| May 17, 2000 | 04 00067 61 00051701 |
Paul Fernhout
pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com
| Subject: | Editor Development, 000508 |
Dear Paul,
Thanks for your letter yesterday on Eric's editor spec, and for noticing my approach to knowledge management, which I call Communication Metrics.
I have admired your analysis on the project. Wish you were here in the Bay Area, so we could visit to explore common ground. Reluctance of the SRI "seed" team to take up foundational issues on what to build portends a lot of false starts. Perhaps once SRI takes over, as Doug mentioned on April 19, progress will improve. KM, however, is counterintuitive. Money alone won't succeed, and a big, established culture like SRI could turn out to slow things down. Microsoft is spending money on this kind of effort; IBM paid $4B for LN. Neither is close to the answer.
I have tried pretty hard to support Doug's team, because there is a long road ahead to accomplish a lot of steps that are not yet in their field of vision.
Alphabet technology took thousands of years to gain acceptance. Gutenberg did not achieve financial success for inventing the printing press. So, too, Voltaire and Diderot struggled for 20 years to get the encyclopedia off the ground. These traditional DKR methods leverage innate "intelligence" that forms knowledge, wisdom and vision. Accordingly, acceptance of a new technology to augment intelligence will not be achieved over night, even if you pretty much figure it out. So we need to find and develop people who are open to a solution. Doug must be applauded for his work on this. But, people need to be organized into an effective instrument for getting the work done. It takes management, leadership and rewards to get people to stop working on their current stuff, and do some work they likely believe won't work, because they don't have experience to know what does work. The SDS record on the Internet helps build faith that a solution is possible, and so may help enlist some support.
You have become a respected voice in this effort. That is why I was pleased by your leadership in saying that KM is the important goal. There is enough work and opporutnity for a variety of paths to get there, and if it should be successful, everyone will benefit, just as the alphabet helps everyone.
Thanks again for your note. Please keep in touch.
Sincerely,
THE WELCH COMPANY
Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net