A NEW BEGINNING

What should happen in Lavendergarage in 2010 - stupid question since the future approaches us from behind. But what if I turn around, and face the past, can I know, then? Information Architecture as the underlying, invisible structure of information, of difference, how long can I drawn lines back? Together with students I'll be looking at log-book traditions, calendar traditions and air tube system traditions to identify patterns of interaction, and patterns of underlying information structures, this way hoping to inform the information architecture of a project team collaboration system the students are going to build a concept for. We will look for what users can do, which activities are mediated, and which role is assigned to the user - and I so look forward to this. This work will, maybe, lead me on to a fruitfull understanding of the Erwoll system in police investigation, a piece of work I have left for some years, and which I want to re-assume.

FROM SERVICE DELIVERY TO ...

Yesterday I attended a seminar guided by Mark Munger, senior consultant, Valeocon, US in regi of the National task force for competence development in public service in Denmark. The approach promoted was named 'positive deviance' a combination of von Hippel's lead user thinking, appreciative inquiry, and Wenger's communities of practice thinking - organizational learning and development it is. A direction for applying this approach was given by Jacob Schjørring, Mindlab, who talked about moving from service delivery to involving citizens in forming relationships with service workers 'co-creation of new solutions for the public sector' was the term. I kept thinking of the graffiti 'hjælp politiet - tæv dig selv' (help the police - spank you yourself).
The discrepancy between Munger telling how to listen and give voice to all stakeholders, and Schjørring telling about how 'we' could get so-and-so citizens to co-create, was striking. Maybe, only if you seriously tried to walk the talk of Soren Kierkegaard and know how big you failed, you can tell the difference - I refer to his essay on authorship, chapter 1, §2, where he states what it is to be a good teacher:
‘All true helping begins with a humbling. The helper must first humble himself under the person he wants to help and thereby understand that to help is not to dominate, but to serve, that to help is not to be the most dominating, but the most patient, that to help is a willingness, for the time being, to put up with being in the wrong and not understanding what the other understands …’.