| Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 11:34:05 -0700 | 03 00050 61 00080901 |
Tim Fong
tim@lassotech.com
| Subject: | Drucker, Let's Not Give Up Just Yet |
Dear Tim,
Responding to your letter today, Drucker is an interesting "expert." His work has guided development of Com Metrics, especially concern reported in the record on November 30, 1993 that people are giving up on communications.
Glad to see you haven't given up. Drucker's article in Atlantic Monthly, reviewed on October 25, 1999 proposes using technology to
routinize good work practices. This has a certain logic, i.e., use tools to do repetitive tasks faster, better, cheaper, which energizes efforts toward Knowledge Management.Yet, generally this goal has proven elusive to implement, reported at SRI on June 15, 2000, basically because we all have a limited span of attention due to limited time.
Drucker suggests applying technology to cognitive science.
This is the right solution, but technologists are understandably in love with technology, and are anxious to tinker with toys using what they already know, rather than grapple with the complexity of human cognition. Andy Grove at Intel points out, for example, that people, including engineers, like to work on familiar things in familiar ways.
In any event, the number of details that come up every day are hard to organize using technology. It seems easier for folks to use a Palm Pilot or the cell phone, than to "waste time" organizing intelligence from the last meeting, especially when we have to go to another meeting, or hop a plane to Japan. The mind is overwhelmed; we overlook correlations and implications, blah, blah, blah, then ask experts like Drucker what went wrong, see POIMS.
So, it's a bit of a struggle to implement Drucker.
What is your interest in his work? Writing a paper, TQM, KM???
Sincerely,
THE WELCH COMPANY
Rod
Rod Welch
Post Script