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Date: Sat, 08 Jun 2002 18:52:34 -0700
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04 00070 61 02060801
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Mr. John Maloney
President
kmcluster@collaboratory.com
Knowledge Management Consortium, Inc.
San Francisco Chapter
Street address
San Francisco, CA 94111
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Subject:
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KM Cluster Taking Notice of Progress
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Dear John,
Thanks for timely and thoughtful feedback, shown below, on the copy of
a letter to Mark sent earlier today, which commented on background
working with you on KM issues.
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I disagree with emphasis on "diversity" that blocks notice of SDS and Com
Metrics, since it seems to me the missing ingredient is focus on things that
save time and money. I like your focus on practice; also took a look at the
paper you attached, that says in part....
"Dave Snowden is Director of IBM's newly created Centre for Action
Research in Organisational Complexity (CAROC) and was formerly a
Director of IBM's Institute for Knowledge. He is a fellow of the
Information Systems Research Unit at Warwick University. He can be
contacted via e-mail at snowded@uk.ibm.com"
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Very impressive credentials.
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Dave goes on to note that KM has substantially failed to provide
promised benefits of effective decision support. I agree with that,
but wonder why you have not notified Dave that SDS and Com Metrics
accomplish KM in substantial measure, based on work product you have
seen for several years, beginning on 991217? In the absence of this
notice, Dave relates plans to develop a 3rd generation capability to
provide separation of context, narrative and content management that
challenges the orthodoxy of scientific management. Why not tell Dave
SDS already does this?
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You might say, "Hey Rod, nobody knows what Dave means including Dave
because nobody has done any of that stuff." I would agree with you
that experience doing KM rather than writing endless papers and
holding conferences is the key to helping people grasp the value of
adding intelligence to management that converts information into
knowledge. This supports your emphasis on practice.
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While Dave and colleagues at IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, LANL, SRI, DARPA
and so on are turning to yet another set of buz words, what evidence
indicates this is any more likely to yield progress than the 1st and
2nd generation offerings that failed? Indeed, how can there be a 3rd
generation when there is no 1st or 2nd? What evidence does Dave rely
upon to establish that the 1st and 2nd generation failed? Essentially
it is the lack of a consistent body of work product that provides
better decision support than what everybody is already using, i.e.,
meetings, calls and documents based on conventional literacy, mostly
used today in email, like this letter, and your letter today. In
other words, Dave is arguing that since we cannot improve on what we
have been doing for 2,000 years, then we have failed to move beyond IT
to KM.
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That's why I like your focus on "practice." Where can we turn for an
example of practicing something different. A small, but growing body
of people are
taking notice of SDS,
as shown in the record on Septeber 7, 2001.
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Taking notice and inviting people to investigate, as you did today in
providing notice of Dave and his ideas, is quite different from endorsing. For
example, in
your letter
on January 12, 2000, you notified Ed Swanstrom about
compelling work I have done, and essentially facilitated contact with someone
you believed was knowledgeable in KM.
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I appreciated your efforts very much. It turned out that Ed's ideas
on KM yielded a
"black box"
that he could not explain nor demonstrate
with useful work product, as shown by the record on January 13, 2000.
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This is not a criticism of Ed, since KM is hard to create for the reasons
explained in the record on September 24, 2001.
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This record suggests that where a new way of working is discovered that
lifts the capacity to think, remember and communicate, then failing to pass
along good news of this new practice out of exaggerated concern about diversity
is to elevate form over substance. It distorts the purpose of diversity to
discover something useful, rather than merely engage in endless search. At
some point there must be assessment and implementation, otherwise diversity has
no value.
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In any case, as mentioned in another letter recently, you are one of a
handful of people I have encountered, over many years pounding the pavement,
who have spoken with insight on KM, and I am grateful for that. But, as I
mentioned to Jeff Conklin, bright stars need focus not diversity in order to be
effective, and I have made the same point with
Doug Engelbart,
as shown on March 27, 2000.
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What's overlooked is the core objective to find a fundamental advance on
alphabet technology. There is very little diversity in this field, and since
it is the underlying engine of civilization, to discover a path for moving from
information to a culture of knowledge sweeps away all other considerations,
save how to spread the news.
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Evidence so far shows only SDS supports this advance. IBM tried to
convert LN to do it after seeing SDS and recognizing a unique capability; but
failed because the design is a secrete,
reported
on November 30, 2000.
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Perhaps in another 3 years or so when Dave sends out another press
release talking about failure of the 3rd wave, and launching a 4th, folks will
be more open to the prospect that KM requires a particular design, and without
it there is no progress, and that when we luckily hit upon a design that works,
then we need to pursue it, as occurred with alphabet technology 2,000 years
ago.
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Sincerely,
THE WELCH COMPANY
Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net
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Post Script
By copy I am giving Dave a chance to comment.
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Copy to:
- Clare, Mark, Mark.Clare@kanisa.com
- Park, Jack, jackpark@thinkalong.com
- Lincoln, Patrick, Lincoln@csl.sri.com
- Dave Snowden, snowded@uk.ibm.com
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