Knowledge Mobilization with a K.I.S.S.

We live in a complex world and think that only a few “expert” people have the “intelligence” or “best” knowledge to teach us how to deal with the complexities on this planet if we’re to survive and thrive in this world. That seems to be what many people want us to believe – that only a few people have “expert” knowledge to share that can make a difference. What really matters is not how much knowledge we have but how knowledge is shared in order to improve our lives, our communities and our planet and make things better for ourselves, our humanity and our world. That is what knowledge mobilization is all about.

We diminish each of our lives when we think that the knowledge we have to share for social benefit isn’t “good enough” or we’re not “smart enough” by not committing ourselves to many causes and activities of global knowledge sharing to make the world a better place for everyone. Every bit of knowledge that is shared for social benefit and combined with someone else’s knowledge brings us closer to global understanding – despite living in a complex world. Knowledge sharing is about being open to the knowledge of others and knowing that even the “limited” amount of knowledge that you have to share can make a difference when it’s connected to the greater good of global knowledge sharing for social benefit to make the world a better place for everyone.

There are many who think that the world is too complex to create global change through global knowledge sharing. There are many who think that the world is made up of too many differences in customs, beliefs and ideologies that ultimately lead to extremes and insurmountable conflicts that overwhelm us and condemn us to continue to make the same mistakes over and over again and never learn from the knowledge of the past. There are many who think that society has too many wicked problems to overcome. Yes, the reality is that these wicked problems exist and the complexity of these wicked problems continues to create barriers to social improvement and global peace. But thinking that these problems are too complex for us to make a difference by not even contributing and sharing from the experiences and knowledge that each of us has to make the world a better place – or by simply leaving it to the “intelligent” knowledge “experts” to figure out only adds to the barriers that already exist.

Knowledge sharing for social benefit is actually simple, and only through the simple will we overcome complexity. Of course, we have to be open-minded and recognize that the differences that lead to our global complexities, fears, hatred and violence stem from ignoring our common humanity and opportunities to focus on combining our knowledge globally.

There is an expression keep it simple, stupid – or K.I.S.S.

I think that the “stupid” are those too close-minded to share knowledge for social benefit, who ignore opportunities for each of us to combine our knowledge globally rather than being too caught up in the personal insecurities about the value of our own knowledge or default to the knowledge of the “experts”.

Knowledge sharing for social benefit is simple. That doesn’t mean that we will avoid the complicated when it’s necessary to face it, but that we realize that the very action of making a start to share knowledge for global understanding can make the world a better place. It’s a simple thing and does not need to be complicated, for all of our knowledge has value when we share it and are open to the knowledge of others. When we combine our knowledge differences to focus on our common humanity we can create change or improvement for all in the world – and in so doing we can create knowledge with a K.I.S.S.

New Knowledge: Simplicity & Complexity

Sometimes finding the simplicity in the complexity of knowledge leads to new knowledge.