| June 1, 2000 | 03 00050 61 00060102 |
Eric Armstrong
eric.armstrong@eng.sun.com
| Subject: | KM Vision, Meeting at Intel on May 17, 2000 |
|
POIMS Comments Need Not be Verbatim |
Dear Eric,
Looking forward to your comments on POIMS when time permits. I realize it is hard to keep track of documents. As you mention, it is easy to misplace and forget where documents are located, or who said what to whom, etc, with so much going on these days. The CDS you are designing will go a long way toward solving the problem, so that everything is available when needed. That is one of the ideas of Knowledge Space discussed in POIMS....
Don't feel you have to recount verbatim what you wrote down in the margins of the printed version of POIMS. When we talked at Intel, I got the impression that you feel strongly POIMS needs to be reworked, so if it is not too much trouble, just explain the big flaws you see that can lead to improvements.
Paul Fernhout says in a letter today, that he shares your concern about SDS being confusing with so many links. He places a positive cast on the issue, possibly to spare my feelings. As you did in a letter to the DKR team on April 5, 2000, Paul suggests improvements to SDS linking methods.
Paul, also, explains that what contributes to confusion in his case is having multiple windows open, rather than opening each SDS link in the same window. He is using Netscape and so am I, but when I click on a link it opens in the same window, so at any given time there is only a single window open. I looked for a setting on this in Netscape and IE, but cannot find anything. There is a setting for this in W98 and W2K, but need help on how to suggest to Paul that he try a setting to open links in the same window. Others who use this method report favorably that SDS links help them, rather than cause confusion, so this may be part of the solution.
Do you happen to know how this setting is accomplished?
On your question about how SDS helps people think, remember and communicate to write up the record of our meeting at Intel on May 17, 2000, see telecon with Morris on February 4, 1995.
I thought about making a joke that Intel tape records all of its meetings, and Morris loaned me the recording to write up the record.
It turns out, however, that tape recordings and other verbatim transcript methods are not very helpful for daily management. SDS records strive to tell a story of what is said in relation to objectives, commitments, sources, requirements and history, i.e., context. Since people think through stories, as in "What's the story on this or that," but people speak in loosely connected expressions, gestures and implied meanings, a "story" needs to be assembled, organized, aligned and summarized in order to turn daily working information from meetings, calls and documents, e.g., email, into useful intelligence. At least that is the theory.
Sincerely,
Rod Welch
Copy to:
Post Script
pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com
morris.jones@intel.com