Societal Reimagination: Phronesis Lab

In a network, we learn how to play really well together with others, in a context of “knowing why”.

Phronesis

“If the concept seems complicated, let’s look at it using the example of the car. Anyone in possession of the necessary technology and parts can manufacture a car.

But whether a user finds value in the car, that is, whether the car conforms to what the user would consider a “good” car, is another matter because the values of those who made the car and those who use it are different. A product, in this case a car, incorporates the values held by its makers at the time it is made.

If techne is the knowledge of how to make a car well, phronesis is the knowledge of what a “good” car is (value judgment) and how to build such a car (realize the value judgment).

A company cannot survive on techne alone because no matter how well it can make a car, if it is not a “good” car, the effort is meaningless.

Episteme cannot answer the question of what a good car is either, since “good” is a subjective value whose definition depends on the person using the car, and this value cannot be a universal truth since it depends on the context, or who perceives that goodness, and that answer continuously changes.

In short, phronesis in the firm is the ability to understand and bring to fruition that which is considered “good” by individual customers in specific times and situations.” — Ikujiro Nonaka

Reframing Things: Knowledge Work Metaphors can be used to organize and align our thinking.

Organizing: Principles and Practices Our writing can be guided (by principles) in a context of both coherence of thought, as well as a more fluid confluence of thoughts, in order to evolve (by our practices) both structure(coherence) and process(confluence).

Understanding: Paths and Preferable Outcomes With knowledge, understanding and phronesis, turning problem spaces into possibility spaces, forming part of both paths and preferable outcome.

Knowledge: Tacit and Explicit Card sessions and 2x2 card session boards.

Four qualities to 2x2 card session board boundaries:

• Right: Transitions, Boundary Objects Place dynamics and information ecologies.
• Bottom: Information, Networks Networked behavior, conversations, online designs, virtual affordances and platform architectures.
• Left: Annotations, Media Dynamic knowledge repositories. Online communities of interest and practice.
• Top: Options, Moves Scaling out, futures literacies, token engineering systems and projects.

Cards, Hypertext and Social Machines The image outlines how cards form part of a hypermedia approach and design, connecting the individual and small group genius dots, in ways that can be augmented in a social machine.

Phronesis Labs: Cards and play — an invitation to learning to see.