Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 07:38:01 -0700
Mr. Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net
The Welch Company
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111 2496
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Subject:
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DARPA Opportunity
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Rod,
[Responding to
your letter
today, April, 26, 2001, stating.... ]
Thanks for feedback on POIMS in your letter on April 16, 2001,
received just today
due to a glitch in email delivery. Here I thought everyone was ignoring me,
and feeling sorry for myself, and all along things were happening over in the
next room.
Sorry to hear about your technology failure. These things happen.
DARPA seems to be looking for KM solutions,
and they have legitimate needs
for SDS capability, particularly in the area of national security for
intelligence analysis. SDS is a strong environment for analysis. This seems
like a straight forward pitch SRI can make, which nobody else can do. You
have an SDS record on the Internet that demonstrates unique work product, and
ability to perform, you have several government reports saying it provides
useful intelligence. The intelligence field is one place where there are a
group of folks who have a direct responsibility to learn and use tools for
intelligence, unlike executives and engineers for whom learning SDS is a
burden, and they don't want to feel incompetent by telling the boss they need
money for a Com Manager to run SDS.
This seems, therefore, like a match made in heaven.
Well, certainly something to think about, at least.
You have contacts with DARPA. I have SDS. Isn't there some synergy here?
Possibly.
Has any thought been given to this opportunity?
Perhaps others have, but I haven't. At least yet.
Anyway, thanks very much for feedback on POIMS.
Sure.
I have been interacting with DARPA and other agencies
regularly (just returned from DC last night) regarding
other technologies and possible research projects
(formal methods on this last trip).
When I talk to folks in the funding circles about KM and
related topics, there are some barriers in their attitudes:
- it'll never work
(citing previous research that had zero impact)
- it's already solved, it's been done
(DARPA and other agencies have funded KM work in the past,
and one needs to present to them reasons that there will be
big impact of new research funding. The existence of
some commercial vendors of semi-related functionality
(intraspect, etc etc) make this argument more difficult.)
- oh, here, integrate into 1980's systems X,Y, and Z, and we'll
buy a trial copy. Otherwise we're not interested.
(DARPA and the DoD in general have certain bets placed on
certain systems, and for shorter-term work it is almost required
that KM systems interoperate with their existing systems)
- I just don't understand in the time I have to look at this
(Everyone in govt funding is outrageously busy, and most lack
the background information to make it easy to understand what
it is we are talking about. Their situation (and mine!) point
out the need for better systems in this domain, but still
it can be difficult to get people to understand the opportunity.)
There is a dim possibility of a future DARPA program on this
or closely related topic. However, current DARPA politics
make is extremely difficult to get any new programs approved
(the new director of all of DARPA hasn't been appointed by Bush
yet, and the director of the only remaining IT part of DARPA quit,
so that position will be open for some time, and so new programs
in IT are difficult to get going).
Sincerely,
Computer Science Laboratory
pdl.
Pat Lincoln
Director
Lincoln@csl.sri.com
Copy to:
- Park, Jack, jackpark@verticalnet.com
- Engelbart, Douglas C., doug@bootstrap.org