At KETC we will soon launch a project on "Immigration" in America. The deep question that we will be asking in a year of hosting an online space and making a 4 hour documentary is "What is the experience like for all people and where should we go?"
A huge challenge for us then is "Voice". What is our position? For the range of opinion is vast, the emotions are high, many see the issue in terms of good versus evil, few look into any of the pragmatic aspects.
It's a minefield!
Jay Rosen has been digging into the traditional perspective taken by the orthodoxy that journalists have to have:
- No opinion of their own
- Showcase issues as having two sides
He has opened a hornets nest!!!
I called him last week for advice and here is what we came to.
First of all we were clear that Immigration is not a simple or even a complicated issue - issues that are knowable and that can be resolved by applying known rules. It's a Complex Issue: Being Complex means that it can only be known via the process of "Emergence" - lots of trial and error leading to patterns not to single solutions.
On Jay's site I made the point that this felt like a Quantum world where only zones of probability could be determined and where the view of the observer would always affect the observed.
Another reader said that this was "Bullshit" - but while the issue of complexity may not be Quantum it does share the reality that there can be no single right answer.
The other point is that there can never not be bias. We all live in a world of a cultural screen. We all screen in or out what does or does not fit. To believe otherwise is to be naive.
So where pragmatically does that leave us at KETC?
It might be this? (Welcome your views for this is just MY opinion)
- For patterns to emerge we must have a "Plurality" of opinions/storis and voices. With such a Plurality we have the chance of creating "Emergence" or stable patterns of norms. A kind of Wisdom of Crowds
- To do that then our job is to host safely and in a trusted way as many opinions and stories as possible and to encourage a deep but civic debate - as Jay does on his own site
- To do that I think that those if us who are the hosts should also disclose who we are and have a diverse group at KETC doing the hosting - so we too represent a broad view. (Jay discloses here - Jeff Jarvis Discloses here)
Here is how Johnnie Moore puts it:
Johnnie tells us that the answer is simple but difficult. Difficult because the answer demands that we converse in a different way. Yes the simple idea is that we talk to each other differently. The challenge is that to do this we have to give up some hard wired habits.
What we have to give up is using conversation as a duel or a combat where the dominant player wins and all ideas that don't fit are killed as are of course the divergent thinkers. What we need is a conversation that opens up new ideas and that builds community.
Here is how Dave Snowden sees the distinctions:
One thing is certain - that the Simple and the Complicated worlds are not what we are dealing with here.
So what do you think - how can we best offer up the full complexity of an issue such as Immigration?More from Dave Snowden:
The Cynefin framework has five domains.[6] The first four domains are:
- Simple, in which the relationship between cause and effect is obvious to all, the approach is to Sense - Categorise - Respond and we can apply best practice.
- Complicated, in which the relationship between cause and effect requires analysis or some other form of investigation and/or the application of expert knowledge, the approach is to Sense - Analyze - Respond and we can apply goodpractice.
- Complex, in which the relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance, the approach is to Probe - Sense - Respond and we can sense emergent practice.
- Chaotic, in which there is no relationship between cause and effect at systems level, the approach is to Act - Sense - Respond and we can discover novel practice.
The fifth domain is Disorder, which is the state of not knowing what type of causality exists, in which state people will revert to their own comfort zone in making a decision. In full use, the Cynefin framework has sub-domains, and the boundary between simple and chaotic is seen as a catastrophic one: complacency leads to failure.
The real new economy is all about being human and hence rejects everything to do with the machine. Machines are complicated but humans are complex. There is a huge difference between Complicated and Complex and those that miss this, miss it all. How does he see the difference?
Complicated - understanding how an engine works - not simple but ultimately knowable
Most organizations seek to know and to control. Management seeks to narrow the options ands narrow the conversation. Hence the stovepipes and the inability to see the whole for the parts.
Complex - Humans are not simple and never fully knowable. Just too many variables interact
In a complex world as J quotes Mihaly Ccikszentmihaly "One of the key tasks of management is to create an organization that stimulates the complexity of those that belong to it."
Most organizations try and see and operate in the first paradigm. This is why as Johnnie tells us that Southwest laugh at their competitors who think that it is all about fleet management. Its secret was in fact all about being open to what everyone needed to have a good life at work.
Most organizations close down instead.
"As organizations grow, there's a tendency to reduce ambiguity by adding to the rule book. In part this is a natural desire to embody the lessons of our past mistakes. But the effect over time can be sclerotic. Look at traffic lights in cities. Over time, more and more junctions in London have been graced with traffic lights in an effort to prevent gridlock and improve traffic flow. The trouble is that while these lights may work in isolation, their cumulative effect is often to make traffic worse. Recent experiments have shown that stripping all the lights out of a stretch of road
has actually reduced congestion."
So how do we get from a machine world to a human world?
Johnnie tells us that the answer is simple but difficult. Difficult because the answer demands that we converse in a different way. Yes the simple idea is that we talk to each other differently. The challenge is that to do this we have to give up some hard wired habits.
What we have to give up is using conversation as a duel or a combat where the dominant player wins and all ideas that don't fit are killed as are of course the divergent thinkers. What we need is a conversation that opens up new ideas and that builds community.
His advice - look at how Improv works in Theatre. The rules are simple:
- Yes, And
- Be affected
- Embrace surprise
His chapter then takes the reader though how to use these simple rules in a most engaging and practical way.
Simple = easily knowable.
Complicated = not simple, but still knowable.
Complex = not fully knowable, but reasonably predictable.
Chaotic = neither knowable nor predictable.
My car key is simple.
It took me about three seconds to understand how my car key works. OK, maybe that's not quite correct. Mine has a battery in it. If I take it apart it might take me another three hours to understand its details. But yeah, I'm smart, I'll manage.
My car is complicated.
It would take me years to understand how my car works. And I don't intend to. But if I did, then some day in the far future I would know with certainty the purpose of each mechanism and each electrical circuit. I would fully understand how to control it, and I would be able to take my car apart and reassemble it, driving it exactly as I did before. In theory, of course. In practice, only real men do things like that.
Car traffic is complex.
I can travel up and down the same street for twenty years, and things would be different every time. There is no way to fully understand and know what happens around me on the road when I drive, how other drivers operate their vehicles, and how the people in the streets interact. I can make guesses, and I can gain experience in predicting outcomes. But I will never know for sure.
Car traffic in Lagos (Nigeria) is chaotic.
When things get too complex, they easily become chaotic. Traffic in Lagos is so bad, it is not even predictable. Poor infrastructure and planning, heaps of waste, pollution, lack of security, floods, and many more problems make it one of the worst places in the world to be, as a simple car driver.
