Dave Snowden offers a longish explanation of the use of the name 'cynefin' to describe his framework. The framework, which describes and relates complex, comblicated, chaotic and simple systems, forms the basis for his approach to knowledge management. The term is Welsh in origin, and "with no direct equivalent in English. As a noun it is translated as habitat, as an adjective familiar, but dictionary definitions fail to do it justice." Now I'm the last person to demand definitions of terms, and I love metaphor as much as anyone, but I don't think having "poetry in your heart" rescues this term. But as Snowden deserves a proper response, which I haven't time to craft at the moment, I'll give him the last word: "You probably do have to have poetry in your soul to understand it, along with a realisation that names are not the same thing as a definitions. It doesn't obscure, it makes you think, challenges literal definitions and allows deeper meaning to emerge."
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