On Tuesday, December 09, 1997 10:07 AM, DJones@asheville.cc.nc.us wrote:
>Key lessons learned
>from customer interactions are captured on the fly and become part of the
>continuously evolving "corporate memory"; and this growing pool of
>customer information is instantly accessable, searchable, sortable etc.
>by any and everyone while they are on the phone with the next customer,
>and the next, and the next and so on.
Basically I think you've described the same attribute bacteria have used
to adapt, learn and evolve over time...I am not the originator of this
analogy--I heard it listening to a tape of "The Simpler Way" by Wheatley
and Rogers--but they describe bacteria as an "organization" which is
capable of self-organizing itself due to its ability to "know" and access
the entire history of all bacteria at any one point in the adaptive cycle.
I'm not sure I'm the one who stated anything about living orgs other than
I accept this metaphor as being another way of describing things that are
happening. I believe Cliff is the one with the clear treatise on his
thoughts concerning living orgs. I agree with Steve and have fought this
metaphor myself sometime, but since I have begun to define living
differently...ie algorithims as produced in "Complexity" and the stuff
going on at Sante Fe Institute. And when you look at many of the
mechanical things that are co-creating living things, I think we can
formulate a new criteria for what is living...and learning vs, merely
alive in the human context Steve speaks about.
I know that the lines are blurring with regard to living orgs...isn't this
the LO list alive? Aren't we--through the process of
dialogue/conversation--co-creating, self-organizing and co-evolving the
criteria which we each use to live, learn and leave legacies (couldn't
resist invoking a little Covey:-))?
mike
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