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



Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2003 14:34:52 -0800

04 00067 61 03030801




Unfinished Revolution
OHS DKR Project
SRI International
333 Ravenswood Avenue
Menlo Park, CA 94025
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Subject:   Obituary and Re-birth
Quiet No Activity on DKR Project

Dear UnrevII,

Glad to see OHS/DKR coming to life as spring nears, with six (6) or so new letters after several months of little to no activity.
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On September 27, 2000 Eric Armstrong wrote asking why things had been so "quiet" for a week or so on communication about OHS/DKR.
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This thought occurred recently in recognizing things have been "quiet" the past few months following the holidays. I checked the obituaries and was relieved to see OHS/DKR was not listed, and now today suddenly a whole flurry of letters came in suggesting things are springing back to life.
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That's what happened in 2000. After Eric's letter, Eugene Kim wrote on September 28, 2000 explaining work going on for development of the OHS/DKR.
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Soon, Doug published guidance on October 25, 2000 for an OHS/DKR launch plan that illustrated how to put links in documents on the Internet, and everyone was off and running. In fact, Eric was ahead of schedule. On October 17, even before the launch plan came out, Eric reported significant progress, and a little later on November 21 he urged others to contribute because the OHS/DKR work is so critical.
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Following Eric's example, Eugene Kim contributed strong leadership on November 26, 2000 by urging folks to implement Doug's launch plan using available tools with greater diligence. and noting particularly Doug's call for linking in email.
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This showed good progress maintaining alignment because a lot of experience shows that people, organizations and even entire cultures drift off course due to "meaning drift." Eugene's insight reminding everyone to follow Doug's lead by aligning communication and work on the OHS/DKR code with the Launch Plan was powerful medicine for keeping on track. At that time, Grant Bowman pointed out that putting links in email is not that easy. He asked if people are supposed to change their tools from familiar ways everybody likes....
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At that point, Eugene went to work and on January 31, 2001 notified of good news that he had developed new tools which Grant and everyone can use to follow advice for implementing Doug's call to link things up.
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Well, the rest is history. Soon Jack Park had Nexist going to improve education and help people with story telling through narratology. John Maloney related startling breakthroughs with Grove and Groove. Sergie Brin reported on how meta data and other searching tools solve the problem Eric related on 011003 that nobody can find anything. Ray Ozzie offered ideas on using Lotus Notes to avoid the "pain" people experience using email and weblogs, or something like. Dave Snowden reported how Quickplace and Sametime have been a big help at IBM.
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There were some bumps. Paul Fernhout worried on 020530 that good ideas and technology code was being withheld by big corporations and individuals that delayed progress because of worry about licenses.
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Just yesterday, however, John Deneen suggested looking at a Powerpoint presentation by Jim Gemmell on something called "MyLifeBits." Review showed that MyLifeBits is a project sponsored by Gordon Bell, who is a senior researcher at Microsoft's Bay Area Research Center.....

http://research.microsoft.com/users/GBell/
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MyLifeBits is shown on the Internet at....

http://research.microsoft.com/barc/MediaPresence/MyLifeBits.aspx

John said to examine the following Powerpoint file....

