THE WELCH COMPANY
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111-2496
415 781 5700


October 5, 2001

03 00050 61 01100501



Mr. Jack Park
jackpark@thinkalong.com
Street address
Palo Alto, CA Zip

Subject:   Nexist Progress
Overwhelming Desire for Bad Management
Try Intelligence for a Change - a Seminar Idea

Dear Jack,

Your letter on September 4, 2001 related plans for using Nexist at your son's school to aid learning, or otherwise contribute to education. Have you begun to gather experience showing how Nexist aids learning?

Is there work product available, or is it possible to observe Nexist in action to get a feel for how it is used? Can we visit the school to observe?

You also reported on Sepbember 4 that your son's school is currently trying Jeff Conklin's QuestMap program to use IBIS. Have you had a chance to observe this effort, or discussed with your son his experience, in order to determine how Jeff's work contributes to learning in light of the record on the OHS/DKR project?

Jeff wrote a nice letter the other day about SDS. May get to it later tonight, or over the weekend. He asked about doing a seminar to help people grasp the lineaments of organizational memory. The problem, as I see it, is that Jeff says there is a big demand for organizational memory, but it is entirely latent, as people reach for the cell phone, pdf files, the printer, postits, head for the meeting, and react to email. Absent experience creating and using organizational memory, the weight of culture limits comprehension of even the potential for a stronger solution using deliberative analysis.

As we have seen in recent days, the OHS/DKR group has hit the wall again, recognizing the plan on November 26, 2000 for using IT with diligence to learn Knowledge Management, has failed. Yet, there has been no turn to SDS, not even a mention by those who have from time-to-time noted SDS is effective, where everything else has failed. In fact, despite overwhelming need, there remains an overwhelming tendency (noted in your letter on November 1, 2000 concerning a related matter), as if willfully blind, to avoid fostering a culture of knowledge. Do you think people are exasperated enough with IT to attend such an event, and do you think people are ready to learn, since after 2 years of fairly rigorous exposure, there is no evidence of learning? What more can we do? The same has occurred at Microsoft, Intel, IBM, LANL, Oracle, Boeing, Lockheed, SRI, Stanford, Harvard, DOD, et al, chasing XML, rated links, versioning and other stuff that has not proven effective for increasing productivity.

Stated plainly, can anything overcome an "overwhelming tendency" to use bad mangement, reviewed recently on September 24, 2001? We have deepening recession, but people hope Greenspan will save us, soon with negative interest. We pray for a "stimulas package" to get the economy going. We have war, many say because "intelligence" failed, but rather than improve intelligence, people hope spending for the war will increase employment. All of these hopes are directed at avoiding the effort to improve productivity, earnings and stock prices by adding intelligence to management. Is this dilemma ready for a solution?

The idea of a seminar would be Preparing for Peace and Prosperity in Times of War and Recession -- Trying Intelligence for a Change. What do you think?

Sincerely,

THE WELCH COMPANY



Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net