"visible learning" is an existing book, a meta-analysis of educational innovations of last century, but the title also is as a metaphor for what the semantic web is in laymen's terms-- it is the exposure of all relevant wisdom in real time as we need it when we need it in the form we need it to most easily use it.

Channeling the flow of tacit knowledge

It absorbs, channels, aggregates, debates, integrates, enriches, acts upon and renews an ever-evolving flow of tacit knowledge and experience...

Players in the field admit however that they are caught in a flow which is hard to follow!  We are realizing that there is no way we can capture knowledge and ideas and “store” them safely for later retrieval. Knowledge and information are in perpetual evolution and cannot be frozen for later analysis. Wikipedia manages to keep formal knowledge alive through perpetual updates from the crowd. Epistemology becomes more important than ever to keep track of how knowledge evolves. Actions, ideas and facts mesh and collide in the flow and this gives birth to new ideas, actions and facts. And in this perspective, securing intellectual property can be seen as an impediment to the flow, and taking advantage through IP of ideas and technologies that are “in the air” and emerge simultaneously in several places, as a form of hording…

The most valuable knowledge turns out to be more tacit (i.e acquired through experience, exchangeable through interaction, p2p) than formal (consultable in a database or library; learnt in school or legitimated by a degree), the likely most valuable skill becomes the ability to integrate knowledge and information in real time and make use of this tacit knowledge to act effectively. The capacity to channel, aggregate, debate, integrate, enrich, act upon and renew this ever-evolving tacit knowledge is the challenge we are facing now.

Made Visible

A lot is happening at the grassroots, many projects and stories to share, opening up possibilities, and we are seeing several attempts to gather, aggregate and visualize information in usable ways. Location tracking and mobile technology enable tools for action/crisis mapping (Ushaidi, UN Global Pulse), exponential computation power and visualization tools allows meta or real time presentation of globalized data (Gapminder, Earth Dashboard). What is missing is an intermediary layer that connects the micro and the macro level:

• One that would show how the micro and the macro are related, how each individual action and story contributes to the global outcome or global picture and has an impact; and vice versa, how large transformations, or large outcomes are made of combined individual actions or items.
• One that would draw substance, trends, evolution of significance and outcomes from projects, stories, conversations to build a bigger picture, keep track of directions and status toward purpose... at the smallest project level as well as the various levels of operation.