Relationships ≠ Structure

Here is an image I removed from The Shape of Knowledge:

I removed it, not because it isn't a great visual - it is - but because I didn't want to violate the copyright of the creators. But here, in a blog entry, it falls into the 'fair use' category so I will show it and not just describe it, as I did in the book. This illustration is famous; it did, after all, make the front page of the New York Times!

This diagram was in a presentation made to General Stanley McChrystal, during the time he was  leading the United States' efforts in the Afghan war. On seeing it he is said to have remarked "when we understand that slide we will have won the war".

One of the premises of TSOK is that structure arises from relationships, from connections. The 'materials' cause that Aristotle wrote about is about 'things' or concepts; structure is about the relationships between things or concepts.

My point in showing the Afghanistan slide is that the existence of relationships, depicted by the many arrows in the diagram, does not ensure the existence of structure. A logician would say that relationships are 'necessary but not sufficient' for structure to exist. The absence of structure is what General McChrystal was bemoaning when he made his ironic statement. Here is a visual that 'connects the dots' but no picture emerges.

Sense-making arises from structure, and the best structures for sense-making are those that naturally fit the patterns of relationships our brains make when we are exercising important cognitive skills such as classification and composition. The Shape of Knowledge is about recognizing structure in our thought processes and mirroring that structure in the knowledge artifacts ("knowtifacts") we create to communicate those thought processes.

Knowledge is more than a group of facts or collection of interesting information -- it's knowing how to link those facts together to solve a problem or achieve a goal. Communicating knowledge is about communicating a way of thinking that is useful, and doing it in such a way that others can replicate that thought process successfully in new situations. Creating artifacts to transmit knowledge successfully requires more than domain expertise, it requires an understanding of best practices for creating knowledge artifacts.

I think a good analogy is teaching. A good teacher knows a subject really well: for example, a good science teacher knows a lot about science. But a good teacher also knows a lot about teaching. Teaching is a skill; it can be taught and it is perfected through practice. Creating knowledge artifacts to convey knowledge is also a skill, one that requires an understanding of the role of structure in transmitting knowledge.

The PowerPoint slide above is a knowledge artifact. It was intended to transmit knowledge about the conflict in Afghanistan. It is clear from General McChrystal's comment that it fell short of its goal. Why? How could structure have been used to make its message clearer?

The Four Causes and Custom Chairs

One of the foundational concepts of The Shape of Knowledge is a mental model created by Aristotle called The Four Causes.

Aristotle said that every human artifact requires four inputs, or 'causes', to exist.

The first is the intent of the creator, the reason why the artifact is being created. Aristotle actually called this the 'final cause' because it represents the ultimate goal of the creative process, but it is the first cause from a time standpoint. Next, the artifact needs both a form, or shape, and materials. Finally, there is the act of actually forming the materials into the chosen shape. Aristotle called this the 'efficient cause' but I prefer to use the word process.

Intent, form, materials and process are the four elements necessary for the creation of any human artifact.

I give several examples in the book of the Four Causes in action -- building a house, knitting a sweater and writing a book -- before moving on to how they relate to the main topic of the book, knowledge artifacts.

Yesterday I ran into another excellent example of the Four Causes and how we interact with them daily in the course of our lives. I found this example in a Home Decorators catalog, on a page selling custom upholstered furniture. This page is designed to appeal to the customer whose intent is to buy a chair that perfectly fits her own particular tastes and decor.

This is how the catalog communicates the form, or shape, of the custom chairs. Each is shown in a neutral white fabric so the viewer can focus on the shape alone. The chairs are given names that often describe the form itself, names like 'Button Tufted-Back Dining Chair'.

The opposing page of the catalog shows the fabrics that can be used to make the chairs, the materials.

Some chairs can also be built with different colors of wood, another materials choice.

If the customer places an order specifying the form and materials, the manufacturer will execute the process of building that custom chair.

When stock furniture is designed, form and materials choices are made by a designer whose intent is to create a popular design that will appeal to many potential customers. The designer will study industry trends and will have a target customer in mind when he or she makes these choices, but the same form and materials choices must be made. Every act of creation requires the selection of a form and materials.

Aristotle's model is useful because it clarifies components of design that we tend to blur and conflate. The catalog creators used white fabric on the sample chairs because they know the viewer will be influenced and distracted by colorful or patterned fabrics. A customer may reject a chair shape because she doesn't like the fabric used on the sample, without ever realizing she is reacting to the materials and not the shape.

Realtors confront this problem all the time when showing houses to prospective buyers. They try to get the buyers to focus on 'the bones' of a house rather than the paint color and floor coverings that can be easily changed. This is easier said than done. People tend to react to the gestalt, the whole of something, and have difficulty thinking about shape and materials as two separate contributors to the final product. But designers must make this distinction, and when we are designing artifacts to embody our knowledge and transmit it to others we must think like designers as well. We must move beyond a focus on content and think about the best shape for conveying our knowledge.

The Shape of Knowledge Published on Kindle Direct

Today I successfully published The Shape of Knowledge for the Kindle. I will eventually publish it with Smashwords, the easiest way to reach all of the other e readers, but not until I do revisions based on feedback from my beta readers.

There is certainly a learning curve associated with the different formats used by different e reader devices. Even the Kindle edition, which looks good on Kindle devices, has formatting problems inside Kindle apps on Apple devices. I hope to resolve this with the next edition.

Even though there are some formatting issues and I know a revision will be required, I feel a sense of accomplishment. My ideas are out in the world now, and I can focus on refining and applying them. The purpose of this blog will be to elaborate on the concepts presented in TSOK, and most importantly, show how they can be used to improve the transmission of knowledge in the real world.