More from New Challenges… Dan Brown leverages Lakoff’s ideas on the central and exceptional elements of concepts in categorization to question how we design computer systems. We’ve built a lot of exception handling into systems to the point where we take some actions for granted, where computers are enforcing rules that perhaps people should (or shouldn’t).
He ends by asking if we should go back to how we understand businesses and design applications that follow that understanding. “…alternate conceptions of business may lead to other foundations for content management. What if business is a factory? A family? An army? A conversation?”