Information Processing from a Philosophical Perspective

The Information Philosophy approach and its background

Introduction

Although there is a high degree of individual freedom in the way information is processed, true understanding or effective participation can only be accomplished if people are aware of, and respect the expectations of others. Consequently, these expectations for interaction or non-interaction are strongly coded in every society

or business culture.

Culturon: The Information Philosophy approach

Culturon consulting offers visualization of the cultural communication coding and implementation of its related expectations in daily business practice. As a result the effectiveness of communication is improved and miscommunication avoided or better understood.

Its approach is based on a self-developed Information Philosophy mapping system which analyzes information processing from a cultural and philosophical perspective. This clearly defines the information processes and the resulting general drives and expectations of people.

The result of the mapping system is a description of all options for individual information processing and of the actual balance or relationship between the options as they are used in a specific cultural or business environment.

By identifying both the current balance and the communication potential, goals can be set and targets accomplished.

Application area

The model analyzes rational, emotional and spiritual information processing. It means that from an information processing perspective, the (inter)relation between rational, emotional and spiritual cultural dimensions is mapped.

This approach is universal, meaning that it can be equally used for single-culture description, for cross-cultural comparison and for intercultural communication analysis.

In a single-cultural environment the balance and unbalance between the cultural dimensions is shown; visualizing potential internal communication deficits. Cross-cultural mapping can be done by comparing the single-cultural visualizations. Finally the model clearly defines communication compatibility and incompatibility for intercultural communication processes.

Trans-cultural experience, Methodology

Although the foundation of the work is based on employment with The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) in information science between 1979 and 1987, the Culturon approach

is unconventional.

A career as pioneer in areas like interactive television and cross-media communication rather required experience based exploration skills than academic ones.

This extensive practical experience combined with a trans-cultural working environment, have been the basis for developing the Information Philosophy cultural mapping system.

The methodology used for generating maps is personal observation and analysis. The advantage of such an approach is that rapidly a dynamic picture of the momentary situation is obtained. For quality control purposes this information is constantly exchanged with people having a sound scientific background in the subject areas covered.

Origin

Information Philosophy mapping is a result of more than twenty years of contemplation. A process that started with a two-year world trip in 1988 and 1989, visiting (among other countries) Japan, the Soviet Union and the United States.

After returning to a professional career in pioneering new media, the question remained what had been experienced, what had been learned or understood from the two years of intensive participation in different cultural environments.

Over time a blurred picture of similarities and differences between the countries that had been visited appeared; a picture that was written down as a number of sketches. From these sketches a first map of society expectations was derived.

A second sabbatical period in 1998 and 1999 was used to evaluate this map and to collect more material by revisiting some of the previously experienced countries.

Further development over the past nine years, has finally led to completion of the mapping system in 2008 and to defining a full set of potential information processes, which in principle cover the entire spectrum of individual and cultural interaction.

Summary

Culturon offers consulting on cultural communication coding and on implementing cultural expectations in daily business practice.

Consulting is based on a self-developed Information Philosophy cultural mapping system.

The Information Philosophy mapping approach is universal, meaning that it can be equally used for single-culture description, for cross-cultural comparison and for intercultural communication analysis.

By identifying both the current cultural balance and the communication potential, goals can be set and targets accomplished.