Gurteen Knowledge Letter
Issue 265 – July 2022
I recently ran my fifth Conversational Leadership Café of the year on the theme What is communityship, and how might we nurture it?
I had 91 people registered from 27 countries. Usually, only about 50% of registered participants show up, so I was pleased to have 52 people from 22 countries join the Café. I love the global nature of my Zoom Cafés.
This series of Cafés is turning out well, and participants seem to love the format and the Conversational Leadership themes.
I don’t have my next one planned yet but register for my Café mailing list and come along and experience one. I am pretty sure you will love it.
Contents
- Trust in Whom?
Trust is more an attitude about myself - Images for the future of Europe
The future can evolve in different directions, each shaped by today's actions - Calling someone ignorant isn’t necessarily an insult
Ignorance is simply a lack of understanding - Himba baby song
True or false? - Timeline of the far future
Predicting the next hundred quintillion years - The language of conversation and speech
Digging into their meaning - Tweet of the month June 2022
June 2022 - Help Keep My Work Alive
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Trust in Whom?
Trust is more an attitude about myself
I am a big fan of Peter Block, and you will find many references to him in my blook.
Peter has an uncanny ability to see through things to question many of our cherished beliefs. This article on trust — Trust in Whom? particularly resonates with me. Here is the gist of it:
Trust is more an attitude about myself, an estimate of my own capacities.
For example, if I do not trust management, a more accurate statement is that I am not happy with the way I act or I feel when I am around management.
It is my response to their power that bothers me. My caution. My speaking in generalities.
My quickness to back down in the face of an indifferent or controlling act on their part.
My short-fused cynicism may be more the source of my distrust, than anything they do.
Credit: Peter Block
Images for the future of Europe
The future can evolve in different directions, each shaped by today's actions
To capture ideas about the future, the European Commission's Competence Centre on Foresight has launched an event #OurFutures - Images for the future of Europe.
The Centre invites you to write a short story expressing what you would like to see in the Europe of the future, with your hopes, uncertainties, and ideas.
You can add your story here (you do not need to live in an EU member state) and find the database of submitted stories here.
The story capture software uses Dave Snowden's Sensemaker and is an excellent example of its use. Dave introduces Sensemaker in this short YouTube video if you want to learn more about the software.
Calling someone ignorant isn’t necessarily an insult
Ignorance is simply a lack of understanding
Calling someone ignorant isn’t necessarily an insult. Ignorance is simply a lack of understanding. If we are ignorant of a subject, we have little, if any, knowledge about it.
We are ignorant about all sorts of things, but that does not make us stupid; we are just ignorant.
Maybe calling someone ignorant is an insult but saying they are ignorant of the facts is not.
This difference is an important distinction.
Himba baby song
True or false?
Look at this story about the Himba tribe of Namibia in Southern Africa, posted on LinkedIn.
Hundreds of replies have commented on what a beautiful story it is. It IS a lovely story — maybe too sweet.
When I read a story like this — I google it and add a word like "myth" to the end, such as this Himba baby song myth, or I try Snopes. Such a search usually helps me get to the root of the story.
The roots of the Himba baby song story are complex, but the bottom line seems to be that it is mostly false.
It's far too easy to fall for fake Internet stories. If the story seems too good to be true or tugs on your heartstrings — google it as I suggest, and of course, if it is false, don't help spread it.
Timeline of the far future
Predicting the next hundred quintillion years
It is hard enough to predict what might happen next year, never mind in 100 years, but what about one hundred quintillion years (that’s 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 years)?
This fantastic infographic Timeline of the Far Future produced by BBC Future attempts to do just that.
Given that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and we (homo sapiens) have only existed as a species for 200,000 years or so — what is our long-term future in the hundred quintillion-year life span of the universe?
I should add that some scientists think we may have as little as 2.8 billion years before the universe comes to an end.
The language of conversation and speech
Digging into their meaning
Numerous words describe the varied forms of conversation and speech. In writing my blook, if I wish to dig a little deeper into their meaning, then my first port of call is usually Wikipedia — maybe a dictionary if I am looking for a concise definition of a word.
This page lists some of the more common words or phrases. The descriptions are extracted in real-time from Wikipedia using the Wikipedia API
Tweet of the month June 2022
June 2022
Here is my top tweet for June 2022.
How technology can combat the rising tide of fake science. https://buff.ly/2wFgx6G /It's quite amazing what some people believe!
I tweet most days. My tweets tend to relate to material in my blook and other articles and blog posts on Conversational Leadership or Knowledge Management. You can follow me here.
Help Keep My Work Alive
Sustaining 25 Years of shared learning and conversation
For almost 25 years, I've been sharing the Gurteen Knowledge Letter each month, and many of you have been reading it for five years or more. My Knowledge Café also reached a milestone, celebrating its 20th anniversary in September 2022.
If my work has made a difference to you, I'd be grateful if you could consider supporting it. A small monthly donation or any one-off contribution would greatly help cover some of my website hosting costs.
Thank you to the 50+ patrons who have already supported me - your generosity means a great deal.
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David Gurteen
Gurteen Knowledge
Fleet, United Kingdom
