Oliver Ding: This is My 404th Post on Medium
A 4-year Journey of Knowledge Engagement, a Curated Mind, and 22 Possible Books
This is my 404th post on Medium! On April 25, 2013, I published my first post on Medium. My second post is titled Say Everything Again.
In 2009, Scott Rosenberg wrote a book titled Say Everything which covers the blogging revolution. Scott tells us the history of blogging and the stories of blogging heroes.
The social media landscape has changed tremendously in recent years. People said that blogging is dead just like the web is dead in 2011. A New York Times story says that blogging is on the decline, especially among young people, who are using social networks like Facebook instead.
I love blogging! However, I didn’t regularly write blog posts on Medium from 2013 to 2019.
In Sept 2019, I decided to launch my personal studio Creative Action Learning Lab (CALL) on Medium. This decision led to a 4-year journey of knowledge engagement.
In the past 4 years, I wrote about 400 posts on Medium and hosted 3 knowledge centers by using Medium Publications. I also curated my posts into about 22 possible books.
This is a fantastic journey! I’d like to use this post to reflect on the journey and celebrate a milestone!
A 4-year Journey of Knowledge Engagement
CALL stands for Creative Action Learning Lab. I started it as a digital garage on Medium in Oct 2019. Each year, I wrote an annual review of CALL in October.
- CALL: 2019–2020 (The House of Boundary Innovation)
- CALL: 2020–2021 (The Knowledge Curation Studio)
- CALL: 2021–2022 (Opportunity and Creative Life)
- CALL: 2022–2023 (Creativity, Opportunity, and Possible Practice)
In 2019, I started this publication on Medium as a personal journey: building a learning community about action design, action study, and action theory. The primary theme of CALL was Action-based Creativity in its early stage.
In 2020, I started the Knowledge Curation project with the goal of connecting THEORY and PRACTICE. The first project was about Activity Theory. In Oct 2020, I changed the slogan of CALL to the House of boundary innovation.
In 2021, CALL became a knowledge curation studio. which produces a set of knowledge frameworks and builds an ecology of ideas. I also wrote seven books which are drafts. In addition, I worked on four independent research projects in order to test concepts and frameworks.
In 2022, I used a new approach to manage my knowledge enterprise. In June 2022, Curativity Center was launched as a meta-center for managing a network of knowledge centers. On July 12, 2022, CALL returned to its original vision: Creative Action. As a knowledge center, it focuses on developing the Ecological Practice approach.
On Oct 18, 2022, I closed the Knowledge Curation project (phase 1) and started working on the Life Curation project (phase 1). On Dec 29, 2022, I closed the Life Curation project with four possible books about Creative Life.
In 2023, my major annual themes are Thematic Engagement and Value Circle. On Jan 1, 2023, I launched TALE (Thematic Analysis Learning Engagement) as a new knowledge center in order to host the Thematic Engagement project. In April 2023, I finished the draft of Knowledge Engagement: Knowledge Center and Creative Life Theory.
I selected ten articles to highlight some milestones of the journey:
- Sept 19, 2019 — The Born Of #Call And Its Logo
- June 26, 2020 — HERO U — A New Framework for Knowledge Heroes
- May 25, 2021 — Personal Innovation as Career-fit
- June 30, 2021 — The ECHO Way (v2.0)
- May 6, 2022 — CALL: How to Grow A Knowledge Enterprise
- June 2, 2022 — CALL: The Launch Day of Curativity Center
- Sept 5, 2022 — Slow Cognition: Mapping Thematic Landscape (Curativity, 2019–2022)
- Dec 31, 2022 — Appropriating Activity Theory
- April 19, 2023 — A New Possible Book: Knowledge Engagement
- August 10, 2023 — Engaging with Lui’s Theoretical Sociology
In addition to writing articles on Medium and hosting three knowledge centers (via Publications) on Medium, I also used Miro to draw diagrams. Miranote was also used to set digital boards for some knowledge centers and knowledge projects. Some documents were hosted on Coda.
Moreover, I also set up an independent website for Activity Analysis Center.
A Curated Mind: Metaphor, Framework, and Theory
My primary creative theme is Curativity which means turning pieces into a meaningful whole.
I have worked in the curation field for over ten years. I was the Chief Information Architect of BagTheWeb.com which was an early tool for content curation (We launched the site in 2010). This experience inspired me to make a long-term commitment to the Curation theme. After having 10 years of various curation-related practical work experience and theory learning, I coined a term called Curativity and developed Curativity Theory.
The core idea of Curativity Theory is very simple:
In order to effectively curate pieces into a meaningful whole, we need Container as part to contain pieces and shape them.
The theory built a brand new ontology called “Whole, Piece and Part” and adopted James Gibson’s “Affordance”, George Lakoff’s “Container” and Donald Schön’s “Reflection” as epistemological tools. To test the theory, I wrote several case studies, and one of them is titled Knowledge Curation.
In 2019, I wrote a book titled Curativity: The Ecological Approach to General Curation Practice. In 2020, I started the Knowledge Curation project. In 2022, I started the Life Curation project.
As a knowledge curator, I like to adopt various frames to curate my knowledge enterprises.
Inspired by Howard E. Gruber’s Evolving Systems Approach to the Study of Creative Work (1974,1989), I used his idea “Network of Enterprise” to manage my creative work from 2020 to 2021. I sorted my frameworks into seven enterprises. Each enterprise has a short nickname.
