality. In a society where results are more highly valued than the effort through which they were arrived at, our collective intelligence is being watered down by the fact that instead of seeking to create new knowledge people focus on recreating and rephrasing what is already in existence. The speed with which conspiracy theories and urban myths are spread online even when their basis are flimsy or even simply nonexistent is evidence of how little people concern themselves with the source or origin of the information they share and assume to be true. There are literary thousands of bogus statistics that people quote because they “read somewhere” and these range from plausible to bizarre. Men for example are often accused of thinking too much about sex and it has been repeatedly claimed and believed that men think about sex every seven seconds. It common to here someone backing up an accusation with this statistics and claiming it is scientific, however this claim apart from being incredibly sexist and improbably is impossible to verify on any even the flimsiest scientific merit. Because of the fixation with results, at the expense of methodology or even authenticity, humans increasingly immerse themselves less in the leaning process through which they may create knowledge and prefer to develop their skills in looking for and synthesizing knowledge instead. It can be argued that humanity is gradually “fasting” the process of knowledge creation and innovation, in a result driven system in which the end justify the means. As a result, students for example will end up copying their exams and papers form the internet since it only takes a few alterations in a pre-written paper to create a “brand” new one. This is partly motivated by the fact that the education system rewards those who produce the best results with no regard to how achieve them. Many of college students for instance will cut classes for most of the semester and only spend the last nights before the exam cramming in coffer induced stupors. Since the system is so deeply steeped in results, they often end up performing just as well or even better than those that had diligently applied themselves to their studies. Those who manage to cheat the system thus will never find value in hard work and they apply the same methods after school always cutting corners and focusing on the end result instead of the process involved. This trend has resulted in many people failing to understand the underlying principles behind the knowledge they apply and purport to know. In a result oriented world, knowledge is only as valuable as its ability to solve the immediate problem and as long as we can get a task done, most of people will rarely care about the “hidden process” underlying the knowledge. The following analogy puts in to context the laissez faire attitude with which many people approach the acquisition and application of knowledge. “If I can get a computer in any store just 5 minutes walk away from my house and learn how to use it in one hour. Why should I brother how this computer is made and why to spend 4 years degree on computer science? It certainly gives me the same result after all”. This exemplifies the consequences of result oriented thinking. The differences between results and working process seem to be shrieked into a center limitation. The result of the process had been over exaggerated and the process of creating its own has neglected. As a result oriented, society we care less about the process and are reluctant to acquire knowledge for its own sake in speculation of abstract contexts in which we could use it in posterity. The result oriented human mindsets causes us to predominantly focus on the results we expect or want, weather as private individuals or professionals, humans should learn how to deal with uncertainties since life is often unpredictable. However through our application of result oriented techniques in the social intellectual, political and economic arenas, we manage to limit risk and reduce the incidence of uncertainty. Ergo we lose our skill to handle them should they arise, given that reducing the incidence of uncertainty is not the same as eliminating them altogether. This makes us venerable to situation in which we are required to be original and deal with new problems, todays result fixated generation will therefore have a harder time adapting to risky situation or surviving in a stressfully environment since the are used of the familiar. Todays, management techniques are another reflection of the obsession with results at the expense of techniques and hard work. Sometimes organizations apply solutions to problems without understanding how they work only thinking about the results they are expected to bring about. These solutions often prove costly since they can spawn further problems and unprecedented complications, when a management strategy fails to work, it becomes difficult or even impossible to understanding what went wrong sine they solution was “copy pasted” on the problem with no regard to the its inherent constituents. In a similar scenario, if the solution had been developed from the ground up, contingencies can involve its deconstruction of the solution which would be comparatively easier since it would be done by people who understand it. Conclusion Retrospectively humanity used knowledge to create solutions to their problems, however because of too much emphasis on solutions, they have come to transcend knowledge process and the methodologies are dispensed with as we focus on exclusively on results. At the end of the day, how many people can confidently study for an exam or carry out market research without using the internet? The number of people who can honesty answer in the affirmative I fear is very small. This takes us back to the original line of inquiry, as the supply and access to knowledge really made use smarter or just created an illusion? From the factors examine herein, while one cannot for a fact claim we are wiser or dumber, it is unequivocal that we have become too reliant on quick fix solutions which have significantly reduced our capacity for independent thinking and creativity. We no longer have the confidence to start projects from our own hypothesis and we must first counter check what our predecessors have done so as to “get a feel” of the problems. Inspire of the fact that this may make us appear more productive, it bellies the fact that we are dependent on external resources, the upside of this is that there is a virtual connection or “organics knowledge”. This is facilitated by technology since we can easily access the ideas of others, however inasmuch as we are becoming more collectively knowledgeable; the individual is considerably intellectually debilitated in isolation. Reference Davenport, T, H.1994. Saving ITs Soul: Human Centered Information Management .Harvard Business Review 72 (2): 119–131. 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