Ideograms

Not all images are worth one thousand words

But the ideograms are! They play a similar role in knowledge federation as mathematical formulas do in traditional science. An ideogram can condense a wealth of insights and many pages of text into an image whose message can be recognized at a glance. Recall the Newton's formula, or Einstein's ubiquitous E=mc² – those too are ideograms! But the possibilities behind the ideographic approach are endless, and they vastly surpass the conventional maths.

The creative possibilities of ideograms also surpass our illustrations – and are yet to be developed through creative use of new media.

A better way to be creative

Knowledge federation

By representing our civilization as a bus, and our handling of information as its candle headlights, the Modernity ideogram points to the essence of knowledge federation in a nutshell.

Imagine us all riding in a bus with candle headlights, through dark and uncharted terrain, at an accelerating speed. Think of the direction of the bus as determined by our large and small decisions, are likes and dislikes and our priorities. Think of the movement of this bus as our creative work, our capacity to induce change or to innovate... To be sustainable, posits the Modernity ideogram, our ideas about things, and our way into the future, must be suitably informed. The information we have, and the we way create it and use it, will not do the job. It evolved based on an entirely different technology, and for different society's needs. An entirely new approach to information is needed, which combines entirely new physical and engineering principles with new technology.

No sequence of improvements to a pair of candles will produce the light bulbs. We raise the banner on the creative frontier where the quest for this entirely new paradigm in knowledge work will take place, by given it the name knowledge federation. So think of knowledge federation as a socio-technical 'light bulb' of a completely new kind – which can fulfill this pivotal new role that information, and knowledge, now need to perform in our society. Think of it also as a new academic and more generally creative field, such as physics and architecture, that is needed to inform this development.

Systemic innovation

The Modernity ideogram has also another, more subtle and more general message. It points to a better way to use our creative capabilities in general.

The headlights are a tiny part of the bus. Their cost or value is negligible in comparison. And yet the