Qwiki: the information experience and the problem of context

The company Qwiki had the opportunity to present at Techcrunch a new "information experience". A “Qwiki” is a short, interactive story: a drastically improved information experience provided via interactive video. Unlike traditional rich media content, all Qwikis are created on the fly from web sources (without any human intervention). 



An indeed an information experience, when trying out an actor (e.g. Megan Fox) or a geographic area (e.g. Milford Sound), and you receive a compilation of pictures, video material and a female voice reading text.
So I was imagining the proffesional application, when a company could make use of such a system towards all internal sources to bring the collective company knowledge to the customer on demand in realtime. That is one of our vision: When you walk into a meeting with the customer you bring the company (knowledge) with you.
But on second thought I have my doubts:
A tendency that I see with mixed feelings also in companies that I don't see creating value in all cases: the show and tell visualization, the preference is with video and visualization, not in conveying knowledge. A picture may well be worth 1000 words, but a word is not always worth 1000 pictures.
Furthermore there is the question what Qwiki is doing. As they claim they are not a search engine, so they combine (with which kind of algorithm is not clear) the various internet sources: wikipedia, flickar, youtube, etc. and they do it, as they proudly claim "without any human intervention".
Brianstormes states the following: "When it comes to comprehending information, the journey should not be the reward. The destination should be the reward. The destination is the "aha" moment. These Qwiki guys do not seem to have any understanding of the learning process. They're thinking flash cards. They are trying to make the journey -- a multimedia experience -- the reward and I worry about that. What is so desperately needed today and in the future are better skills at reading, comprehension, composition, analysis, and critical thinking. I worry that Qwiki is a giant step back from all that."In my language, yes, Qwiki is creating a new information experience, however as it cannot create the context, it adds to information overflow, instead of creating knowledge.
Imagine you search for BSC and get all the nice videos about the Balance Score Card and Base Station Center (I know, very simple example). The strength of wikipedia is the collective human brain source, not the information experience.

So I am interested, what killer applications I have overseen. Interested, in what you see in it.

regards
gerald

Confusion

Connectivism and connective Knowledge 2011:
When browsing trough comments in the first week, there is a lot about confusion. And I am no exception.
So I liked Mattias' post: Confusion - a catalyst for learning? Because it was leading the way to a positive attitude towards confusion.
However as I understood it, it was descriptive, so I was wondering whether confusion can be described in terms of a learning context.
Confusion means not being in control, not being in control means a pattern (situation) cannot identified / recognized in the patterns of existing connections (is not in our knowledge). So confusion is the statement that pattern recognition does not work for a certain pattern. In a learning process this is an essential statement, because only this kicks off the conclusion: for understanding a new / extended network is needed. Confusion fades away, when a new network is established, capable of sense making for the pattern in question. Fear is the conclusion of not being capable of creating a network that is adequate for sense making for the pattern in question.

regards
gerald  

A MOOC? Can you eat it? And how do you cook it?

Very recently I have enrolled for a MOOC on Connectivism and Connective Knowledge 2011, because I was attracted by the title (actually only by the connotation of "Connective Knowledge", since I had no idea what "Connectivism" is.
Only then I realized that I had no idea what a MOOC is. To make a long story short, only for learning about this concept, it was worth affording (it was for free by the way). MOOC means Massive Open Online Course.

Also very interesting is the relation of the MOOC towards knowledge:

Having understood now the format, I was nevertheless thrown into it, not very well prepared for it. Used to more traditional course formats, I was very quickly overwhelmed by frustration: How do you read through it all and keep up with everything?
Luckily I wasn't the only one (so I started to like the format, when I found Tracy Parish's post: How do you read through it all and keep up with everything?), so one learning was to skip old style learning expectations and to replace it by the Success in a MOOC:

Frustration is gone, I am very excited about the new format - now I am about to learn.

regards
gerald

Collective Confabulation

It started off harmlessly, when I was browsing trough a TV guide a week ago or so. I came across a thriller called "Memento", which was rated high and seemed interesting to me because the protagonist has a memory problem.
I seemed to have a similar problem, I forgot about the film and missed it.
Only this weekend I was wondering, how a person, unable to store new memories, is managing his knowledge. This is how the quest began.
The TV guide had passed away, so I was using today's information tactics (slightly envious on my sons, who grow up with the most easy access to information), and here we go: Memento (film).
Shit, reading the article, I was even more regretting, as I was left with the feeling that I missed a psychological thriller higly acclaimed for his artistic and innovative way of story telling and providing the most realistic picture of a brain disease: anterogade amnesia. Memento is presented as two different sequences of scenes, a series in black-and-white that are shown chronologically, and a series of color sequences shown in reverse order.The color sequences, shown in reverse order starting with the opening murder, are about Leonard’s investigation using his system of notes, Polaroid photos, and tatoos.
So that was the Knowledge Management system: notes and Polaroids (tatoos seem to be more interwoven into the plot than being a re-usable tactic)
Anterograde Amnesia is a loss of the ability to create new memories after the event that caused the amnesia, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long-term memories from before the event remain intact.
So far so good in the English version of Wikipedia. Hail diversity, reading the German version, another interesting aspect appeared (free Gerald translation):
As mainly the declarative memory (the memories of facts) is affected, while general knowledge and intelligence still work fine, it often yields to Confabulation, back to the English version:



Confabulation: In psychology, confabulation is the spontaneous narrative report of events that never happened. It consists of the creation of false memories, perceptions, or beliefs about the self or the environment - usually as a result of neurological or psychological dysfunction.^[1] When it is a matter of memory, confabulation is the confusion of imagination with memory, or the confused application of true memories.
So what is the essence: I want to see this movie; thank god, my brain seems okay this morning; and I am wondering whether there is something like "Collective Confabultion" happening in entreprises and companies after traumatic events on the collective brain like a huge re-organization / redundancy program.

regards
gerald

ps: I was googling for a nice picture to the topic (preferrably not a dead body in a flood of blood), so again via Confabulation I came across MozaicMama, a person recovering from brain injury also via art (very encouraging success story! The picture is called Confabulation2). So as certainly some of you have become rich, you might consider investing in arts.

The first post

The first post - as everybody else, I assume - happy to have made it so far.

The blog has been created to share thoughts about Knowledge Management, Collaboration, Social Media, Innovation and Learning.

At the same time it was created to participate in a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Connectivism and Connective Knowledge 2011.

regards
gerald

ps: everything else will follow later