Eric Armstrong
eric.armstrong@eng.sun.com


Memorandum

Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 18:56:18 -0700

From:   Eric Armstrong
eric.armstrong@eng.sun.com
Reply-To: unrev-II@egroups.com

To:     unrev-II@egroups.com

Subject:   Eric's Summary Purpose of DKR, v.2

Another edit, for clarity:

"An interactive tool for discussion and deliberation that records decisions and their rationales in a way that allows the knowledge gained in the process to be applied to future projects."

* "deliberation" was chosen to imply focused discussion, bent on achieving resolution for some issue or issues.

Note:

The short "elevator version"* I use is:

"A tool to augment human intelligence."

* The "elevator version" is the synopsis you give to say, a venture cap, when you happen to find yourself on the same elevator. If the response is "how do you do that?", showing mild interest, it's an invitation to move into the sentence-level version, then the paragraph-level version, etc.

The paragraph:

Combine the simplicity and ease of use of an email system with the expressive power of Web documents. In essence, remove the barrier between email and documents, so you can comment on or even edit a document as easily as sending a message.

While doing that, make it possible to categorize paragraphs (i.e. "messages") in order to carry on a well- organized discourse. Preliminary categories include "question", "alternative", "argument for", "argument against", and "endorsement". Categories like those have been found to be helpful in mediated discussion systems. We intend to put that thinking into software, so remote collaborators can carry on the same kind of highly reasoned discussions online.

Sincerely,



Eric Armstrong
eric.armstrong@eng.sun.com