A Taxonomy of Cognitive Stress: I have. A Taxonomy of Cognitive Stress: I have been thinking about UI design lately. With some help from my friend Rob Landley, I've come up with a classification schema for the levels at which users are willing to invest effort to build competence. The base assumption is that for any ... [Armed and Dangerous]

Somehow, I missed this when it first appeared in May from Eric Raymond. I find his RSS feed erratic at best. It shows up at a good time, however, as I'm thinking through the implications of shifting focus to knowledge workers instead of knowledge management. Raymond is focused on user interfaces, but I think his perspective can be generalized to the challenges of doing and coaching knowledge work.

10:10:26 PM •  • comment  

12 Leverage Points to Intervene in a System. I found a nice summary of Donella Meadow's 12 Leverage Points to Intervene in a System in wikipedia. Places where a small change can have large effects, and if you are a participant in the system, awareness and use of... [Ross Mayfield's Weblog]

Thanks, Ross, for pointing this resource out. This particular piece from the late Donella Meadow's has long been one of my favorite short pieces on how to think about complex human systems and how to influence them. I have a scanned copy of Meadow's article tucked away on my laptop, but it's so much nicer to have an online version to point to. Worth your time to read and reflect on.

10:04:21 PM •  • comment