Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 05:27:06 -0800

Mr. Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net
The Welch Company
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111 2496
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Subject:

SDS features questions

Rod,

Sorry for the length of these emails but you brought it on yourself! (g)

I have read most of the easily reachable documents pertaining to SDS.
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I find rather little description of SDS features directly, but there are numerous implied features. I would like to know which of these features currently exist and whether any of the ones that don't are planned to be added.
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Core of Engineers: 1997-MAr-28
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The discussion of building the record from initial information prompts the questions:

1. How does SDS handle "foreign" documents? Is it able to launch programs (Word, Excel) to operate on them?
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2. Are hard copy documents scanned or are notes concerning them all that show in the record?
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3. Are records of meetings, calls and other interactions that are not in machine readable form handled only as notes in the record?

1. Does SDS have any means of locating and managing acronyms? Acronyms are a major pain in large system, particularly government ones.
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2. "'Aligning people' requires checking to ensure common understandings that maintain shared meaning."
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3. Does SDS support any sort of glossary / thesaurus system to manage definitions of terms?
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4. I assume that the line numbering of legal documents is the source of the line numbering idea in SDS.
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5. Does SDS have spell checking?
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6. Are changes ever made to original records to correct errors in transcription, typos, etc. as opposed to adding notes for new materials or revised perspectives?

   
   

[Says in part... ]

1. Compare some of this specialist's activities with "technography" at...
   http://www.coworking.com
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2. Jeff Conklin discusses the use of IBIS for meeting facilitation at length. He estimates that a six-month full time apprenticeship is required to bring a person to full competence in this sort of meeting facilitation. I expect that the "technography" approach, which uses outlining, is comparable. Do you have any estimates as to how long it will take to become proficient at meeting facilitation using SDS?

   
   

1. Is SDS an email client, or does it interfaced with one or more? SDS is used track incoming email and to compose outgoing email, so it would make sense that it would be an email client.
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2. Since the SDS record appears to be a shared record, is it possible to create SDS records that automatically show up in the recipient's in box, thus removing much of the need for email at all.
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3. How is the list of prior related events pruned? How do you decide when the history extends too far back? The current project or subproject had an origin and tracking before that with other than a link is pointless. Is there any attempt to limit list length based on relevancy?
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4. The scenario tells of a reboot to test the Microsoft fix and then returning to the interrupted SDS session. Does SDS preserve session state across reboots, that is session is persistent?
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5. The scenario tells of a remote session to show Helen the working of an SDS feature. Does SDS support this sort of remote invocation? Is there some other software involved?
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6. The conversation with Wendy on the Microsoft result where she says that she will just link into the SDS record implies a shared data repository, and a personal repository for each user. How does SDS manage shared and private data?

Sincerely,

Dynamic Alternatives

Garold L. Johnson
dynalt@dynalt.com
http://www.dynalt.com/