September 25, 2000 | 03 00050 61 00092501 |
Ms. M. Elisabeth Pate-Cornell
mep@leland.stanford.edu
Chair
Department of Management Science and Engineering
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-4024
..
Subject: | KM Needs Formal Academic Training |
Dear Elisabeth,
On September 1 we discussed academic training
for a new work role that adds "intelligence" to management.
Here is the link to
POIMS
you requested that explains a
powerful advance in alphabet technology. This advance needs
a dedicated work role to align communications
similar to the way accountants align finances, day-to-day. Faster information
makes...
..
...in enterprise due to meaning drift that occurs involuntarily in the human mind, as a function of information overload. Only dedicated tools and skilled people can arrest the current trend that is innovating all of us toward ignorance at the dawn of the 21st century. Stanford can lead the way to provide academic training to solve the problem. Your department has taken a seminal step of integrating disciplines, essential for Knowledge Management. However, there is more to do.
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.
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.
Sincerely,
THE WELCH COMPANY
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Background...
..
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.
..
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.
..
The first step is to review
POIMS.
I look forward to your comments.
Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net
..
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