July 10, 2002

03 00050 61 02071001

Unfinished Revolution
ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org
OHS DKR Project
SRI International
333 Ravenswood Avenue
Menlo Park, CA 94025
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Subject:

Manhattan Project to Establish Knowledge Sciences

Dear John,

As we have discussed, a "knowledge" sciences effort indicated in your letter on July 8, is important, but has proven elusive, as reported by Dave Snowden at IBM in the paper you cited in a letter on June 8, 2002.
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You may recall that on December 17, 1999 we attended a KM event in San Ramone where the attendees did not know anything about KM.
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Subsequently, on December 21, 1999 you sent a letter that suggested helping Doug Engelbart and the people at SRI with their goal to advance KM using a similar Manhattan-project-like effort called out in your letter on July 8.
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On December 22, 1999 review of Doug's writings showed interest in fostering a new way of thinking and working. Discussion with Doug showed interest in learning about Communication Metrics that empowers people to use Knowledge Management.
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On 000120 the central dilemma of Knowledge Management was presented to Doug's group about defining a meaningful distinction between information and knowledge.
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On February 12, 2000 Eric Armstrong made some progress on this issue.

On March 24, 2000 SRI reported other KM projects had failed, adding urgency to resolving the dilemma of Knowledge Management that prevents progress on advancing from IT to a culture of knowledge, and presaging Dave's report two (2) years later that KM has failed to meet expectations for improving information technology, which you submitted on June 8, noted above in para one.
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On April 7, 2000 Doug's SRI group was reminded about the need to define knowledge in order to avoid failure that plagued other projects, as previously suggested three (3) months earlier on January 20 of that year.
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However, a month later on May 3, 2000, Eric reported this task is too difficult. A month or so after Eric's report, the entire team adopted Eric's position that there is not enough knowledge about knowledge to develop technology for Knowledge Management.
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Since that time, there has been a lot of discussion for over two (2) years about ontology, Wiki, SOAP, dialog maps, IBIS, C++, Java, collaboration, semiotics, topic maps, et al., but there has been no progress on understanding a meaningful distinction between information and knowledge that enables advance from IT to KM, as seen by Dave Snowden's report which you submitted on June 8, mentioned in para one (1) above.
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For example, on October 25, 2000 Doug Engelbart made a simple request for people to put a link or two in communications that show alignment between current perspective and related information that provides context, and, also, helps grow a culture of knowledge by giving people experience working with connections of cause and effect. Doug's request reflects good management practice calling for an audit trail showing traceability to original sources, reviewed on July 21, 1995.
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This request has not been met, as Dave Snowden relates in his paper which you submitted on June 8.
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People revert to calling projects "Manhattan" in hopes of creating sufficient attention for empowering improvement, following the model of WWII, where the bombing of Pearl Harbor and fear of German success with nuclear ordinance focused attention on solving a complex problem.
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In that case, people working on the problem understood the underlying science, but had to work out technicalities of implementation (according to the movies I have seen). The difficulty in the case of KM, is that the design seems to be a secret, as shown in the record on April 25, 2000. The people at Microsoft, IBM, Yale, Stanford, and so don't have an underlying concept to follow because the distinction between information and knowledge is unclear, because it can only be grasped based on experience, and nobody has time to gain the experience, as evidenced by the lack of response on Doug's request on October 25, 2000.
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Moreover, once the secret is discovered a new set of social problems arise, because the light of knowledge brings the burden of responsibility, under the rule so and so knew, or reasonably should have known, as related on May 27, 1999.
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As a result, fear of accountability makes the light of knowledge a greater burden than the darkness of ignorance under the Legend of Prometheus reviewed on November 8, 1999.
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This record seems to suggest that a Manhattan project noticed in your letter on July 8, can be effective for KM. I was just curious whether anyone has focused on these thorny issues that have persisted for several thousand years.
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Sincerely,

THE WELCH COMPANY

Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net