Skip to main content
Profundities LLC logoProfundities LLC logo
  • Fluidity
    • Catch the ball
    • Run with the ball
  • The Knowledge Swirl
    • Disorder
    • Tacit knowledge
    • Explicit knowledge (current)
    • Expressive knowledge
    • Expressive to explicit
    • Collaboration
    • Integration
    • Repeat cycle
    • Organizational wisdom
  • Examples
    • Adrenals
    • Ecology research
    • Finance regulation
    • 5 second rule
    • Health 4.0
    • Human services
    • ICF/WHO checklist
    • Knowledge translation
    • Mental health
    • Metal configurator
    • Morning preparation
    • Tax
    • Thyroid
    • Tire manufacture
    • Virus replication
    • XFINITY
  • Learn
  • Feedback

    You are here:

    1. Profundities
    2. The Knowledge Swirl
    3. Explicit knowledge

    Explicit knowledge can be documented in many forms. Documents, to be sure. Images. Tables. Movies. Audio recordings. Database queries. Plans written on napkins. Drawings. Such artifacts represent a process of drawing out, of memorializing tacit knowledge. They are very helpful in transferring such knowledge. Given the frailty of human memory and the relatively short life spans of us all, the ability to put aspects of tacit knowledge into permanent form is important to our well-being.

    Explicit knowledge forms, of course, do have their limits. They are better at teaching us the "what" of knowledge than the "how". The problem is basically a structural one. Knowledge branches out in tree form -- based on individual frames of understanding. When using explicit knowledge tools, it is very awkward to determine how much detail of each branch to show, given that the reader will be faced with all of the material. In many cases, they are forced to learn all of it in order to understand some of it. In fact, however, they do not learn all of it, as the designer is really unable to address all issues due to the inflexibility of explicit tools. The bigger the document, the less available the knowledge housed within it.

    Another way of describing the challenge of explicit knowledge is that it has a problem with context. Once you have made a choice, once a parameter has changed, once time has passed, you face a different situation. The new development may or may not be significant one, but it may change everything. The more an expert pours into the explanation of the difference, the more "off-putting" the resulting document can become. Certainly, such detail is important in explicit documents, but it does take its toll, particularly where time is short.

    • Disorder
    • Tacit knowledge
    • Explicit knowledge (current)
    • Expressive knowledge
    • Expressive to explicit
    • Collaboration
    • Integration
    • Repeat cycle
    • Organizational wisdom

    Related links

    • CIMH Global
    • 2020 Program for Global Health
    • Profundities LLC
    • Provider Payments
    • Fluidity Finance
    • Olympialands
    • The Horizontal Network

    Training regimen

    • Generative taxonomies (the Five Concepts)
    • Education site
    • 2020 Program library
    • 2020 Program posters
    • 2020 Program document archive
    • Layered approach to technology
    • Event accounting
    • TYPO3 Enterprise Open Source CMS
    • Permanescence

    Communications

    • Telephone:
    • In the USA 4357574096
      In Poland 697654722

      Prevalent social network tools, such as Facebook and Twitter, do not support dual control and fluidity. As such, their use in establishing primary knowledge networks is unproductive. They will serve a purpose in making the public aware of OPL, fluidity, etc., by they do not support the process of creating knowledge driven systems. This is an organic process the grows out of tree design based on the Five Concepts.

    • English

    Running with TYPO3 and Bootstrap Package.

    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • GitHub
    • YouTube