Knowledge Management and the curse/blessing of ambiguity

Ambiguityis my friend.  I live there as we all do.  The gift is knowing that ambiguity is your friend.  Certainty gets you just that … certainty … or disappointment when the certainty turns out to be ambiguous.

Mediations are the kind of conversations that rely on ambiguity and in fact as a mediator it is my job to create an ambiguous past, present and future that can be reconstructed as positive.  Doubts, questions and information are my friend.

Ambiguity is also my friend as I write.  Not knowing is liberating what you don’t can bring confidence to the writer.  Knowing what you don’t know brings curiousity.  Knowing what you know brings the courage to say it so it can be tested and you can learn as others contribute to your knowing.

Ambiguity is not to be confused with ambivalence.  Ambivalence has a tone of disinterest whereas ambiguity is more about living comfortably in a place of not knowing.  For me it is comfortable.  For others it is madness to be comfortable not knowing.  For me it is opportunity and anticipation and for others it is unsafe and unnecessarily risky.

Ambiguity is my friend and so when I am asked what I know for sure I am confident with a response like “nothing”  or “42”  for you Douglas Adams fans.