The Illness of Forgetting, Shared Memory, and the Space Between
- Ido Namir
- May 1, 2003
- 3 min read
In the summer of 2001, the thriller film Memento was released in theaters. The producers promised an innovative film unlike any seen before. They indeed delivered a philosophical film about the tricks of the human mind, which surprisingly provides us, knowledge managers and consumers, with a new and fascinating perspective on the nature of collective memory.
The film tells the story of Leonard, a young man who is unable to create new memories. Leonard suffers from what is called Anterograde Amnesia, a condition that prevents the possibility of adding new details to the existing memory repository. Everything learned is forgotten within minutes. Everything.
Leonard lost his memory following a violent attack in which he was injured and his wife died, and his sole desire is to take revenge on the attacker. To achieve his goal as someone who cannot create new memories, he must develop a method to help him recall them. He writes himself notes, photographs people, draws connections between the pictures, and tattoos condensed new facts on his body that will help him in his mission.
So far, the story of the film. So, what is the connection between Christopher Nolan's excellent film and our matter?
Suppose we draw an analogy between the film's protagonist and any organization. In that case, we can conduct a comprehensive and deep discussion on the nature of private memory and connect this to the collective memory of organizations.
An organization that is not equipped with the appropriate methodology and technology is essentially equivalent to the film's protagonist, who suffers from a disease that prevents him from accumulating new memories. Similarly, an organization that cannot add new memories to its collective memory is a static organization without the ability to develop and strengthen itself.
The question regarding which mechanism is damaged in the phenomenon described in the film is interesting in itself - is it the encoding, storage, or retrieval? In any case, it is clear that, like the film's protagonist, organizations also need to utilize appropriate tools that enable them to absorb new information, categorize it in the correct place, and create connections to all organizational knowledge, ultimately retrieving it when needed intuitively.
This point is a central point in the discussion. Both Leonard in the film and organizations can derive information logically at a point in time. However, over time, information changes due to different circumstances, and Leonard and the organization are unable to integrate the accumulated knowledge in the process of concluding - Leonard due to his illness and the organization due to the multiplicity of information sources, contents, contexts, and data.
To find the relevant information item (such as a contact person, supplier, or customer), use intuitive navigation to connect different information items. This can be achieved with the help of a system that supports linking information items intuitively, accompanied by an appropriate methodology. Such an associative navigation system must "interface" with all organizational systems to link different information items (emails, documents, data from customer cards, etc.), and also allow users additional tools for knowledge enrichment by adding the personal knowledge and experience of every employee.
Working in this way enables an employee in the organization to locate information they need intuitively, even if they didn't remember (or never knew it).
The film's protagonist succeeded in assembling the puzzle of connections between the characters he was in contact with, as well as the connections between the different characters, only by looking at the web of his notes. Similarly, the learning organization will be able to analyze collective memory by building a web of connections between different information items and combinations into a complete puzzle in which one can navigate both logically and associatively.
In addition, employee turnover, employee transfers, and other factors can lead to the same phenomenon that the protagonist of the film Memento suffers from - the organization immediately loses its memory and is required to develop new ones, resulting in enormous financial losses, inefficiency, and poor service to both internal and external customers.
Only implementing a system that manages knowledge objects and, more importantly, manages information about the connections between objects will enable the organization to absorb, store, and intuitively retrieve collective memory when needed.
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