We each have our own diction, aka language. We use terms the way we understand them, regardless of whether they are completely consistent with the “correct” dictionary definitions. For basic everyday terms, this usually is not a problem, and usually no difficulty in the course of human interactions.
In domains with specialization of terms, eg. medicine, construction, sciences, and other highly skilled and technical areas of activity, these differences in meaning / definition / usage / implication / etc. can lead to project complications and even failures, if not caught and managed well.
Dictipedia is a toolset and set of practices that recognize and facilitate that “we each travel with our own language”, and that when we come together to collaborate, or to form teams, bringing these “languages” together is a necessary step in team formation.
Dictipedia:
- Recognizes that we each have terms and phrases that carry certain meanings to each of us as individuals
- Recognizes that we have potentially conflicting or at least inconsistent meanings when we use the same terms and phrases
- Recognizes that explicating these terms and phrase differences for discussion and eventual resolution is a Good Thing in team formation
- Recognizes that as we go from team to team, we pick up and migrate terms and phrases and bring them into our next teams
- Assists in bringing forth the discussions necessary to align terms, phrases, and concepts
- Assists in tracing the derivation of meanings from individual to individual, team to team, etc.
- Assists in bringing language to the fore as a key First Class Object in team formation
- Assists in disambiguating language so that the team can be in flow as quickly as possible
A dictipedia (noun) is an asset of an individual. A dictipedia is an asset of a team. Allowing teams to form with multiple individuals from potentially different backgrounds, and for teams to form, execute, dissolve, etc. is a key tenet of dictipedia’s services.
Much more coming…
I have commented at http://wordpress.liquid.info/re-sams-dictapedia/
The Dictipedia concept-document elucidates the topic quite well and begs its full development. It is one of Sam’s recent well thought out and structured documents that freshly demonstrates the type of work the group should be conducting. From my perspective, all of the recent documents beg to be a part of a group initiative to build an exemplar organization servicing the knowledge science and practices domains. From that perspective it is difficult to critique a single document, at the concept level.
After having witnessed, over the last 5+ years, the lack of productive discussion about forming a viable organization to daylight our fabulous group potential, coupled with the very recent extreme business and societal changes taking place that beg its coming-out, I must ask “Where to from here?”. Together, our group’s collective IQ and the many ideas discussed, suggest great potential, but our actions do not point to their intended actualization.
So yes, I like what I see and read in these (Sam’s) new documents and greatly respect and admire the talent behind them… but really… to what end? So where to from here?
Dictipedia reminds me of a Topic Map.
The base notion of topic mapping is that of knowledge, or in this case, vocabulary federation. The theory being that a topic–specifically, a database object which serves as a container which proxies a subject ‘out there’–can have as many name strings (aka: labels) as it takes, coupled with subject identity properties (key/value pairs) to identify some subject.
I really like the specification as a toolset and processes. That can be said for topic mapping: tools and processes.
Dictopedia, it seems to me, builds on the underlying principles of topic mapping. In fact, it takes the topic mapping discipline — one which is not well defined or practiced — to new levels.
The topic mapping discipline is one which seeks to federate vocabularies, and do so *in context*. That is, it seeks to capture and maintain individual representations or collections of representations (in the digital sense) which serve to stand as proxies for individual topics of conversation, no matter which vocabulary is in play.