Ambient awareness is the sister of Blitzkrieg
http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/808620513/ambient-awareness-is-the-sister-of-blitzkrieg

“Although numerous definitions of SA have been proposed, Endsley’s definition (1995b), “the perception of elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future,” is firmly established and widely accepted. While some definitions are specific to the environment from which they were adapted, Endsley’s definition is applicable across multiple task domains.”

but I particularly like:

“what you need to know not to be surprised” (Jeannot, Kelly, & Thompson, 2003)”

I read your post and Jim’s post is excellent…I left a giant comment, but waiting for him to moderate it. I linked to a past post about leaving behind your character http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2008/06/11/communities-have-character-and-personality

Yes situational awareness seems even more contextual than ambient awareness.

I posted once on decision making in relation to midwives http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/05/05/birthing-and-midwives-stories-facilitation-and-decision-making/ “how experts see the invisible”…I think you will like it.

Also interesting thing about more context into ambient awareness
http://boingboing.net/2010/04/05/bruce-sterlings-stat-3.html

“As a really simple example, andy_house tells him/us things like “gym temperature is perfect”, rather than a constant stream of temperature readings. (He talks about this banding approach in a comment on Nick’s blog.) That’s an added layer of value, rather than transmitting a nearly meaningless stream of changing temperatures.”

It’s so true…

My ex-girlfriend is also in my Facebook network.

I know lots of stuff that is going on in her life in an ambient way
- I know about her week at work, her holidays, her weekends, I see photos, I see conversations people have with her, I know who she is connected to…all without having to contact her directly.

I don’t consciously seek to know this, let along explicitly communicate with her…it simply passes by my stream…and I can choose to look at it. This is certainly less pushy or direct than the phone, im, email…but all these tools have their unique purposes.

As I said in my post imagine this type of awareness at work…now we have a way to bridge silos (not smash them)

This also relates to the strength of weak ties, and the enterprise bulls eye.
http://andrewmcafee.org/2007/11/how_to_hit_the_enterprise_20_bullseye/

I first heard “Situational awareness” used in aviation. A pilot needs to be aware of constantly changing traffic, weather, aircraft systems, plans etc

And a military pilot in combat needs to be aware even more contextually important (and constantly changing) context of ground and air defenses, enemy a/c, mission, target …

In all cases it’s awareness a with a pretty specific context (this can change too!) that guides the need to make good decisions quickly based on what in E2.0 we would call business context as well as serendipity.

For a few thoughts on observable work based on our conversation and Jim McGee’s excellent Managing the visibility of knowledge work post see Enterprise 2.0 and Observable Work