While nearly hypnotizing myself with a steady, turkey ingesting rhythm, I listened intently to the knowledge and wisdom of my Father. Over the years as I've had to make my own way in the "real world," I've come to wish for a time machine to be able to return to my insolent youth so that I could have listened more intently, with a lot more respect to his stories and guidance. Certainly there is an emotional and biased component to my reverence of the information and perspective he has; but, there are clearly things my Dad has learned from his travels, family history, work experiences, and personal chutzpah that could fill more than a few tomes. From his birth in pre-partition India, to coming to The United States with only a one-way plane ticket, to his love for the World Wrestling Federation, my Dad can effortlessly entertain with rapid-fire context switches from his memory bank. He definitely has both the gift of gab as well as lateral thought...
The thing is, when you remove the emotional context of Dad-as-hero, what shines through at the core, is the vast power of human experiential knowledge. In my opinion this is one of the most fascinating parts of humanity: the stories, the information that you did not have prior to a conversation, the 'light' that goes off in organic exchanges, the utter amazement at the decisions, circumstances, and choices that others make to bring them to where they are ...
In no small measure, this experiential knowledge is an inspiration for Oyogi. My professor at The University of Virginia, Adelaide Wilcox King, exposed us to concepts around Knowledge Management and the 'stuff' in people's brains that are not in the 'whoops, we need an answer handbook ...The "stuff" that does not get written down. Its the information in people's brains that they take for granted and is only exposed when they're called upon to answer a question, engage in conversation, solve a problem, or another similar organic exchange. We feel there is tremendous power and magic in this information because much of it is not easily duplicated, chronicled, or utilized by others ...
So, in some measure, we hope that Oyogi can be a useful tool to aid in capturing these pearls of information, this 'table wisdom.'. We are honored that you're assisting us in this endeavor, and we believe that with your help, we might just get it right ...
Happy Thanksgiving
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