The Web 2.0 emphasis on social software, interactive technology, and architecture of participation is all well and good, but I wonder sometimes whether the means distracts us from the end, communication. At Designing for Civil Society, David Wilcox blogs that the best technology for "knowledge management" is talking to each other, sharing our stories interactively, online or face to face. Wilcox notes that David Gurteen "made a strong case for this most basic form of human communication being fundamental to any shared understanding and involvement - whether social or professional," and he links to Gurteen's post about "Knowledge Management and Real Conversation":
To my mind, one way to help reduce the above barriers is to start to engage in conversation - real conversation - to learn it, practice it and encourage it. We must start to seriously consider the fundamental problem that we are not good at talking with each other.
First, we do not listen to each other.
Second, we do not say what we think. We do not tell the truth we do not explain how and why we perceive the world differently.
If we want to improve our knowledge and make it productive there is only one thing that we need to learn to do. That is to improve our understanding - to become more aware. Much will follow from this.
This is the kind of fundamental thinking that it's too easy to lose site of, especially when we're building business cases for new approaches and looking for ways to differentiate from what others are doing or what's gone before. If we don't learn the basics of the art of conversation, all the social software in the world won't make us more effective.
