Abstract
I would like to make a few observations about the role of practice, knowing and words within innovation, and why evaluation needs to be understood as an equally essential part of it. I contend that knowledge cannot be shared, but knowing can be made sharable. Innovation is in part a matter of how organizations help make knowing sharable. The meaning of a word cannot be shared, but meaningful practice using that word can be made sharable. Making meaning sharable means making a word a tool of effective organizational practice. Within an organizational culture, words have the function of linking what we know with those things that they represent within organizational practice. That is, words need to have a particular sharable meaning within an organization's culture. Accordingly, this on-going dynamic push and pull of making meaning sharable within an organizational culture is a significant resource for innovation. Finally, a better understanding of practice, knowing, and words as tools of an organizational culture is vitally important if we are to learn to innovate more effectively. But this alone cannot assure that we will innovate responsibly. If we are to avoid simply becoming more efficient at producing poorer quality things in increasingly irresponsible ways, we need to make evaluation part of innovation. Evaluation by its nature can be a tool of innovation—and it is the only tool that can enable us to assess whether our practices, the contexts that afford them, and the aims that they serve are not only effective but also responsible.
