Stephen Downes Quotes

In order to be successful, "Command and control corporations are no longer going to be there. People need to be freed to share what they know." It is through this rapid sharing and response to dynamic and changing circumstances that decentralized and locally managed systems are able to adapt and achieve excellence. Management for outcome does not make the outcome more likely; it makes it less likely.

Theory scales precisely because it is abstract. But abstraction comes at a price: a lack of precision. And in a lot of things, precision matters. Theory doesn’t apply, except at the grossest levels.