I have a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Let me repeat .. ok, never mind … but it does mean that a) I know the difference between a survey, which is what George Washington did, and a questionnaire, which is a survey (!) instrument; and b) I am appalled at the use of the “survey” for commercial interests. Every time I buy something I am asked to “fill out the survey, it will just take a few minutes” (add it all up, it’s hours per day!), and if I dare give someone less than a stellar rating (which I must do, if the rating is to have any meaning) I am punished by being phoned and queried mercilessly.

 

“woken up”

the phrase is either “I woke up” or “I was awakened”

I was recently one of a handful of keynote speakers at ISKO Brazil, meeting in Rio de Janeiro, May 27-29. It was my first trip to Brazil, and I was just a little shocked to find myself sitting at a bar at Ipanema listening to Bossa Nova. I texted my sister, because our mother (who passed away about a year ago) used to dream of such a thing. Well, be that as it might, I won’t write here about culture shock, I’ll come back to that.

I spent some time musing about dimensions and how epistemology could be a dimension of knowledge organization. In the end my presentation became rather pedantic, but that is because I think there is too much wiggle room in ISKO about just what knowledge organization is. And I think that is problematic for a domain that thinks of itself as a science.

I’ll try to write more about this soon.

Here are some photos from my trip.

And here is a pdf of my presentation, which I think also is available on ISKO Brazil’s website, but caveat emptor, this is not a formal research presentation. Smiraglia_Epistemological Dimension of KO

More later.