Winter is setting in here in northern England, and I have been looking at solutions to the threats ice and snow bring to safe walking. There are numerous products that supposedly make shoes and boots safe by providing effective grip, but none seem to effective in all conditions. Some are good for snow but not ice; some are best only on 'black' ice. It's confusing, but in the end the only way I can decide what works is to try them and observe the results.
Similarly, the pursuit of knowledge in these icy times is fringed by many 'solutions', but few of them work effectively in all situations. Verna Allee called knowledge 'slippery', and so it is. If we want to share knowledge and work in collaboration with others, we have to talk with one another and find out 'what works' in particular situations. There are some good English metaphors I can think of: "Get your skates on" , "we're skating on thin ice", "beware of slips and falls", and "not a snowball's chance in hell". Those of us in the business of knowledge learn repeatedly how fallible we are, how tentative our real knowledge is. If we deny it, chances are we're wearing the clichéd 'rose-tinted spectacles'.
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