"MyLifeBits: Fulfilling the Memex Vision"
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...which can be downloaded free of charge at the above address.
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In our discussion, I explained that Powerpoint presentations are powerful tools for bad management, as explained in POIMS, and citing the Enron case, reviewed a year ago on February 4, 2002, because "knowledge" requires connections to context, which are missing from pictures, as further related in POIMS defining the process of intelligence that converts information into knowledge.
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John was in a hurray, and urged reviewing the MyLifeBits powerpoint presentation in order to understand his perspective on advancing Knowledge Management. I was reminded of Eric Armstrong's perspective on October 3, 2001 when Eric was worried about wasting a lot of time directing attention to sources without having evidence that information is aligned with objectives, requirements and commitments.
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But, realizing how frustrating it is when people ignore my own ideas and requests to read this-that-and-the-other, out of courtesy and against Eric's sound advice, I went off and looked at the Powerpoint presentation.
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Since there are no anchors, links are not available to verify accuracy nor to understand context. Still, Gimmell says in pertinent part....
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Gordon Bell, like Doug Engelbart, wants to develop a "repository" of information from daily life that includes books, photos, documents, memos, legal papers, home movies, and everything to create a "paperless" environment. This reminds of Doug's explanation of a Knowledge Workshop set out in Doug's 1972 paper which he commended to the OHS/DKR group on March 27, 2000.
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Gordon then poses the question that Eric raised on 010916 that nobody can find anything in email.
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Gordon says Microsoft is going to provide full text search and collection with freedom from strict hierarchy. There will be many visualizations -- he says "Don't metaphor me in." Better search tools to find crticial details in time to be effective was announced by Bill Gates on 021108. Microsoft plans to make adding annotations that add value fast and easy, and further will enable people to keep the links they author based on a system of "transclusion." Microsoft's technology will help the user tell a "story" with structure that positions information in time and space. Gordon doesn't mention it, but "stories" are a form of mental spreadsheet that position data and information in relation to human values; so, lets agree that support for stories are another good idea. Microsoft is planning to support,
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Ted Nelson's important work on transclusion is slated for support, and Gordon says the key is "LINKS." That's right, the presentation shows links in all capitals to emphasize this requirement. Ted is quoted at length in the presentation slides arguing for links.
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Microsoft does not mention Murray Altheim's powerful analysis on 020820 showing that everybody has voted against links, and going on to emphasize that accuracy and context in communication, provided by links, do not move the conversation forward.
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John Maloney joined Murray in a letter on 020823 explaining how correspondence that is supported by the record is invasive and unwelcome.
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Then on 020929 Dave Snowden who is leading knowledge management efforts at IBM explained how links are difficult for people to handle.
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Careful review of Microsoft's planning shows nothing on helping people transition from familiar ways to a new way of working called out by Doug.
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Microsoft does explain that the repository is a data base with consistent, simple and logical structure, indexing, pivoting, queries, speed scalability. They say backup is important as is replication. They say "blob" and links are inherent.
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Microsoft also proposes features to visualize document relationships, which sounds like dialog mapping that Eugene Kim is using to great effect for the OHS/DKR to supplement the purple number system, as reported on September 17, 2001.
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Jack Park's primer on Topic Maps published last year reported on September 11, 2002, also, would seem to provide critical guidance for Microsoft to help people find information in the MyLifeBits knowledge repository.
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In sum, John's suggestion to review the Powerpoint presentation on MyLifeBits showed that Microsoft is working on goals for the OHS/DKR and other initiatives to improve information management beginning in the 1960s. Review further showed plans for technology to support links, metadata and analysis, which have been expressly rejected by engineers, executives and everyone in between, reported on September 24, 2002.
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Thus, the threshold question is even if lightening strikes, and Microsoft breaks through the barriers that stifle innovation in a big organization, cited on 910418, who is going to use it? If people aver "intelligence" because links boggle the mind, as Eric anticipated on January 25, 2000, what will motivate Microsoft to produce something nobody will buy? Not only are links and analysis something people have voted against, as related by Murray and John Maloney, but in many cases people fear the light of knowledge more than the darkness of ignorance. The hope that ignorance is an excuse to avoid accountability, which greatly increasing the time and cost of the work, as shown by tragedy and mayhem on September 11, 2001 and again recently on March 4 a week ago reporting on NASA's loss of the Columbia Space Shuttle, the fear of accountability inherent in the power of knowledge dries up demand for better knowledge support. That is a question that pops up from the record, which one hoped the Powerpoint presentation would address constructively. Since top KM experts are reticent about using KM, it seemed unlikely to expect the Powerpoint presentation would show progress on transformation from information to a culture of knowledge.
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The second issue is performance. People have been making lists of features for software since the 1950s. Doug Engelbart has come the farthest, shown by the telecon on December 22, 1999.
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Others at Microsoft, IBM, LANL, DARPA, SRI, Oracle and so on have made their lists, as reported at SRI on March 24, 2000. None of these lists, while discussing useful features, address the core issue noted by Eric Armstrong on May 3, 2000 and discussed by Eugene Kim later that year on June 15. More recently on May 10, 2001 Steve Balmer related that Microsoft has a 5 year plan to develop XML software to improve management, which means that design and implementation of knowledge management efforts like MyLifeBits is still in the future.
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A year or so later on November 8, 2002 Bill Gates reported plans for a project to solve Eric's concern about finding things on the computer, which, as seen from the Microsoft Powerpoint presentation, is planned for MyLifeBits, per above, and so is useful.
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Naturally, people hope that with Bill on the job, things will start to move faster. Maybe that accounts for increased email traffic for OHS/DKR. It is a welcome sign because progress requires effort which is driven by hope, and talking is one way to keep hope alive.
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Another way to improve progress learning and developing new methods, according to Tom Munnecke at SAIC, is to study what works, reported on July 26, 2002.
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Re-birth requires faith and faith takes evidence that goals are reachable; not only that something can be done, but, also, that a new way of working makes a difference in the quality of work. What counts is performance. Without evidence of performance, nobody will invest more than 20 minutes required to learn a new way of working.
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Sincerely,



Rod Welch
rodwelch@pacbell.net

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