title: Kafka, New Orleans, the OARs and the KT boundary: reverse the flow of Kafka's fable of the Imperial Message and you have the problem of Knowledge Transfer--the message is not getting through.
abstract: The dying emperor in Kafka's tale has sent you a message of great importance, entrusted to his strongest herald. But the throne room, the palace, the city are so huge and so crowded with people that the message can never reach you. Reverse the tale and you have the problem of Knowledge Transfer (KT)--brutally illustrated by the fate of New Orleans. Important information, of unquestioned validity, soundly based in research and easy to understand, simply does not get through to practice. A recent evaluation of the Ottawa Ankle Rules makes the point all too clearly. Indeed, the KT problem is worse than Kafka's. Economically motivated people and organizations actively distort the messages--and try to trip the herald--while grossly oversimplified frameworks of understanding include no language in which the messages can be expressed. "More research" is not the answer.
authors.affiliation: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC.
authors.forename: Robert G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Evans