I read your material. I found it quite interesting, and validating and in close correlation with my own work atclose correlation with my own work at http://one-world-is.com. My definition of management - "the resolution of complexity and diversity in science, society, and spirit into a dynamical system of controlled order" - is a paraphrasing of the definition from the 1963 Encyclopedia of Management. I added the phrases "and spirit" and "dynamical". I believe that everyone manages (according to the above definition), but those who manage more than their own lives we call "managers". I see that management is human maninfestation of the fundamental organizing principle of the universe, now known as "negative entropy" or "negentropy". From that: management is a creative behavior of an intelligent entity in attempting to adapt itself and its environment to the infinite complexity and diversity of the universe around them. (I.e., management constrains/resolves/filters the infinite noise of the universe down to a few perceivable, understandable, and workable thoughts - ala Jeremy Campbell's "Grammatical Man".)

With the advent of advanced communications and computer technologies, the noise we experience has become even greater in volume and density, and our biological resolving mechanisms are not sufficient to process the load.

Consider that many learned scientists now believe that the next big evolutionary change for our species will be in how we process information, not in our physical form. I think it's already happened, and sprang from perceptions planted in our species minds in the form of the "One God" principles of the Jewish, Christian, and Moslem faiths, and the "Wholeness" concepts of the Buddhist faith. I think the awareness of a "oneness" context is where our species, our science (e.g., negentropy, post-quantum physics), our society (e.g., increasing world unity, object-technology, the Web), our religions (e.g, increase in New Thought movements, ecumenical unity), and your and my respective bodies of work are carrying us.

My own General Enterprise Model (GEM) is a detailed mapping of six major categories of the infinite information around us and within us, and the associations between those points of information, in the past, present, and future. This is what I call "Context Management". I have built and am refining and implementing an automated mechanism to enable individual, group, organizational, ... universal, contextual awareness. I see Context as information about an object, its Tree structure(taxonomy/class and descendants), Star structure (containers and components and the relationships between them), and Arrow structure (past, present and future). Awareness of context is a major aspect of human intelligence. Increasing context awareness is also a major element of individual and group education and training.

The GEM uses what has now become a standard approach to organizing things, known as the "object model". I perceive that you have sound concepts, which also seems to follow some of the same "tree/star/arrow" structure of the object model.

Have you implemented this "information linking" and Communications Metrics as product or service, or are you in the conceptualization/design stage, or perhaps the intellectual-exercise stage?

My own work, submitted as a suggestion, was demonstrated in an operational version in 1990-1992 for the U.S. Army Europe, the Department of the Army, the Defense Informations Systems Agency, and the Office of Secretary of Defense, but the concepts were not understood, the workload was perceived as too great, and the technology was not economical or accessible (although I'm told that a Special Operations organization and some intelligence organizations examined my documentation and application/source fairly deeply.) New technologies have now reduced the requisite cost,accessiblity, and workload, and the concepts are now more fully understood via such examples as the Web and Object-oriented software. I've worked with SQL and X.25 in the past, through several client/server database application technologies and information modeling techniques, and have now progressed to LDAP, XML, UML, VRML, Web, and the DMTF CIM and WBEM (which are defined/linked on my site).

Regarding your question on "management science", I do believe it is a science, but it is not a reductionist physical science like physics or chemistry. It involves living things, and thus can never be fully "quantified" and "specified". Any domain that involves life can not really progress to much more than a craft or an art. I learned very early in my undergraduate studies that science can never explain more than a rough approximation of reality. In looking at physical sciences, social sciences, crafts, and art, I guess "management science" reaches across all four categories, with the majority focused on the craft, with some art, while academics and practitioners are trying very hard to move the effort and the focus more to the social (e.g., more quantitative/measured) and physical (e.g., more consistently reproducible) science area.

By the way. How did you come across my definition of management? I'm engaged in several forums and have had quite a few visitors to my web site, so I am always interested in what area of interest brought folks to me.

Sincerely,

Roy
roy@one-world-is.com