Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 02:37:05 -0700

03 00050 61 02061001

Mr. John Maloney
President
kmcluster@collaboratory.com
jtmalone@pacbell.net
Knowledge Management Consortium, Inc.
San Francisco Chapter
Street address
San Francisco, CA 94111
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Subject:	Software Category None Apply to SDS
	KM Cluster Taking Notice of Progress

Dear John,

Thanks for your letter today, following up discussions yesterday on notifying people about SDS, POIMS and Com Metrics, and for submitting Dave Snowden's paper proposing a 3rd generation of KM practice is needed, because the first two failed.
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I looked at the chart you submitted segmenting KM into various areas, and confess that there is no immediate slot for SDS that comes to mind. I am a little curious about the description in your letter saying this chart is a "proven template" for KM, in light of Dave's point in his paper saying that KM has failed.
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If Dave is correct, then a chart of "proven" KM capabilities can only show what has proven to fail.
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SDS doesn't fit into your chart because it works at the level of alphabet technology to augment human intelligence. The alphabet is indeed a one-size-fits-all that doesn't seem to be anywhere in the chart. Recall Doug Lenat argues that this method makes people "superhuman," reviewed on April 22, 2001.
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Alphabet technology does not appear on your chart because it works at a lower level to lift the ability to think, remember and communicate. POIMS argues that SDS is the first advance on this technology in 2000 years. The printing press, better paper and ink, and more recently wordprocessing and email improve aspects of applying alphabet technology, but do not expand on the basic process of using bits of data (letters) to construct information. Steven Pinker at MIT for example calculates that the alphabet enables people to construct 100 million trillion different meanings to manage the complexity of existence....
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How to manage this complexity?
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Dave Snowden in his paper attached to your letter today alludes to the possibility that flow is a critical part of knowledge....
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POIMS explains the inherent "flow" that occurs in human intelligence to convert information, created using conventional alphabet technology, into useful knowledge, that is implemented by SDS.
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There is substantial evidence showing this SDS process works to segment narrative into context and that it connects context into chronologies of cause and effect that strengthens human reasoning, see for example research on Marh 19, 1990.
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Dave says in another letter today that he has not seen evidence of this, but you have seen evidence for several years, along with others in the OHS/DKR group. For example, Jack Park, who comments today and has demonstrated expertise and measured temperament in addressing this subject stated on November 30, 2000 that SDS has the right structure for making KM.
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So, too, Doug Engelbart, whom you commended in a letter on December 21, 1999 and suggested that Doug's colloquium at Stanford would be an appropriate place to demonstrate SDS, has commented on several occasions that SDS is the best technology he has seen for improving management, e.g., on October 27, 2000.
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Similarly, on January 11, 2001 Doug noted SDS supports organizational memory better than other methods.
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Later on December 11, 2001 Doug was kind enough to commend SDS in a letter to a contact at Stanford.
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Earlier, on November 30, 1991 Justice Mosk on the California Supreme Court recognized SDS is a new way of working, and observing that SDS is an amazing system.
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As well, General Hatch, former commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers commended SDS and Com Metrics as a business "intelligence" methodology.
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The Corps published a report on October 7, 1997 showing cost savings (ROI) of 10:1.
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More recently, you have facilitated discussions with Mark Clare on applying his methods to evaluate cost savings. In the interim, on April 15, 2002 Jerry Nord, with a firm, CSG, volunteered his opinion that SDS would save a substantial portion of $40K/per day, which aligns with the USACE report.
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Additionally, Gary Johnson at Boeing reported on 020315 that SDS would avoid a mess occurring on the ISS project.
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Setting aside what others say, the first time you received an SDS record it was evident to you that this was a different way of doing things. Receiving a letter like this with connections to relevant background, authority and context is different from what can be produced with other methods. You have been experiencing this new way of working since receiving the record for the KM Cluster event you led on December 17, 1999. Later on January 12, 2000 you commended Com Metrics to colleagues in KM as compelling work.
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Some people don't like this method; Eric Armstrong says it boggles the mind. Others worry that ability to capture and retrieve organizational memory for saving time and money increases exposure for accountability, which restrains acceptance in the market place. But, surely SDS cannot denied this is unique, and that it works in that at least one person uses it 24 7. The reason Dave reports KM has failed is because nobody else has come forward with a method that can be used 24 7 to augment intelligence. SDS is used 24 7. It is 0143, and I have been using SDS continuously since 0600 yesterday morning.
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How do we use SDS 24 7. We invest intellectual capital, called out by Dave's paper. It turns out there is a virtually endless supply of this resource, as Dave further notes in his paper.
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The Corps of Engineers finding that using SDS to invest intellectual capital yields a return on the order of 10:1 aligns with Lenat's observation that alphabet technology that enabled an age of information makes people superhuman compared to conditions prior that advance. Thus, transitioning from information to a culture of knowledge portends another major leap in productivity and earnings for humanity.
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I don't think that in the immediate period ahead, perhaps for 100 years, everyone can be expected to be a Com Manager. Just as we started with scribes and later transitioned to one-size-fits-all where everyone learns alphabet technology, there will surely come a time when using SDS will be normalized. In the meantime, forums like KM Cluster should be triangulating with contacts in education and business on how to create a professional role for adding alignment to communication, enabled by SDS, that complements the current role of adding alignment to finance using accountants.
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A big issue to keep in mind is resistance to improvement noted by Grove, reviewed on March 7, 1998.
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Gary Johnson cited Buckminster Fuller as setting out that fundamental advance takes about 50 years to become absorbed in a mature culture....
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This aligns with professor Ransdell's warning at Texas Tech University that Com Metrics accomplishes an advance that has been sought since the 17th century, so it must be expected that acceptance will be slow. but he urged not to become discouraged.
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That's why I suggest this seems like a good opportunity for the KM cluster to take notice of progress in KM, despite failure of other methods, noted by Dave Snowden in his excellent paper on the state-of-the-art in KM, as reviewed recently on June 8.

Sincerely,

THE WELCH COMPANY

Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net

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