M P Ranjan,
This sounds like an extremely impressive body of work and I have
placed an order for the publication you mention.
My questions obviously struck a chord and you speak directly to the
complexity of the issues involved. BTW, the complexity is not unique
to development communication, though the scale with which you deal
with these in India is unique. This places you in a position to
provide strong leadership in this work.
Your comment on systems thinking lend support to my unease with its
application in the social domain, though it obviously has made a
major contribution in systems engineering
I came to semiotics through a different route but, again, I took a
different tack on that. My book, 'In search of semiotics' is one of
the first publications in which I developed the 'logic of positions'.
It is also a critique of semiotics (BTW the irony in the title goes
unnoticed by many semioticians--a humourless lot!)
Most importantly you say:
> We can recognise from this that design at this level is a very
> political activity but to master it would need many new skills and
> frameworks for understanding of its operation as a professional in
> the service of a client.
This goes to the heart of what I want to argue is missing. If you
look at a summary of our own case histories, http://
www.communication.org.au/cria_publications/
publication_id_33_1312654719.html
you will see that we estimate this 'political' work accounts for
approximately 50% of the effort in design projects. We also suggest
that it is the greatest source of risk to the failure of a design
project. Yet it is the area about which we are (at least on this
list) most silent. A curious elision.
David
--
blog: www.communication.org.au/dsblog
web: http://www.communication.org.au
Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
CEO • Communication Research Institute •
• helping people communicate with people •
Mobile: +61 (0)412 356 795
Phone: +61 (0)3 9489 8640
60 Park Street • Fitzroy North • Melbourne • Australia • 3068
|