Tacit Knowledge: A Conversation with Gary Klein

A Conversation with Gary Klein

Read this interesting interview by Daniel Kahneman at Edge.org with cognitive scientist Gary A. Klein. Dr. Klein is the author of Working Minds and many other works in the field of cognitive task analysis and naturalistic decision making.

Some References for “Architecture Ethics”

I am waiting to obtain some consensus from my IASA peers with regard to the course outline.  Until then, I will talk obliquely about the content as it seems to be shaping up.  For now, let me give you a list of some of the references I will include these below.  I will also include references to some of the other classics, like Aristotle, Plato, Kant, and Hume, but here are some interesting readings from modern times.

• Exit, Voice and Loyalty, Albert O. Hirschmann, 1970
• Human Scale Development (English), Manfred Max-Neef, 1991
• The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology, Robert Wright, 1994
• The Legal Analyst: A Toolkit for Thinking about the Law, Ward Farnsworth, 2007
• The Craftsman, Richard Sennett, 2008
• The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Steven Pinker, 2011

Danut Prisacaru’s new blog, “Why Philosophy?”

Danut Prisacaru has started a new blog, The Software Philosopher.  I look forward to hear more from, and to participate in this blog!

Architecture Ethics

I am now developing an online course on “Architecture Ethics” for IASA.  Currently, I have defined the course objectives as follows.  The target audience are information technology architects and architects-in-training, primarily in North America and Europe although I hope that Asian students will also find it informative.  (My recent experience in China has provided me with a number of good examples for all students.)

My current introduction:

What do Love Canal and Barclays have in common?  In these very public cases, improper ethical planning arguably encouraged opportunities for immoral action.  As a professional architect you are in a position of leadership and trust, and are responsible for the ethical implications of your decisions and the morality of your actions.  You are responsible for the ethical planning of your daily work and long term career including the proper selection of projects, the identification of collaborative environments that can enable or hinder success, avoiding moral risks to employer and customer, meeting the challenges of regulatory and legal frameworks, and even for the determination of proper compensation for your effort and risks.  This course will introduce you to concrete skills that will help you recognize potential ethical failures in the practice of computing-associated architecture, strategies to mitigate or otherwise compensate for those failures, and ultimately, simply put, how to architect well.

After completing this course, you will be able to:

• Identify some of your highest risk factors to project and career success, and strategies to counter them.
• Identify financial impacts of ethical decision making in architecture.
• Identify and communicate additional ethical considerations for your particular community, industry, employer, and job.
• Effectively communicate the value of professional architecture.
• Develop an ethical context, or “Collaborative Viewpoint” for your Architecture Description.
• Understand why the ethical context is the proper frame within which you should understand everything you do as a professional architect, and why IASA exists.

Target audience:

• Information technology architects, solution architects, and enterprise architects
• Students training for a career in computing-associated architecture
• Potential employers and clients of computing-associated architects