[Xmca-l] Re: Not too long and not too short

[rjsp2]

As a long time lurker and learner, my first reaction was if it ain't
broke, don't fix it. My second reaction, after a night's sleep, was that
my first reaction had something going for it.

I've been following this list for several years now, always feeling both
too ignorant and too pressed to contribute more than very occasionally.
It is by a distance the most consistently academic and intensely
illuminating forum I have ever been present in, and my thanks are due to
many of you here for enriching my life and my academic endeavours.

In Andy's terms, this has always struck me as a conversation. After
dinner, if you will, but a conversation which follows its own twisty,
windy path and always ends up somewhere unpredictable but valuable.
That, I think, is the reason for its continuing quality; the
conversation is not corralled at all.

I haven't counted posts, but it does seem of late that the list has been
much more busy. It has always impressed me how people have the time, and
the quality of thinking, to write so many clear, well focussed, well
argued and detailed messages here, and perhaps the growing pace is
making some feel that it is all a bit too much. I suspect that if we
leave it alone, the pace will slow down again, perhaps after a natural
break for Christmas festivities.

When I am not marking or trying to teach my students how to think, I
occasionally dabble in knowledge management for a company that works in
a number of different countries. One of the great lessons of knowledge
management, and one unfortunately not learned by many with knowledge
management in their job description, is that you can't manage knowledge.
There is a lot that you can do with it. You can codify and transmit
quite a lot, but ultimately, the most valuable knowledge refuses to be
pinned down, and those who try simply destroy what they seek to contain.
Perhaps it is important to let these conversations continue to be just
conversations.

(And finally, can I just briefly say I disagree with your
characterisation of "real space" versus "cyberspace", Andy. Cyberspace
is just as real as physical space.)

Rob, just off out to buy sprouts (I particularly like the Newsthump
headline from 2011 "Sales of ‘any old shit’ expected to treble as men
start Christmas shopping")

On 23/12/2014 01:24, Andy Blunden wrote:
> I would be interested to know what real-space activity people would
> take xmca to be "modelling" in cyberspace?
> Are we participating in
>
>    a kind of scientific symposium or maybe a conference?
>    or an after dinner conversation? (or maybe a staffroom conversation)?
>    a formal decision making meeting, where we address the Chair, make
>    amendments, etc.?
>    a Occupy-type general meeting?
>
> Or is "none of the above" the only answer?
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>
>
> Annalisa Aguilar wrote:
>> Apparently we need a Goldilocks section in the Newcomer's page!
>>
>> :)
>>
>>
>

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