Max Henri Boisot (1943-2011)

Boisot (1943-2011)

Max Henri Boisot was born in 1943 and died in 2011 by cancer. Boisot attended Gordonstoun boarding school in Moray, Scotland. and later studied architecture at the University of Cambridge and city planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before taking his PhD in technology transfer at Imperial  College London.

He was a Professor of Strategic Management at the ESADE business school in Barcelona. known for his ideas about the information economy, the information space, social capital and social learning theory.

After working as a manager for construction firm Trafalgar House, in 1972 Boisot co-founded an architectural partnership, Boisot Waters Cohen, and from 1975 to 1978 acted as a consultant on projects in France and the Middle East. From 1983 to 1989, he was Director and Dean of China Europe Management Institute in Beijing China.

Afterwards Boisot was Professor of Strategic Management at the ESADE business school in Barcelona. Associate Fellow at Templeton College, University of Oxford, and Senior Associate at the Judge Institute of Management Studies at the University of Cambridge. He was also a research fellow at the Sol Snider Center, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

His book Knowledge Assets was awarded the Ansoff Prize for the best book on strategy in 2000. The I-Space framework which is central to his work is an acknowledged early influence on the development of the Cynefin framework.

I learned that his KM model is based on the key concept of an "information
 good“ that differs from a physical asset. Boisot distinguishes information from data by emphasizing that information is what an observer will extract from data as a function
of his or her expectations or prior knowledge. Boisot (1998) proposes the following two key points:  

The more easily data can be structured and converted into information, the more diffusible it becomes.

The less data that has been so structured requires a shared context  for its diffusion, the more diffusible it becomes (Dalkir, 2011, p.82). 

Boisot's model can be visualized as three dimensional cube with the following dimensions:

Ø  from uncodified to codified, 

Ø  from concrete to abstract,

Ø  from un-diffused to diffused.

He also proposes a Social Learning Cycle (SLC) that uses the I-Space to model the dynamic flow of knowledge through a series of six phases:

Ø  Scanning: insights are gained from generally available (diffused) data

Ø  Problem-Solving: problems are solved giving structure and coherence to these insights (knowledge becomes 'codified')

Ø  Abstraction: the newly codified insights are generalized to a wide range of situations (knowledge becomes more 'abstract')

Ø  Diffusion: the new insights are shared with a target population in a codified and abstract form (knowledge becomes 'diffused')

Ø  Absorption: the newly codified insights are applied to a variety of situations producing new learning experiences (knowledge is absorbed and produces learnt behavior and so becomes 'un-codified', or 'tacit')

Ø  Impacting: abstract knowledge becomes embedded in concrete practices, for example in artifacts, rules or behaviour pattern