What principle underlies the production of insights by trust networks?

Trust networks can speed the development and sharing of insight, recommendations, and best practices.

Closed-Loop Learning Model Describes Ever-Accelerating Information-Knowledge Turns in the Era of Trust Networks

The figure above depicts a learning model borrowed from cognitive science, emphasizing how human beings learn and, by inference, how small, dedicated groups of people who produce and consume small chunks of information create new knowledge—know how—that millions of online users can find and use.

The first learning loop entails basic trial and error. Whether an infant learning to walk or an IT resource manager troubleshooting an unfamiliar and undocumented system, most people experience this basic action-result learning loop as frustrating and not very productive.

The second learning loop emphasizes the summarization and generalization of many action-result learning loops and the emergence of a governing principle: learning how to learn. Classic education, professional development, and how-to books mix first-hand experience with abstract principles; completion of exercises or workbooks begins to anchor or “operationalize” a governing principle.

Common models and the insight sharing among peer practitioners speeds the refinement of a governing principle, driving a third learning loop toward knowledge maturity: learning how others learn and learning from others who are learning from you.

The continuing effort of a community of innovators and peer practitioners achieves a level of refinement or critical mass whereby an entirely new discipline emerges—a key and anticipated discontinuity in the Era of Trust Networks.

Information-Knowledge Turns Drive Knowledge Maturity
In the distribution industries, the number of times per year that a firm can sell and replenish its inventory—what many call inventory turns—can play a significant role in overall profitability.

The greater number of inventory turns not only increases the utilization of fixed assets and human resources, but faster inventory turns also minimize costs of capital (less borrowings) and the risk of holding obsolete goods that eventually must be sold at discount or written off entirely.

The stunning emergence of social networking (MySpace, YouTube, Classmates, Skype) demonstrates a principle that parallels the productivity and profitability of inventory turns from distribution industries. Namely, the Era of Trust Networks heaps handsome rewards on firms that can master and speed what we call information-knowledge turns—the practical application of new information to the refinement of a governing principle or best practice.

In turn, faster information-knowledge turns speed the emergence of knowledge maturity—in professional circles, what we know as communities of best practices and open-source insights.

Just as formally organized bodies of knowledge in mathematics or computer science provide “broad shoulders of giants” for successive generations to stand and reach higher, the Era of Trust Networks will provide a global platform by which to hyperaccelerate information-knowledge turns: discontinuities to the power of 10,000!