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Background...

Ray Levitt's VDT program shows the impact of information overload is devastating to productivity and earnings. Over the past 8 months, since we talked on February 2, Doug Engelbart initiated a project at SRI to develop a means for augmenting human intelligence in order to solve information overload. Doug is a respected voice for his work on this problem the past 40 years, including the Colloquium at Stanford during January - March. On August 24 there was a report that Doug is proposing SRI develop the Rod Welch system. This reflects 8 months of research at SRI which shows the SDS program is an effective way, and possibly the only path, to meaningfully accomplish Knowledge Management, what I call Communication Metrics.
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The Schedule Diary System (SDS) makes a breakthrough by adding a dimension of time to information. This combination, integrating time and information, produces knowledge. Work at SRI these past months indicates no other method or technology, can do this; essentially, KM is a secret of SDS, discussed on July 25, with Pat Lincoln (650 859 5454), Director of Computer Science at SRI. SDS offers a fundamental advance in alphabet technology, which has been the core means of generating information for 2000 years. Every student at Stanford, and everywhere else, every engineer, every lawyer, doctor, i.e., everyone, uses alphabet technology, everyday, all day long, as the foundation of knowledge work. However, knowledge is actually stored in the human mind as connections of cause and effect over time from disparate sources, more commonly called experience. SDS enables people to externalize the process of creating knowledge, adding value to using the alphabet that externalizes creating and conveying information.
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Experience shows, however, that it takes skill and time to produce effective business intelligence, which is the work product of SDS. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did a study of Communication Metrics and reported that managers are busy in meetings, sending email and traveling. They do not have time to generate useful intelligence. USACE further reported that creating a work role for Communication Metrics that adds intelligence to management saves time and money.

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Conclusion...

On July 16, professor Joseph Ransdell, Texas Tech University, reported that a coherent theory of management science has been sought since the 17th century. This has led to formal academic training for Project Management, Quality Management (TQM) and Artificial Intelligence, which have recently been folded into what today is called Knowledge Management. Next year it will probably be called something else. None of these methods work, because they do not address Engelbart's underlying point about augmenting human intelligence. Professor Ransdell now reports that Communication Metrics is a strong advance toward the goal of the academy for the past two centuries. Whatever we call it, the goal is clear: we need a better way to convert information into knowledge, than relying on human mental faculties, because meaning drifts away in the human mind, and, as information flows faster, drift accelerates into ignorance that leads to disaster, noted by George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Robert MacNamara, et al. SDS solves this problem, and needs people with skills to use it. Accordingly, Stanford can lead in providing skilled people essential for this new work role of adding intelligence to management, described in POIMS.
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The first step is to review POIMS. I look forward to your comments.

Sincerely,

THE WELCH COMPANY

Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net

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Copy to: Copy to:

1. Douglas Engelbart
2. Pat Lincoln
3. Joe Ransdell
4. Morris Jones
5. Ray Levitt