THE WELCH COMPANY
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111-2496
415 781 5700
rodwelch@pacbell.net
March 24, 2004
03 00050 61 04032401
Mr. Garold L. Johnson
Modeling and Simulation
Boeing
5301 Bolsa Ave.
Huntington Beach, CA 92647-2099
..
Subject:
Future Looking Up for SDS
Dear Gary,
Thanks very much for all of your support and counsel the past month or so,
getting SDS officially approved for use on the job. Your steady hand and
knowledge of corporate culture have been timely and telling in
advancing the
ball at Boeing,
shown by recent events on March 18.
..
These results address in part your letter on February 29 asking about the
future of SDS?
With your help, the
future seems to be looking up,
based on
implementing the
3-step strategy
set in the annual review on January 2.
..
Please let me know, if you have further questions on business planning in
light of analysis on February 29.
..
Your
letter to Jack Park
on February 27 referenced the annual review on January
2 for an accurate record of
experience using SDS at Boeing
last year, which
Jack had asked about in a letter to us on February 21, evidently
resulting from the letter to you, on February 11,
suggesting there is a
powerful story to tell on transformation
you are engendering at Boeing, especially
considering events the past few months. Jack received a copy of
the letter to you on February 11,
and then turned this over a week or so later on February 21 into a
strong letter
asking you to come tell the story at SRI on using
SDS at Boeing. In addition to your response to Jack on February 27,
you sent another letter to Jack on February 29,
which is reported on March 1,
explaining the
power of knowledge enabled by SDS.
..
These events have long since been lost in the fog of war, as well they should,
because you have to concentrate on more meetings tomorrow
and the next day and the next and on and on..., illustrating how easily
information overload brings
entropy that grinds
productivity to a halt,
reported by USAFIT, reviewed on July 7, 1997, and
more recently by
Eric Armstrong
on October 3, 2001.
..
This letter focuses on two issues floating by in the
constant stream of information people encounter on the job
day-to-day... (see POIMS)
..
Previously, on February 11, a letter
requested feedback
on the annual review,
and further discussed you preparing an evaluation along the lines of
Wayne
Wetzel's report
on using SDS at DNRC over a long period, as reviewed in the
record on July 25, 2001.
..
Do you expect there to be further feedback on scope and accuracy of the
annual review
using SDS at Boeing during 2003, as reported
in the record on January 2, 2004?
Do your letters on
February
27
and then a few days later on
February 29
adequately address this matter?
.. Have you had a chance to read Wayne's report on using SDS at DNRC, and do you
feel this lines up with your experience at Boeing, or are there
important differences that impact conclusions about
technology development
and
business model
issues raised in your letter on February 29? Based on this
common experience with Wayne,
do you now feel positioned to move ahead with an evaluation of SDS
along the lines developed for the
draft under consideration by Pat Lincoln,
currently dated April 17, 2003? My feeling is that we should try to get this
done, but that somebody else should be the author, based on your personal
ownership interest in SDS. This means there needs to be collaboration between
you and a writer. Jack
Park might fit the bill, but since he is on the war path for
the moment, we need to find someone else.
..
Turning to your letter on February 29, asking about the
future of SDS,
my feeling is that an important part of the future is to develop a continuing
professional story that constructs a critical mass of credibility about the
past applying SDS at PG&E, DNRC, USACE and now Boeing.
..
Given your heavy schedule, the intent today is not to burden you with new
distractions, but to suggest orderly progress on action items builds
relentless pressure that turns straw (e.g., no cost purchase orders) into
gold (paying customers). The engine of this effort remains turning out SDS
records that are useful to people and making distribution wide as the waters,
as the saying goes. So, from my perspective, your primary focus should remain
issuing SDS records and getting the intranet initiative off the
ground. These are the most critical steps of the
strategy for the future of
SDS,
reviewed in your letter on February 29.
..
Gil's letter on March 17 mentioned that he
discussed the intranet with you.
Was this incidental, or substantive, to helping Boeing turn on the lights of
intelligence.?