Theory from practice

When speaking at presentations, seminars and so, there’re usually two different approaches:

  • Look, this is what we’ve done
  • Let me explain to you why things happen

Depending on the audience, the speaker swings from the most practical point of view to the theoretical one or the contrary. In most cases, though, and this is my case, we tend to theorize, to go from concrete to global, to find the rule that moves the world, the key that will open any door. And I do it not because I am a great philosopher, but because I don’t want to bore my audience with details and, instead, I want to give them the essence of it all, the conclusions I got in my path of essay and error.

These last days we’ve been working together with my colleague Marc Ribó, expert in quality management, in the gathering of the history of the Campus for Peace. This morning he asked: “well, quite interesting the historic evolution of the Campus for Peace, it must have been exciting, hasn’t it?”

From this question, and from others people at seminars do, seems like everything was planned, that we once sat at the office and designed everything from the start. Well, I guess the answer to this is what spanish writer Carmen Martín Gaite once said:

“A ver si te crees que las cosas que te cuento esta noche con su dejillo de filosofía las sé porque las he leído en un libro, no hijo, ni hablar, antes de ser palabra han sido confusión y daño, y gracias a eso, a haber pasado tú tu infierno y yo el mío podemos entendernos esta noche; vivimos un lujo, el de poderlo contar”

Or:

“Don’t you dare think that the things I’m telling you tonight, with their philosophic air, I know them because I read them in a book, no my son, no way, before being word they’ve been confusion and harm, and thanks to this, thanks to you having gone through your hell and I through mine, we now can understand each other tonight: we live the invaluable chance of being able to explain it”

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If you need to cite this article in a formal way (i.e. for bibliographical purposes) I dare suggest:

Peña-López, I. (2004) “Theory from practice” In ICTlogy, #15, December 2004. Barcelona: ICTlogy.
Retrieved month dd, yyyy from https://ictlogy.net/review/?p=201

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