Stephen Downes

I like this post but let's update it to match today's vernacular (because, you know, 'KM' is so 2000s). Harold Jarche points to the very useful distinction between 'Big KM' and 'Personal KM'. To update this, replace the word 'KM' with 'Data' - this gives us a range between 'Big Data' and 'Personal Data'. Now, everybody is talking about Big Data (so much so that I feel I need to capitalize the words). But as the useful diagram suggests, Big Data is suitable for simple domains, best practices and explicit knowledge. That's where learning analytics using big data will take us. But the much more interesting and useful analytics will be found using personal data, resulting in complex design, emergent practices and implicit knowledge. So why aren't people working here? Well it's like that guy pushing his lawn mower up and down his paved driveway - "it's a lot easier than pushing it though the grass," he explains.