Richard Saul Wurman’s Passion for Understanding In 1962 at the “age of 26, Richard Saul Wurman began the singular passion of his life: making information understandable. Each of his 81 books focus on some subject or idea that he personally had difficulty understanding. Among his many publications is the best-selling book Information Anxiety.
Wurman is well known for creating and chairing TED (Technology/Entertainment/Design) conferences. I highly recommend spending time visiting the videos at that site. They are very interesting, engaging and thoughtful perspectives. There is now also the EG conferences bringing together the best creative people in the world to share with each other and guests. Share what? With each other it appears. And with the magnificent purpose of celebrating creativity in making entertainment informing and information entertaining. Imagine how exciting that must be to attend in California, next week.
UNDERSTANDING from Conversations about Information
In Richard Saul Wurman’s 2000 publication, UNDERSTANDING he noted we live in an era where public information is ours. As information increasingly becomes more publicly available it is our right to ask questions; and, get answers to the questions we asked.
He is a proponent for visual "architecture" being applied to enhance our ability to fathom questions and answers in ways that lead to a better, more nuanced and fuller perspective. Helping digest and communicate about data in deeper more meaningful ways fosters rich and full perspectives and perceptions -- that would be "understanding". He said:
“Conversation is the most natural, effective, yet most complex mode of human connection. The goal of conversation is understanding between the participants… Understanding information is power.”
“I dream of asking a question, a single childlike question and receiving an answer.
What a dream! The dream is here. We are at the cusp of the marriage of information technology and information architecture. Our extraordinary ability to store and transmit data will make this dream a waking dream.”
He called it the primitive formation of a new era and pointed out how he loved beginnings.
I recall this because it was the beginning of my own primitive formation too. His wonderful (although slightly dated today) publication has become dog eared and is falling a part from years of “understanding” efforts on my part. UNDERSTANDING is a visual communication of the social, commercial, educational, technological, media, political and other trends impacting the USA.
My UNDERSTANDING
My copy of his book means a lot to me. It was given to me by a friend the day I submitted the first “batch” of papers that would begin my journey to becoming an American Citizen. The statistics and data inside the book meant something because it was a personal gift on a personal occassion, from a personal friend. It became part of my personal journey to understand my soon to be country/citizenship-of-choice. Wurman’s book helped me to more deeply understand a different society than Canada (and yes they are different but that is another story for some other day). His book was part of my personal journey to more deeply understand the society and country I had decided to make my home.
Wurman says that successful visuals are like a “frozen conversation.” I marveled at how the visuals made the data understandable, multi-dimensional and nuanced, like a conversation and like the country itself. Wurman and his team gave the statistics (which I was never any good at, except in political polling) meaning in his frozen and absent way.
That personal journey led to my American Citizenship in downtown New York City – just a few months after 9/11. That personal journey and choosing one’s citizenship was an important personal decision and commitment. Wurman’s frozen conversation with me contributed to understanding. I listened and learned. Citizenship was granted and took place in the shadow and sorrow of 9/11.
Business, Meaning and Understanding
Just as I made my personal decision to become a citizen of this great country, I made a professional and personal decision to leave friends and a city I called home to come and be part of a company that is going through growing pains and change. Having been here, it’s the people, conversations and understandings that make it meaningful and powerful. Im not sure we are ever really objective. Im not sure understanding is objective.
Statistics have not given the story meaning. People have. Being committed to listen, learn and do better is not a bad place to start. Its an “ethos” to believe in, if you want to make a difference in the world and for business, and for other people.
And then there are the people who are prepared to have that conversation with you, because you are a person, even if all is not perfect. Together we work to understand and do better…that is the positive power of understanding and consideration. Like the Social Media Workshop group; or the author of a book like the Fred Factor
Change Understandings or Stagnate?
And as Dell is 22+ years old, who among us at that age didn’t make mistakes. The real question is did you learn from them? And, did you keep going and growing to be the best you can be? Are you listening to those you want to have a conversation with? Are you learning? As Michael Dell said to Jeff Jarvis, business issues ebb and flow and you take action “in a continuous improvement sort of way.”
