Year’s back I joined the Knowledgeboard – participated in the periphery of the community and learned a lot. From my early conversations there I remember Denham Grey - a truly expert in “Community of Practice’s”. I just came by his blog today and I think one of his latest posts about Knowledge Formation apply very much to our vibrant community as well – and of course it’s also relevant in general.
In his post he mention:
“Let’s start by looking at what we mean by ‘new knowledge’. For me this takes us beyond information sharing, (although this may result in new knowing for individuals) knowledge is produced when new worlds are brought forth, when we make sense of our environment, when claims are socially validated and meaning is negotiated & shared”
If ”new knowledge” is ”sense-making” I think he’s thought’s apply very much to the CPH127-community and should in every community of practice.
Some of the principles mentioned is:
- New knowledge
- Mining past experiences
- Making key distinctions
- Sharing ontologies
Is that what we do here at CPH127? Can we do it even better? How? Ideas?
Please read Denham’s full post – it’s worth a read. His blog is 
2 comments so far
But the question is - is knowledge sensemaking? Isn’t knowledge a lot of other things too? As far as I remember Socrates never succeded to sort out the question of what knowledge is although he tried.
CPH127 is a beutiful site full of interesting resources. The answer to all your questions is yes. I just wonder what it is that you really yearn to know?
Dear Hans Henrik
So, I’m finally back in space… ;o)
The issue you raise on the relationship between (new)knowledge and sense-making is to me very crucial for understanding what knowledge is actually about in the ‘knowledge society’ that is the current context for the lives of a growing number of people.
And Ulla, you ask whether knowledge isn’t a lot of other things but sense-making… Good question! And to point in some direction of an answer I think it is valuable to turn to the good old Aristotele and his three ‘intellectual deeds’: 1. Episteme, which is the scientific knowledge; universal, objective, out of context, based on analytical rationality. 2. Techne, which is the practical knowledge; pragmatic, context dependent and for purposes of production. And 3. Phronesis, that is defined in a broad sense as ethics, as the analysis of values and interests with an intention of praxis or action. This kind of knowledge is also pragmatic, dependent on context, and very much based on partly experience and partly coping with the yet not known.
In my point of view, the phronesis way of knowing is very equal to sense-making. It is the knowledge that has not yet sedimented into books and articles and big theories, the knowledge that is constructed in an exchange and negotiation of experiences and trying to cope with the eternally emerging world.
In working with innovation where the point is to be in sync with what is emerging it is not possible to know by way of episteme or techne, only to try to make sense of the stuff that you didn’t know you didn’t know. The way I perceive what is going on in an innovation or design process, and also what is going on on cph127 is, that we are engaged in a communal sense-making process based on experiences and intuitions - and while we are trying to make sense of the world and what we do in it we are at the same time creating new fields of meaning or knowledge or sense - like design thinking. In the space between commonsense and nonsense we are trying to make sense by making new connections of ideas and thoughts. And eventually this sense-making might be transformed into episteme or techne - into theories and models or into practical knowledge.
And sorry guys if this turned out a little bit like nonsense - I am trying to make sense as I write ;o)