4 ms·
I think you can take it up a level from the individual to culture to see it even more clearly. I think one of the most glaring examples of tacit knowledge is si
by Barrin92 5y ago
I think you can take it up a level from the individual to culture to see it even more clearly. I think one of the most glaring examples of tacit knowledge is simply physical agglomeration. If tacit knowledge wasn't that important, why is it that people pay thousands of dollars of rent just to be in the right spot while 'everything is available' on the net? Why does half of all VC money go into a bunch of zipcodes? Why do so few key professionals network like we're in 15th century Venice?
Physicality and proximity are incredibly important, ironically maybe more so in the world of 'knowledge work' than when it comes to physical activity. An incredible amount of knowledge work happens implicitly when people organize spontaneously without them even being aware. Alex Pentland wrote an interesting book on it called Social Physics where he tried to empirically measure how much more effective in-person exchange of information is.
- chezball 5y agoHey Barrin92, can you explain (or give context around d) this, “Why do so few key professionals network like we're in 15th century Venice?”
- senderista 5y agoIf they did they’d be poisoning their competitors.
- Barrin92 5y agofirst off I phrased it somewhat weirdly, I meant to say there is a very small number of high profile professionals who are close and influential, not few overall, but the point is that a lot of deals still go through very informal, tight-knit, often secretive hands in for example the tech sector. The 'Paypal Mafia' is I think a good example of this. It's hard to imagine you get the same number of businesses out of a dispersed, random groups on the internet. Business knowledge and success even in 'meritocratic' sectors are still depend on a lot of tacit and informal relationships.