- CALL for ECHO → Boundary Innovation
- CALL for LIFE → Creative Life
- CALL for NICE → Creative Action
- CALL for NEST → Part — Whole
- CALL for DEEP → Supportive Development
- CALL for NEXT → Present — Future
- CALL for META → Meta-knowledge
Each enterprise has its primary theme. Each theme refers to a core framework and a set of related concepts, diagrams, and sub-frameworks.
In order to visualize this complicated network of ideas, I used Big Dipper as a metaphor to design the following diagram. You can find more details in CALL: Annual Review (2020–2021).
In 2022, I developed a model for Building Knowledge Enterprise Activity and applied it to manage my knowledge enterprises. The model was inspired by Project-oriented Activity Theory. Each phase refers to a focus.
The above diagram also mentions three knowledge frameworks I am working on:
Each knowledge framework could be adapted to support one phase of the Building Knowledge Enterprise (BKE) Activity. You can find more details in CALL: How to Grow A Knowledge Enterprise.
In 2023, I finally developed a theory called Creative Life Theory (v2.0) which can be seen as a new social theory for understanding knowledge creators’ life course. Inspired by theoretical sociologist Ping-keung Lui’s subjectivist structuralism as a meta-framework to curate several knowledge frameworks about Creative Life.
The diagram below is a symbol of the Creative Life Theory (v2.0). The Square refers to the World of Activity for Knowledge Engagement. The Circle refers to “Knowledge Center” which is the container of Knowledge Engagement. Finally, the Sandglass refers to the S-T-O Tendency.
I use the S-T-O Tendency to highlight three keywords of the Creative Life Curation framework:
- Subjectification: turning the world into a person’s experience
- Crystallize Thematically: discovering a match between individual life themes and collective cultural themes.
- Objectification: turning the person’s experience into artifacts for the world
You can find more details about Creative Life Theory (v2.0) in A New Possible Book: Knowledge Engagement, Knowledge Engagement: The Creative Course Framework, Knowledge Engagement: The Expanded Creative Course Framework, and Slow Cognition: The Creative Life Curation Framework.
22 Possible Books
From 2019 to the present, I have written and edited 22 possible books. Most of these books are based on my posts on Medium.
You can find the summary from #1 to #12 in Meet with Oliver Ding: 1 Mission, 4 Theories, and 12 Possible Books.
- 1. Curativity Theory: The Ecological Approach to General Curation Practice (2019)
- 2. After Affordance: The Ecological Approach to Human Action (2020)
- 3. Activity U: How to Think and Act Like an Activity Theorist (2020)
- 4. Project-oriented Activity Theory (2021)
- 5. Platform for Development: The Ecology of Adult Development in the 21st Century (2021)
- 6. The ECHO Way: Echozone and Boundary Knowledge Work (2021)
- 7. Themes of Practice: The Information Architecture of Social Life (2021)
- 8. Career Curation: Curativity Theory for Personal Innovation (2021)
- 9. Diagram Blending: Building Diagram Networks (2021)
- 10. Diagramming as Practice: An Integrated Framework for Studying Knowledge Diagrams (2021)
- 11. Ecological Practice Design: The Lifesystem Approach to Everyday Life Innovation (2022)
- 12. Knowledge Discovery: Developing Tacit Knowledge with Thematic Space Canvas (2022)
- 13. Life Discovery: The Life-as-Project Approach (2022)
- 14. Project Engagement: Life, History, and Multiverse (2022)
- 15. Knowledge Curation: Turning Pieces into A Meaningful Whole (2022)
- 16. Creative Life Curation: Turning Experiences into Meaningful Achievements (2022)
- 17. Advanced Life Strategy: Anticipatory Activity System and Life Achievements (2022)
- 18. Appropriating Activity Theory: A Journey of Knowledge Engagement (2022)
- 19. Perspectives on Product Engagement — v1.0 (2023)
- 20. Knowledge Engagement: Knowledge Center and Creative Life Theory (2023)
- 21. Thematic Exploration: The Early Discovery of Knowledge Engagement (2023)
- 22. Mental Moves: The Attachance Approach to Ecological Creative Cognition (2023)
You can bookmark my profile on Twitter to notice the newest possible book.
2019: 1 Possible Book
2020: 2 Possible Books
2021: 7 Possible Books
2022: 8 Possible Books
2023-present: 4 Possible Books
Digital Knowledge Boards
I also published several knowledge boards on Milanote in order to take Digital Space Affordances for sharing my visual knowledge creations.
- Curativity Center
- D as Diagramming
- Oliver Ding: The Activity U Project (2020–2022)
- The Deep Analogy Board — Activity Theory (April 22, 2022)
- The Mandala Challenge
- The Mental Moves Board
- The TALE Board (2023)
- The ECHO Trip (Oliver Ding, July 11, 2023)
Seven Knowledge Centers
As mentioned above, I also manage a network of knowledge centers. The following three knowledge centers are hosted on Medium.
- CALL (Creative Action Learning Lab): The Ecological Practice Approach
- Curativity Center: Curativity Theory
- TALE (Thematic Analysis Learning Engagement): The Thematic Engagement Project
You can find other knowledge centers in the following links:
- Activity Analysis Center: Activity Theory and the Project Engagement Approach,
- Life Strategy Center: Life Strategy and the Anticipatory Activity System framework
- Platform Ecology Center: The Platform Ecology project
- ARCH Center: The ARCH framework
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliverding/recent-activity/all/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OliverDing
Email: Swordi at Gmail dot com
