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



Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 02:24:20 -0800

03 00050 61 03031401




Mr. Jack Park
Street address
Palo Alto, CA Zip
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Subject:   KM Progress
People Learning Knowledge Management

Dear Jack,

This confirms our telecon this evening. I called to get a sense of progress on OHS/DKR and other KM efforts based on discussion with John Deneen who indicated that IBIS methods have been used in recent months on another mailing list. I was wondering if IBIS has helped develop an architecture and design for KM technology? For example, on May 18,2000 you suggested a 3-layer architecture. Can IBIS help design this? You confirmed this evening that there was a recent discussion among the OHS/DKR group that applied IBIS methods, but it did not relate to technology development. You also indicated that Eugene Kim has applied IBIS with good results by following guidance from Jeff Conklin, and that Jeff helped Southern Cal Edison adopt IBIS methods following an assignment where he used this technique.
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Seems like IBIS should be able to improve progress in KM, based on experience you related this evening. Would be helpful to see work product on this?
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During our call, you asked when IBIS first came into the record for the Colloquium Doug Engelbart led at Stanford during the first quarter of 2000? While we talked, the record on February 18, 2000 was located that shows Eric Armstrong wrote a letter to the group proposing consideration of IBIS. Review further showed that Eric raised IBIS a few weeks earlier on January 30. You asked if Dick Karpinski had discussed IBIS, and a link to another record showed that Dick discussed IBIS during a meeting to on SDS, also, on February 18, 2000.
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You cited a big increase in using weblogs associated in some way or another with the impending conflict in Iraq. My feeling is that more people writing up the record helps grow a culture of knowledge.
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During our call this evening you asked for a definition of Knowledge Management?
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We reviewed the explanation in POIMS on converting information into knowledge. You feel the SDS process of adding "intelligence" to information for creating Knowledge Space fits the model you are using of "information management," and went on to say that "knowledge management" can only occur in the human mind. I agreed that KM occurs in the mind, and further propose that the process in the mind can be meaningfully aided with technology, roughly described as "augmenting intelligence," by using an external rendering much like alphabet technology models "information." This idea is summarized in POIMS as Knowledge Space.
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While we did not discuss it during our call, my sense is that literacy augments human mental metrics for creating and managing information, as noted by Doug Lenant saying that alphabet technology makes people superhuman, reported on June 22, 2001
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Since SDS strengthens literacy for handling information by an order of magnitude (see again POIMS) this seems like a useful, work-a-day explanation of knowledge management. Moreover, since construction of knowledge in the mind is almost entirely subconscious, occurring involuntarily on automatic pilot, as it were (see POIMS), I am not sure how much mileage we get by limiting discussion of Knowledge Management to solely a mental exercise, as you propose this evening, particularly, since that experience relies on remembering only the gist of information, which, according to research submitted by Henry van Eykan on September 27, 2000, is only about 10% accurate. My feeling is that improving on 10% memory (some authorities say only 5%, for example Morris mentioned on 020110 that people only use about 5% of the features in Microsoft programs, because they cannot remember all of the menus to open) is a reasonable objective for technology to support Knowledge Management.
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In discussion this evening, I asked for examples of work product that illustrate your perspective on information management. You explained that reliance on work product is incorrect for understanding what is being produced and how it helps daily work, and further indicated that such request demonstrates a narrow perspective, noting that Morris Jones agrees with your analysis of my credentials and work in knowledge management. Morris' letter on September 23, 2002, and another letter the next day on September 24 seem to line up pretty well with your analysis.
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I asked about current attitudes on linking, and on organization that adds "meta data," following correspondence last year in August and subsequent articles that said people have voted against both of these practices, reported on October 31, 2001, and, further, that John Maloney argues against analysis. Since, as you can see in POIMS, analysis, organization and alignment are three (3) of the five (5) elements that SDS supports for converting information into knowledge, it seemed striking, in light of tragic events on September 11, 2001, more recently on February 1, 2003 with loss of the Columbia Space Shuttle and her crew, and collapse of the economy reported continuously since December 7, 2000, that features for working intelligently have been abandoned by people working on knowledge management, evidenced by the history in the record on October 3, 2001.
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You cited Nexist, Eugene's work and one other person as making progress in KM. I asked about seeing some work product, and you objected again to this line of inquiry.
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You asked how Gary is doing with SDS? I explained that Gary has made good progress, and I am hopeful this continues. John Deneen is taking longer to work through the learning curve because I have had less time to support him due to other projects John has underway. I asked if you are familiar with the MyLifeBits project that John commended for research. You were aware of the project but not familiar with any details.
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This evening, you suggested I look at Eugene's website at....

http://collab.blueoxen.net

Review showed some email listings at....

http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/yak/
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...under the title Collaboration Collaboratory discussion list (date)
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Generally, it appears that Eugene is shares some of your goals for Nexist to support collaboration by encouraging and helping people tell stories. Dave Snowden at IBM mentions this idea in his paper on Complex Acts of Knowing, reviewed last year on June 8, 2002. I could be wrong, but, if memory serves, Dave shares your view about KM only occurring in the mind, and is not anything that can be augmented by tools; at least that is an impression from the conclusion of Dave's paper that does not mention a role for technology, and further argues that knowledge cannot be stored. In our discussion this evening, you noted that SDS helps people write stories, and I agreed that understanding the story is important, often leading to the question "What's the story? -- and, "Then what happened?" When people don't get the word and so have the story wrong, they often ask "Why is this always happening to me?"
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A lot of the discussion in the email archives on Eugene's website is outside my expertise, but the quality of the discourse and the design Eugene has developed seem very advanced. Suggest consideration be given to some approach or another that expands span of attention and mitigates meaning drift. On July 26, 2002 Tom Munnecke submitted information about an initiative he has underway that urged people to ask Can what counts be counted. Expanding span of attention and more accurate memory count a lot in human mental metrics, as related on February 4, 1995.
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I am pleased to see Tom Munnecke and Gary Johnson participating (Gary seems to be the only person who has told a "story" so far), and I am further pleased to see people using links with anchors to support the work. You mentioned this evening that a new method has been adopted of using traditional footnotes and bibliography formats. You explained how this helps avoid the problem of opening a reference directly, and instead people can notice the footnote number, store that in memory, or write it down, then scroll to the bottom where the bibliography is listed, find the footnote number and then open the original source, if people want to investigate context and verify accuracy. This sounds like it implements a suggestion Morris submitted on September 23, 2002.
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While I did not see examples of work product using this new footnote method in the 10 or so letters I had time to review on Eugene's website, seeing people use links with anchors to specific context is an important step for transformation from information to a culture of knowledge.
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So, congratulations to you and Eugene for sticking with the KM stuff and making real progress.
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Thanks also for bringing me up to date this evening on what's happening in the KM field since, I am too lazy to do the hard work of research, noted by Ed Swanstrom on August 12, 2002 who objected to investing so much time writing up the story in SDS. Thanks to you, I have another story to write.
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Sincerely,



Rod Welch



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Copy to:
  1. Deneen, John J.,
  2. Johnson, Garold (Gary) L.,
  3. Jones, Morris E.,
  4. Conklin, Jeff,
  5. Kim, Eugene,
  6. Munnecke, Tom,
  7. Maloney, John,
  8. Eyken, Henry van,
  9. Armstrong, Eric,
  10. Snowden, Dave,