Comments on: Four Pillars: The Power of Context http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/01/26/four-pillars-the-power-of-context/ a blog about information Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:47:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: How easily can you be fooled? « The thing about useful stuff is http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/01/26/four-pillars-the-power-of-context/comment-page-1/#comment-301274 How easily can you be fooled? « The thing about useful stuff is Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:13:44 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/01/26/four-pillars-the-power-of-context/#comment-301274 [...] easily can you be fooled? A post by Confused of Calculta points us to an excellent set of visual illusions, which are frankly astounding. JP & I share a [...] [...] easily can you be fooled? A post by Confused of Calculta points us to an excellent set of visual illusions, which are frankly astounding. JP & I share a [...]

]]> By: Paul Downey http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/01/26/four-pillars-the-power-of-context/comment-page-1/#comment-90735 Paul Downey Sat, 27 Jan 2007 13:59:05 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/01/26/four-pillars-the-power-of-context/#comment-90735 Great illusion (both the image and the text. One of my fave blogs is "Mighty Illusions": http://www.moillusions.com. The ways our perception fails us can be quite disturbing. Context is almost everything, provenance of a message is often as interesting as the content and the medium itself can be the message, but loss of ownership and the origin of content can reap unexpected rewards. Ideas floated independently of the originator are most likely to receive the fairest of hearings. An image I hold in my head when people articulate a need for DRM and region codes is that of unemployed piano players smashing pianola machines. We all have to learn to let go more often and success is based upon being able to adapt when a business model breaks. Great illusion (both the image and the text. One of my fave blogs is “Mighty Illusions”: http://www.moillusions.com. The ways our perception fails us can be quite disturbing.

Context is almost everything, provenance of a message is often as interesting as the content and the medium itself can be the message, but loss of ownership and the origin of content can reap unexpected rewards. Ideas floated independently of the originator are most likely to receive the fairest of hearings.

An image I hold in my head when people articulate a need for DRM and region codes is that of unemployed piano players smashing pianola machines. We all have to learn to let go more often and success is based upon being able to adapt when a business model breaks.

]]> By: Stephen Smoliar http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/01/26/four-pillars-the-power-of-context/comment-page-1/#comment-90008 Stephen Smoliar Fri, 26 Jan 2007 19:17:42 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/01/26/four-pillars-the-power-of-context/#comment-90008 Back when I was "in at the creation" of FXPAL in 1995 and we were also focussed on the "office of the future," "context" was on everyone's lips, usually embedded in the mantra, "Context is everything!" Unfortunately, most of the people who invoked the mantra felt that its invocation relieved them of the burden of semantics, a phenomenon we would see a few years later associated with the word "knowledge." Socrates (by way of Plato) is still the only one who got it right about knowledge (in "Theaetetus"): However badly we may fail in our efforts to define the concept of knowledge, we are still the better for what we learn from our failures. I wish I could say the same about context! JP, do you remember the last time we were here? At that time you were not invoking context; and your mantra was, "The script is central!" http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/11/05/on-filmmaking-and-software-development-part-2/ My response was to assert that this mantra only had teeth to it if is was supported by dramatistic thinking. I then developed an example of applying such dramatistic thinking to introducing technology in a workplace setting: http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/11/05/on-filmmaking-and-software-development-part-2/#comment-17541 I think the problem is that IT conditions us to reduce everything to bits, but context is ultimately more about BEHAVIOR than about bits. Indeed, dramatistic analysis informs us of those subtleties of behavior that elude being "captured by bits" (and rendered "sharable"). Put another way, it is more important to grasp how context shapes our ACTIONS than to agonize over how it can be rendered as a RESOURCE. Speaking of action, by the way, I see that, in your "OTHER PEOPLE I READ" list, my name is still linked to my old Yahoo! site (and, according to just about anyone who contacts me, the URL no longer works). I put the new (Blogspot) URL in the form for this comment. Whatever may be automated about the management of your blog, you may have to TAKE ACTION to update the (now useless) hyperlink hanging on my name! Back when I was “in at the creation” of FXPAL in 1995 and we were also focussed on the “office of the future,” “context” was on everyone’s lips, usually embedded in the mantra, “Context is everything!” Unfortunately, most of the people who invoked the mantra felt that its invocation relieved them of the burden of semantics, a phenomenon we would see a few years later associated with the word “knowledge.” Socrates (by way of Plato) is still the only one who got it right about knowledge (in “Theaetetus”): However badly we may fail in our efforts to define the concept of knowledge, we are still the better for what we learn from our failures. I wish I could say the same about context!

JP, do you remember the last time we were here? At that time you were not invoking context; and your mantra was, “The script is central!”

http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/11/05/on-filmmaking-and-software-development-part-2/

My response was to assert that this mantra only had teeth to it if is was supported by dramatistic thinking. I then developed an example of applying such dramatistic thinking to introducing technology in a workplace setting:

http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/11/05/on-filmmaking-and-software-development-part-2/#comment-17541

I think the problem is that IT conditions us to reduce everything to bits, but context is ultimately more about BEHAVIOR than about bits. Indeed, dramatistic analysis informs us of those subtleties of behavior that elude being “captured by bits” (and rendered “sharable”). Put another way, it is more important to grasp how context shapes our ACTIONS than to agonize over how it can be rendered as a RESOURCE.

Speaking of action, by the way, I see that, in your “OTHER PEOPLE I READ” list, my name is still linked to my old Yahoo! site (and, according to just about anyone who contacts me, the URL no longer works). I put the new (Blogspot) URL in the form for this comment. Whatever may be automated about the management of your blog, you may have to TAKE ACTION to update the (now useless) hyperlink hanging on my name!

]]> By: Dog Training » Blog Archive » Four Pillars: The Power of Context http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/01/26/four-pillars-the-power-of-context/comment-page-1/#comment-89886 Dog Training » Blog Archive » Four Pillars: The Power of Context Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:25:51 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/01/26/four-pillars-the-power-of-context/#comment-89886 [...] Read more, click confused of calcutta [...] [...] Read more, click confused of calcutta [...]

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