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



Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 12:36:27 -0700

03 00050 61 02091801




Mr. David J. Snowden
Director
snowded@uk.ibm.com
Cynefin Centre
IBM Global Services
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Subject:   Bridge to a New Way of Working

Dear Dave,

The attached letter to John Maloney a few weeks ago on August 23 describes an opportunity for building bridges to a new way of working.
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Thought it might address your question on June 10 about who has paid for SDS and Communication Metrics? There have not been a lot sales due to the reasons set out in the attached letter to John summarizing market conditions, and citing discussion with Pat Lincoln at SRI on May 27, 2001.
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As noted previously, you have hit on important ideas about knowledge that are supported by SDS technology explained in POIMS.
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Transformation to a new way of working is slow, however, because even where people agree, there is often lack of common effort to advance common objectives. It, also, appears that advance from information to a culture of knowledge requires a breakthrough methodology that permits steady progress on KM. Reasonable people can disagree on this, as discussed with Doug Engelbart on March 27, 2000.
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Still, your recent report that other KM efforts have not met expectations, may justify investing time to study the record using SDS for converting daily working information into knowledge, as reported by USACE.
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In any event, we need to work on building bridges, as seen by progress on September 12 when someone at DCMA discovered how fast and easy it is to create connections to context that grow understanding of cause and effect
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Sincerely,

THE WELCH COMPANY




Rod Welch
rodwelch@pacbell.net









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Subject: Groove Seminar Invitation and Work Product Support Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 11:55:37 -0700
From:   Rod Welch
John
"Park, Jack" ,
"Johnson, Garold (Gary) L."

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John,

You make a powerful point in your letter today about the importance of multiple ways for people to interact with the world. I agree with that.
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It is also true that I am focusing on a new way of doing things which you correctly note involves POIMS and SDS. These are arcane terms, as you point out, but nor more so than KM, Groove, and many others which you seem to embrace with equanimity. Moreover SDS and POIMS derive from experience using the customary methods you champion, as explained on 000723....
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http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/00/07/23/141404.HTM#0001

As you can see, the record on 000723 shows reliance over many years on all of the methods you are using, and this experience led to a new way of working. As shown in another letter earlier today, I regard your work as critical for building bridges to a better future that improves customary ways. An example of the need for a bridge, is the record on 970107...
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http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/97/01/07/074655.HTM#0001

As you can see from that experience, it shows work performed minute by minute, hour by hour using the kind of direct communication you cite in your letter today as the driving force of daily work in the real world. Certainly the people who interacted, like you, were not burdened by POIMS and SDS, nor by a lot of annoying references. Yet they were helped because someone took the trouble to line up the tasks they were doing with objectives, requirements and commitments. If you look further in the record on 970107....
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http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/97/01/07/074655.HTM#4953

...you will see the president of a company, who held fast to your view that SDS was actually harmful, eventually changed his mind upon the accumulation of experience showing that accurate memory saves time and money.
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Notice as well, experience a few days later on 970110 showing that a whole group of people who relied on customary work practices, came to rely on SDS as a stronger method after gaining exposure over a period of time...

http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/97/01/10/074526.HTM#2487
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So, while it is true that there are lot of methods for interacting with people, SDS was designed to augment traditional methods in ways that enable people to improve performance. Experience has shown that using SDS saves time and money and failing to do so on complex endeavors causes mistakes, loss, conflict, crisis and calamity. Since, as you can see, I have a lot of experience using customary ways, I wouldn't waste time with SDS, if there were not a long record showing it adds value.
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This does not require people to give up customary ways. When literacy emerged about 700 BC, people did not abandon orality. Still today the methods you use and advocate are powerful methods for building community through relationships and for getting things done. Your methods will remain useful and indeed the dominate methodologies, because they are grounded in human biology, as set out in POIMS...
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http://www.welchco.com/03/00050/01/09/01/02/00030.HTM#5106

As a leader and person of prominence in the KM movement, I only hope that you will join in the effort to strengthen obvious weaknesses in customary methods, as technology continues to compress time and distance, creating a new world order that is different from the conditions that evolved our biological gifts. Leaving room for advance, perhaps there will come a time that SDS can be seen as contributing to the long march of civilization, rather than an annoying hindrance that constantly reminds of alignment between what we are doing and saying today, and what we set out to do, agreed to do and are required to do for sake of community.
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Let's keep building bridges.

Rod



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John wrote: > > Hi Rod, > > You seem to have a very narrow, provincial view. Why does something need > to be a url to be useful? The parochial requirement for addressability > effectively cuts yourself off from a vast ocean of valuable content, > interaction and community. It is very odd. > > The white board here in my office, or my last telephone conversation, > the IM just sent and the hall conversation I just had are not > 'addressable' -- is that a problem too?!? It happens to be the > environment where REAL work is done. > > Work, hence value, is multi-modal by nature. > > Textual information, http and url represent only a tiny, miniscule > really, access to the richness and communication needed to make progress > and innovate. Their over use, like email, is counterproductive and > disturbing. > > The use of arcane language and unusual arconyms like POMIS and SDS (?) > contribute to the problem. > > Anyway, your Groove invitation stands but it doesn't seem like your > intransigence will allow you to enjoy the great benefits of discovery > and exploration outside your own narrow mythology and flawed orthodoxy. > > Regards, > > John > > -----Original Message----- > From: Rod Welch [mailto:rowelch@attglobal.net] > Sent: Friday, August 23, 2002 9:26 AM > To: jtmalone@pacbell.net > Subject: You're Invited To Groove! > > John, > > Thanks very much for this invitation and the opportunity to download > Groove. As we discussed, would like to see some work product > demonstrating this is an effective way to invest time. > > If there is something on the KM summit in a shared space, then it should > be addressable to be useful, and in that case, someone can point to it, > as in a librarian helping someone find a book in the shared space of a > library. If the Groove shared space is addressable, please provide a > link for review. > > Good luck with the conference. > > Rod >
> > jtmalone@pacbell.net wrote: > > > > Rod, > > > > All Knowledge Economics Summit content, community, collaboration and > > context is carried in this Shared Space. > > > > Cordially, > > > > John > > > > You're invited to participate in a Groove shared space called > > "Knowledge Economics Summit". > > > > The invitation from "John T. Maloney" is in the attached file, > > "Knowledge Economics Summit.grv". > > > > Go to > > Go to http://www.groove.net/go/invite for instructions or to download > > Groove. > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Name: Knowledge Economics > Summit.grv > > Knowledge Economics Summit.grv Type: unspecified type > (application/octet-stream) > > Encoding: base64