the porous city

Bureaucracy as high-context culture
Reading about how information architecture work is culturally specific led me to Edward Hall's Beyond Culture. Low-context = your typical Protestant, straight square rigid culture, explicit and rule-based. High-context = relationship-based, rules as guidelines, the connection more important than the part. Half of all travel writing describes the comical mishaps that result from a low-context culture individual visiting a country with a high-context culture.

Anyway, this struck me because I've been working in a large, relatively old bureaucracy for the last couple months, and the high-context culture description fits it well (although in other ways these people have nothing in common with, say, Italians.) The organization acts as a web more than a set of silos, and it's very difficult to pin down responsibility anywhere. People have evolved working styles tied to specific relationships, and as you can imagine the whole mess is very difficult to change.


last modified: 09:42:05 15-Nov-2006
in categories:Commerce/Managementconsulting, Design/IA, Science/Psychology, People/Workingwith

Comment

name*

email

homepage

No html.

what's the second letter of your name?

This is Lukas Bergstrom's weblog. You can also find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Tech
Javascript, Net, Visual, Android, Data, PIM, Hardware, Energy, Shopping, a11y, MacOS, Collaboration, RSS, barcamp, OS, Security, Wearables, Open, AI, Crowdsourcing, Medical, s60, Social, Business, Mobile, Product Management, Development, Web analytics, Web, Audio, Automobile, WRX, Storage

Other
Personal care, Friday, Activism, Sports, Travel, Law, Housing, Bicycling, Transportation, San Francisco, California, Video, Clothes, Surfing, Quizzes, Toys, Politik, Life hacks, History, Minnesota, Podcasts, Boston, Geography, Games, Berlin, L.A., Feminism, Food & Drink, CrowdFlower, NYC, Agriculture, Statistics

Music
Boston, History, Labels, Mp3s, Booking, Business, Videos, Hip-hop, Making, Streams, Lyrics, Mixes, Events, Musicians, Shopping, Reviews, Good tracks, Mailing lists, L.A., House

People
Meditation, Health, Enemies, Buddhism, Heroes, Family, Weblogs, Friends, Exercise, MOTAS, Me, Vocations, Subcultures, Languages, ADD, Stories, Working with, Life hacks, Gossip

Commerce
Non-profit, IP Law, Macroeconomics, Personal finance, Investing, Marketing and CRM, Personal services, Real Estate, Management consulting, Taxes, International Development, Insurance, Shopping, Microfinance, Web

Arts
Visual, Outlets, Events, Humor, Movies, Literature, Poetry, Spoken Word, Comix, Desktop wallpaper bait, Burning Man, iPad bait, Animation, Rhetoric, Sculpture

Design
Cool, Tools, Presentations, Web, Data visualization, Furniture, Architecture, User experience, Type, IA, Process, Algorithmic

Science
Psychology, Zoology, Statistics and Data, Networks, Physics, Cognition, Environment

Travel
Vagabond '08, Kenya, Kingdom of Siam, Uganda

Photos
Photos I Wish I'd Taken, Moblog, Friends

Philosophy
Mind

One Acre Fund

Mathematics

Internet classic

Subscribe to this site's rss feed