For those in other businesses -- irrespective of your age or your company's -- are you treading water? Afraid of change? Got the walls up to only interact when you choose? And only with your information? The trends do not bode well for those business or communications strategies. I suggest you get ready. As my frozen conversation friend might say, the information is going free. Moré more and more is coming and coming at you, with understandings others have imbued it with. We are just at the beginnings.
For example, there was more content on YouTube in 2006 than on the Web in 2000. I don’t want to pre-empt the video included with this post, but think about what is said in it versus these stats from Wurman’s 2000 book, with great visuals I cant re-produce here. Better yet, go have a conversation with someone about the numbers and see if these numbers start to come alive and have meaning in a much more powerful and meaningful way because of the complicated art of conversation. Talk about the changes between the video information and this data from Wurman seven short years ago:
- the Internet reached as many Americans in its first six years as the telephone did in its first four decades.
- When looking at a range of technologies, Americans expressed greatest enthusiasm for communications technologies like the Internet and saw technologies like computers and cell phones as continually contributing to a better life.
New Beginnings and Powerful Understanding
Im with Wurman. You got to love beginnings.
What he is up to today sounds like a "blow your mind" project. As for me, Im focused on no blow your mind project, just solid listening and conversing and seeing what its like to be a listening and conversing company in a time of change. For my friend David Armano, it is all beta.
The online connections and conversations will explode in the next few years. People will access information and produce more data than we can comprehend, maybe more than we can "manage". That information will be shared and mashed up and distributed. But on its own, the information is mere data. It is static. It has no meaning. And no company that I can think of will give that information meaning either.
That information produced and shared by people will access and whip around the web, around the world. All those 0s and 1's processed in cell phones or laptops and swirling about through servers and networks and complicated connections and held in large corporate data centers -- its nothing. Its data.
Information and data is only given meaning through the most natural, effective, yet most complex mode of human connection, conversation. Some of it may be frozen conversation, but is still people adding value through sharing and considering. Interactions that count.
Only people are capable of interacting, and buiding information into understanding and power. Conversations provide context, nuance and meaning to static information. It’s all messy and subjective. But messy and subjective is also meaningful, understandable, connectable, perceptable and real. Its why brands are suppose to have a "value"...they are not objective.
Businesses thrive on organized, objective data. Its "management" and "equitable. " Its not. Its people interacting. Its messy. Its real. People are not emotionless robots, they are human with values and subjective views. And that is why conversations are rich and full and can create meaning and understanding. Those shared perceptions are very powerful....just ask a so-called objective brand manager.
Video and Your Conversations
The video accompanying this post has some good data/ information. The visuals are part of the “frozen” conversation and contribute to several important issues. Those issues deserve rich and real conversations. The conversations could be between you and me, between you and Dell, between you and a neighbor, a boyfriend or girlfriend, your best friend, spouse, or another brand. That’s really not my business. Im just here as an advocate to have the conversation and make it real.
I am interested in you and others joining the conversations you choose to chat with and that you think are important. See if the conversation is natural, complex and yet results in better understanding. I am willing to bet that the understanding from a conversation is powerful and meaningful. The data-information on its own falls flat in comparison.
The video was used as part of Michael Dell’s keynote address at Oracle World this week. Yes, the video has its promotional elements. I encourage you to drop the cynical perspective, even just on a flyer, and have real conversations.
As the video notes we are 80,000 people around the world listening and wanting to do more. This is more than just Dell the company; it’s the people who work at Dell…a lot of us listening, learning and working to achieve some things we believe are right, while listening and learning all along the way. We want to do the right things for an increasingly complex, connected and resource-limited world.
We think we can accomplish a whole lot more by listening, learning, having conversations and working with others.
It's Christmas eve. I'm in Virginia, celebrating with family. It's real. It's important. It's love.
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