THE WELCH COMPANY
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111-2496
415 781 5700
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 09:50:14 -0700
03 00050 61 02092002
Mr. David J. Snowden
Director
snowded@uk.ibm.com
Cynefin Centre
IBM Global Services
Street address
City, St Zip
..
Subject:
Bridge to a New Way of Working Begins with Study
Dear Dave,
Thanks for mentioning in
your letter
today
Quickplace,
Sametime
and
Teamroom as
KM programs people are using at IBM. A lot of IT programs are very useful;
however, merely being useful does not qualify as KM, in that, KM should add
value to IT, as explained in
POIMS.
How is the work product of these IBM
programs different from work
product people create with IT programs? In other words what is the theory of
knowledge these excellent and important tools support that is different from
"information." Do they advance your view that
knowledge is both a thing and
a flow, and if
so what is the cognitive process they enable?
..
Questions on theory of
knowledge
and cognitive processes are addressed
in POIMS that explains SDS.
..
KM is a difficult subject that requires study, noted by
Andy Grove,
and ultimately
experience, cited by
Einstein,
and supported by
Peirce,
all support the idea that doing KM is essential in order to understand the
intelligence process
that generates knowledge. If you do not have time, you might consider
asking a colleague, who you feel is a good conceptual thinker, like
you, to review
POIMS
and provide a summary that reflects the culture
of IBM. As you know, culture is a big factor in knowledge formation,
and so should not be overlooked in reading new material. For example,
some execs at IBM have grasped POIMS and SDS as shown in a
meeting on
November 14, 1994 leading up to IBM acquiring Lotus Notes.
..
Your interest in "informal knowledge structures" might relate to
Roy Roebuck's
comments on improving communication at DOD, shown in the
record on February 17, 2002.
Thanks again for investing time on this.
..
Sincerely,
There is a young person at IBM who has exposure to SDS over many
years, having struggled with implementation in the 80s and early 90s.
By copy I am giving Ross the opportunity to comment, if he feels
something can be added to aid your considerations. Ross' son Hutch
wrote an interesting paper on the
Legend of Prometheus
that turned out
to provide powerful perspective on the challenge people struggle with
making the transition from IT to KM, very similar to the
transformation from orality to
literacy. ..
The fact that we are struggling today aligns with Professor Ransdell's notice
on July 16, 2000 that Communication Metrics is an
ambitious advance in
management science
that will necessarily be resisted by established interests. The fact
that people like you are willing to struggle a bit to study new ideas for
working intelligently that seems
funny, foreign and alien, as reported by Intel on July 13, 1999 helps
shorten the struggle to
lift civilization,
called out in POIMS.
.. Let's keep building bridges.
..