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


November 29, 2001

03 00050 61 01112902



Mr. Jack Park
jackpark@thinkalong.com
Street address
Palo Alto, CA Zip
650 388 1108

Subject:   SBIR Grant to Fund SDS Development
Funding KM, SDS, etc, and SBIR

Dear Jack,

Happy holidays, and thanks for your letter on November 21 suggesting consideration of SBIR for a grant.

A big issue is what to do with funding? I could pay the rent and the creditors, but it is beginning to look now that I can do KM with SDS better than other methods, per Eric's letter on October 3, 2001.

There are a great many things that could be done to improve SDS. You provided a list in your letter on November 30, 2000. My sense is that more experience is needed by people using SDS in order to refine perspectives on next steps, for the reasons cited by Morris Jones in a call on 010924.....

http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/01/09/24/070901.HTM#XT5F

Morris has a good deal of experience getting approval from the government on patents. His concern about people not being able to grasp what SDS is about, reflects experience submitting Com Metrics to NSF for an SBIR research grant.

At that time, an NSF rep, who had occasion to interact with SDS on the Internet, recommended that the proposal notify reviewers to open the proposal on the Internet, rather than rely on the printed submission, because, SDS enables moving from traditional documents to a culture of knowledge that relies on "Knowledge Space." It is hard for people to grasp Knowledge Space, when they are reading an inert document.

I think that is what Morris has in mind when he speaks about nobody else having experience creating and using organizational memory. It is a different world, a new way of working that has to be experienced.

NSF reviewers did not have time to look at the proposal online, and so felt SDS could not be created. This is easily resolved by opening a few links on the Internet, as Eric Armstrong noted on 010916....

http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/01/09/16/190429.HTM#0001

Notice NSF reported on 991213 that Rod does not grasp the KM dilemma....

http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/99/12/13/100546.HTM#1764

This presents a dilemma....

The only thing we need money for is to pay people to use SDS for saving time and money, so they can discover intelligence works better than pressing Reply on the email program, picking up the phone, or going to a meeting. We need a grant to pay NSF, Eric and others to click on a link, as reported on 011010....

http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/01/10/10/100344.HTM#KS6G

I talked to Doug Engelbart the other day, and he seemed to agree that people need to spend several years using SDS in order to learn what doing KM means, i.e., what is entailed to create organizational memory and add intelligence, then we will be ready to do some technology work....

http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/01/11/20/204936.HTM#H67I

So, that is a dilemma. Is there a grant available for paying people to discover Km works better than IT?

In any case, there is an RFP from DOD for help with intelligence, mentioned by a contact at DCMA on 011113....

http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/01/11/13/161023.HTM#0001

I plan to respond, but recognize the chances of getting recognized among 5,000 - 10,000 submissions is minimal, given the prior record with NSF. Typically, agencies are not fond of independent developers, as NSF reported on 991222....

http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/99/12/21/120608.HTM#0001

Do you have something in mind for an SBIR initiative?

I wonder if it might be possible to contact the SBIR folks and other agencies with an ad hoc proposal to do something useful in KM, which is outside their experience?

Sincerely,

THE WELCH COMPANY



Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net