Relevance paradox

The relevance paradox occurs where individual professionals or a group of professionals are unaware of certain essential information which would guide them to make better decisions, and help them avoid inevitable, unintended and undesirable consequences. These "professionals" will seek only the information and advice they believe is the bare minimum amount required as opposed to what they actually needed to fully meet their own or the organization's goals. (It should be observed that it is not a true paradox.)

For example; civil engineers from the 1950s onwards unwittingly caused a massive increase in the debilitating water borne infection schistosomiasis (Bilharzia) for locals as a result of irrigation schemes that lacked simple low cost counter-measures built in, simply because they had no knowledge of these counter-measures. A decade later the UN publishes guidelines explaining these cheap counter measures and how they should be necessary to built-in to the structures of the irrigation schemes.

The civil engineers were victims of the relevance paradox because they only thought they need to know about concrete, water flows, etc. and not how to restrict velocities to prevent the snail species which carried the disease from multiplying.

Charnock, Anne (1980) Taking Bilharziasis out of the irrigation equation. New Civil Engineer, 7 August. Bilharzia caused by poor civil engineering design due to ignorance of cause and prevention.

Other examples include the NASA engineers who having spent a fortune on unsuccessfully developing the complex sliding and articulating inside knee joint needed for space suits eventually went to the Tower of London and ruefully copied the armour of Henry the Eighth with just such a joint – stating “we wish we had known about this earlier!”

(See 8b. Andrews, D. (1986) Information routing groups – Towards the global superbrain: or how to find out what you need to know rather than what you think you need to know, Journal of Information Technology, 1, 1, Feb, 22-35. Page 28 references communication from Keeper of Royal Armouries on this point.

The relevance paradox can and usually does apply to all professional groups and individuals in numerous ways.

The notions of IRGs or Information Routing Groups and Interlock research are designed to counter this paradox by the promotion of lateral communication and the flow of Tacit knowledge.

ee also

*Hierarchical incompetence
*Law of unintended consequences

References:

1a. Many of the references listed below are on: http://lateralaccessnetworks.wikispaces.com/

1. "Beyond Mass Media" Brian Martin.Science, Technology and SocietyUniversity of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia. General discussion of the IRG concept(http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/95metro.html).

2. The Power Of Open Participatory Media And Why Mass Media Must Be Abandoned. Brian Martin, March 20, 2006. General discussion of the IRG concepthttp://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/03/20/the_power_of_open_participatory.htm

3. The IRG Solution - Hierarchical Incompetence and how to overcome it. David Andrews. Souvenir Press, London, 1984. Pages 200 - 220. ISBN 0-285-62662-0. Detailed description of the proposal.

4. The Hidden Manager Communication technology and information networks in business organizations. Taylor Graham Cambridge / Los Angeles,1986. David Andrews and John Kent. Much tighter description of IRG concept and its application to business management. ISBN 0-947568-15-8, 198 6 http://www.taylorgraham.com/books/hidmancon.html

4a. Mogens Niss Professor of Mathematics and Mathematics Education IMFUFA, Roskilde University, Denmark "Om folkeskolelaereruddanelsen i det vigtige fag matematik" in Peter Bollerslev (ed.): "Den ny matematik i Danmark - en essaysamling", Copenhagen, Gyldendal, 1979, pp107-122. The relevance paradox is defined on p. 111.

5. Niss, M. (1994) Mathematics in Society. In Biehler, R., Scholz, R. W., Straesser, R., Winkelmann, B. Eds. (1994) The Didactics of Mathematics as a Scientific Discipline. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 367-378. Relevance paradox

6. Energy Research Group, Open University. Communication Within the Agriculture, Water, Waste and Energy Industries. Discussed examples of how the industries mentioned can be integrated to a greater or lesser degree, leading to lower pollution and energy use. Discussed the need for IRGs and how they might be organized. Emphasizes problem is lack of co-ordination and lateral communication between organisations. Describes interlock research in detail, the relevance paradox and the Bilharzia/schistosomiasis issue, central media, lateral diffusion, tacit knowledge, and Lateral Access Networks, later renamed Information Routing Groups, development of private languages as a barrier to inter communication, also describes how computers can be used to speed up lateral communication, and lateral referral . DC Andrews. ERG 033. Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, England 1980.

6. "The Importance of Knowing the Right People" (Article based on ERG 033 on Lateral Access Networks - the forerunner of Information Routing Groups). Printed in the Guardian Newspaper, London (The National Newspaper) March 20th 1980. Discussed Bilharzia / schistosomiasis relevance paradox.

8. Energy Research Group, Open University . Information Routing Groups. DC Andrews. ERG 037. Generalisation of ERG 033, advocated development of software and automatic phone answering modem to link up private PCs effectively creating an Internet. Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, England 1980. David Andrews

8a Library Association Record to a seminar run jointly by IEE and the LA on 'Biblionic man', held at the IEE on 26 November 1980. Covered same ground as ERG 033 and ERG 037.

8b. Andrews, D. (1986) Information routeing groups – Towards the global superbrain: or how to find out what you need to know rather than what you think you need to know, Journal of Information Technology, 1, 1, Feb, 22-35. details of lateral referral, diffusion.

9. Yewlett, J . L . Town Planning, Wales, Institute. of Science & Technology . "Networks : Developments in theory & practice" .The paper reviews developments in the U .S .A. & U .K . in recent years, progressing beyond network analysis to explore the structure & use of networks. The paper seeks to address questions of how to construct multi-actor policy structures, & build networks for particular purposes. Contributory concepts explored included the 'Reticulist', the 'Leader/Co- ordinator', the 'Segmented Polycephalous Network' & the 'Information Routing Group'inCONNECTIONSSunbelt Social Network ConferenceWorld Congress of SociologyAmerican Sociological AssociationVOLUME IXNUMBERS 2-3Winter, 1986http://www.insna.org/Connections-Web/Volume09/connections1986_IX-2-3.pdf

10. ( see Charnock, Anne (1980) Taking Bilharziasis out of the irrigation equation. New Civil Engineer, 7 August) Bilharzia caused by poor civil engineering design.

11. Social Networks Meet News Aggregation And Filtering: Information Routing Groupshttp://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/10/02/social_networks_meet_news_aggregation.htm