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they might be discarded or might not attract the attention of the analyst immediately.
You have to screen in such a way so that when you have such information, you have to
aggregate it with other information in order to select the alarms that you have to put on
the desk of the analyst. The burden of the analyst is to find the right information on the
computer in this mass of information. Some things must be done by the system; others
by human beings. Training in understanding and becoming specialised in the mentality
of the opponent is so very important; in such a way an additional human screen can be
made to reach reports.
Amaral
: Let me give you just one or two hints regarding tacit knowledge
development. Yes, I have to be specialized in my opponent's thinking. I think that
everybody knows how to drive. The driving experience is complicated, but it is tacit. It
takes at least one hundred hours to learn. Now, in Portugal we drive on the right side, in
England they drive on the wrong side. I may think that by driving in Portugal on the right
side I understand what happens in England when they drive on the left. But this is not
true and the problem is time. Why? Tacit knowledge is difficult to learn but requires
very low levels of energy to be activated and this is of paramount importance. Because
this low level energy has to do with our survival that is why humankind developed tacit
knowledge in the first place. Just to give you an example; if I see something that reminds
me of a snake, my tacit knowledge makes me immediately frightened and then I realise
that it is only a stick and not a snake. So explicit knowledge gave me the understanding
that it was a stick and not a snake. If it was the other way around, if it was a snake and I
thought it was only a stick, I could die as it is a much more dangerous situation. Why?
Because of time. I do not have the time to think. I have to be warned immediately, that
is how tacit knowledge develops. That is why it is so difficult to learn how to drive.
Because to drive you have to do things that are much faster than you think. That is also
how it is so difficult to learn to play the piano. If playing the piano was easy, I would
read the notes and play immediately using explicit knowledge; but explicit knowledge is
slow and requires huge amounts of energy. And if you start to think in the middle of the
snake situation, you just die.
Now, what happens to one person happens to a group of persons. If the group of
persons has to react immediately, in order to survive, it has to be tacit. They do not have
time to think. For example, in an enterprise, there could be a huge problem and the
enterprise has to react. If it is done explicitly, we then have a large meeting, with three
days in a hotel, discussing and in the end perhaps making a decision. Everyday I see
these things happening in enterprises. Huge amounts of energy, huge images,
abstractions, and in the end of course, decisions, but it all takes time. If the decision has
to be online, you do not have the time. Three days for the financial sector, for example, is
simply not possible. You have immediately, in one minute to take action and take a
decision, so it requires low levels of energy, no meetings, no communication,
immediately achieved in collaboration.
Now, I know how to drive in Portugal. I think I know how to drive in England, but
send me to England, put me in a race in the streets with other people and I will have an
accident five minutes afterwards. I will have an accident because I think explicitly that I
understand my opponent, but if I am going to war with them, if I am not trained, I will
fail. So I need to be trained, I need to acquire this tacit knowledge and these low levels of
energy. Now the English drive like this, but will tomorrow be the same as today? Will
the terrorists of tomorrow think the same as I think they think today? The answer is no,
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