Too Big to Know

Summary Written by Michelle Elana Shafran
"Digital media is transforming the evolution, form and the way we perceive knowledge."

- Too Big To Know, Prologue

The Big Idea

The Power of Groups

"Networks of knowledge facilitate the development of ideas by groups, rather than individual exploration."- Too Big To Know, page 52

Using the Internet as a learning tool provides a scholarly vehicle to society. There is a proven notion that people are smarter in groups. Think tanks continue to flourish both in the real and virtual worlds. “Crowdsourcing” employs shared ideas across large demographic areas to collect data, answer specific questions and address issues (just as singular surveys or scientific studies did in generations past.) The greater the diversity within the crowd, the better chance of more worldly results. The Internet reaches places teachers and experts were once never able to acquire scientific samples from. It assists in breaking barriers.

Insight #1

How We Arrive at the Truth

"All knowledge and experience comes from our interpretation of culture, language and history."- Too Big To Know, page 69

There are many ways to interpret facts, ideas and pieces of information. While Weinberger emphasizes the importance of the role played by the Internet and group quantified analyses – the way we process information is still a very personal and individual idea. Our interpretations are not based upon a simple method of examining data, but rather the ways which we are inherently and often initially learned to process data from a very young age. He suggests that while the source of our knowledge may have transitioned to a highly digitalized format, the process for receiving and sharing information socially has remained the same for several thousand of years.

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Insight #2

Networking Leadership

"“Collaborative online projects such as Wikipedia influence traditional hierarchies or organizations."- Too Big To Know, page 168

The more complex the organization of business becomes, the more information becomes available via the Internet to assist in managing more large scale, non-traditional issues. As the quantity and quality of information improve symbiotically to form a network or centralized location to find information, leaders have a sure-fire and readily available tool to rely upon. Best illustrated by the flow of information in a time of excitement or crisis (Weinberger cites Hurricane Katrina) we have become a society dependant on the distribution of certain decisions made by those in leadership positions and our reliance on their ability to filter accurate and fact-based solutions to subordinates in an effort to maintain semblance and order.

Access to information simplifies difficult decision making yet still allows leaders and individuals to make decisions on how, ultimately, to handle emergent issues. Without online tools readily available, imagine how much time we would spend attempting to determine what was going on rather than how to efficiently handle what was unfolding. According to Weinberger, too much.

When I initially picked up this book, I was interested in the content but felt it may be more scientific than practical. There is no disputing that Weinberger writes in the same vein as Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan. The difference is that Weinberger is able to deliver detailed facts in a readable and easily applicable format to readers. He simply supplies the facts and asks us to look within our own education, experiences, morals and common sense to make individual decisions regarding how to receive and process the information supplied to us through the media and Internet.

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David Weinberger

The Wall Street Journal called him a “marketing guru.” He’s the co-author of the The Cluetrain Manifesto, the bestseller that cut through the hype and told business what the Web was really about. His next book, Small Pieces Loosely Joined has been published to rave reviews hailing it as the first book to put the Internet in its deepest context. His previous book, Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder, which has been called “an instant classic”, explains how the new rules for organizing ideas and information are transforming business and culture. He’s been a frequent commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. He’s written for the “Fortune 500” of business and tech journals, including The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Miami Herald, The Boston Globe, USA Today, The Guardian, and Wired. Journalists from The New York Times, Newsweek, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, InformationWeek, The Economist, Foreign Policy, the Wall Street Journal and many more turn to him for insight. He is a columnist for Knowledge Management World and has been a columnist for il sole 24 ore,. He writes a well-known weblog, Joho the Blog. He was a philosophy professor for six years, a gag writer for Woody Allen’s comic strip for seven years, a humor columnist, a dot-com entrepreneur before most people knew what a home page was, and a strategic marketing consultant to household-name multinationals and the most innovative startups. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy and is a Senior Researcher at the prestigious Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society and is Co-Director of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab, and was a Franklin Fellow at the United States State Department (2010-12).

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