THE WELCH COMPANY
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111-2496
415 781 5700
rodwelch@pacbell.net


S U M M A R Y


DIARY: May 22, 2001 06:30 PM Tuesday; Rod Welch

Event honoring Ted Nelson hosted by Doug Engelbart in Atherton.

1...Summary/Objective


..............
Click here to comment!

CONTACTS 
0201 - Bootstrap Institute                                                                                                                                                O-00000735 0101
020101 - Mr. Douglas C. Engelbart, Ph.D.

SUBJECTS
Nelson, Ted, Xanadu Event at Doug's Home on 010522
Xanadu Event at Doug Engelbart's Home on 010522 for Ted Nelson
Xanadu, 000223
Engelbart, Doug Hosting Event Honoring Ted Nelson, Founder of Xanadu
Xanadu Payment Attribution Open Source Encourages Contributions Devel

1107 -
1107 -    ..
1108 - Summary/Objective
1109 -   ..
110901 - Follow up ref SDS 6 0000
110902 -
110903 - Per Doug's letter, ref DRP 1 0001, notifying of an event he is hosting
110904 - to honor Ted Nelson for his award.....
110905 -
110906 -
110907 -                French 'Officier des Arts et Lettres'
110908 -
110910 -  ..
110911 - Took the train to the Atherton station, and got a cab to Doug's
110912 - house.
110913 -
110915 -  ..
110916 - Visited with Marcello Hoffman.
110918 -  ..
110919 - Chatted about reporting today that SRI leadership, which nominally
110920 - aims to advance civilization under organizational "mission statement,
110921 - cited on 000725, ref SDS 5 0897, none-the-less feels the organization
110922 - cannot afford to capture organizational memory to save time and money,
110923 - and further that executives are unwilling to be helped, ref SDS 9
110924 - E688, as Andy Grove at Intel noted in his book, reviewed on 980307.
110925 - ref SDS 2 0502
110927 -  ..
110928 - Marcello chuckled while checking out the lavish food table, and
110929 - commented that selling improvement "ain't as easy as folks think."
110931 -  ..
110932 - Selling something folks already know about fits their comfort level
110933 - for investing time and money.  SDS is different because nobody can
110934 - capture, organize, and find relevant details from daily work in
110935 - meetings, calls, and documents.  So simply trying to explain SDS
110936 - usefulness, which Marcello discussed at SRI on 000601, ref SDS 4 1007,
110937 - sounds beyond reach.  People believe information is useful.  You can
110938 - sell improvement to make documents look better, noted also by Larry
110939 - Ellis at Oracle during a presentation in Paris on 970222. ref SDS 1
110940 - 3967  However, when you try to explain "intelligence" or "knowledge"
110941 - work, it sounds like paperwork, which people hate.  Marcello feels
110942 - people need experience using SDS work product routinely to gain a
110943 - comfort level that it improves the work, without increased risk of
110944 - personal accountability, that Pat cited today, per above. ref SDS 9
110945 - PV6G  How you enable people to experience SDS long enough to discover
110946 - this understanding when they believe it won't work is very difficult.
110948 -  ..
110949 - Visited with Eugene Kim
110951 -  ..
110952 - Eugene explained planning to respond to the comments submitted in
110953 - response to his request for feedback on development work he has done
110954 - on the OHS/DKR, some months ago on 010131. ref SDS 7 0001
110955 -
110957 -  ..
110958 - Visited with Pat.
110960 -  ..
110961 - He introduced his wife, and it was great to hear she had an operation
110962 - that solved the medical problem suffered last January.
110963 -
110965 -  ..
110966 - Visited with Joe Williams.
110968 -  ..
110969 - Joe feels SDS is "dead" technology, and that XML can add "life" by
110970 - making SDS interactive.
110972 -  ..
110973 - There was discussion about Joe reviewing POIMS to examine objectives
110974 - for SDS, and then submit analysis explaining how XML can add value to
110975 - accomplishing objectives of SDS.
110976 -
110978 -  ..
110979 - Ted Nelson was introduced and spoke about winning the award.  He sang
110980 - the entire French national anthem.  He sang in French, and with greate
110981 - ability, and flare that was entertaining.
110983 -  ..
110984 - Visited Jack Park, Howard Liu and Lee Iverson
110986 -  ..
110987 - Jack is making good progress with his OHS project, Nexist.  He plans
110988 - to demonstrate initial capability in a few weeks at his son's high
110989 - school.
110991 -  ..
110992 - Jack and Howard are beginning to use Nexist to perform daily work,
110993 - which will include planning and coding of Nexist itself.  This is a
110994 - big step that will accelerate progress in understanding KM.
110995 -
110996 -     [On 010618 Jack submits updated Nexist code. ref SDS 10 LI7H
110998 -  ..
110999 - Doug has on display in his library a book Jack wrote about wind power,
111000 - which reflects his achievements as an industry leader some years ago.
111001 - ..
111002 - Lee Iverson visited with Jack and Howard Liu about Lee's recent
111003 - paper on "Ubiquitous Collaboration."  Lee seemed to explain that many
111004 - people focus on improving email, because it is the only record of
111005 - daily work that is routinely generated, and can be used for KM.
111006 -
111007 -      [On 010620 Lee submitted spec for NODAL that improves email.
111008 -      ref SDS 11 HS8F
111010 -  ..
111011 - There was discussion that improving productivity, earnings and stock
111012 - prices may require an integrated solution, that includes email,
111013 - meetings and calls, along with organizational memory of all other
111014 - work, as Doug called out in his 1972 paper, reviewed on 000327.
111015 - ref SDS 3 3971  If email is the only record being generated, and
111016 - improving it is not sufficient to improve productivity, earnings and
111017 - stock prices, then attention should turn to generating what is needed,
111018 - rather than merely working with what is available.
111020 -  ..
111021 - Jack has cited the work of Cliff Conklin as a guideline for KM.  Cliff
111022 - says improving productivity, earnings and stock prices requires
111023 - capturing a greater share of organizational memory, as Doug calls out.
111024 - POIMS says organizational memory is not enough.  It needs to be
111025 - processed by "intelligence" to generate knowledge and ideas that add
111026 - value to daily work, called out by Doug's 1992 paper.
111027 -
111029 -  ..
111030 - Visited Eugene Kim
111032 -  ..
111033 - Eugene is planning to respond to a letter submitted a few months ago
111034 - that answered Eugene's request for comments on planning he has
111035 - underway to develop an OHS.
111037 -  ..
111038 - Visited with Doug
111040 -  ..
111041 - Doug asked how SDS can continue to evolve?  He reminded to be on guard
111042 - about the technology landscape changing in a way that prevents SDS
111043 - from running, as occurred to his NLS program that was begun in the
111044 - 60s, and in the late 70s and 80s everything changed drastically.
111046 -  ..
111047 - This is a big question.
111048 -
111049 -     How do we evolve implementation while keeping the methodology
111050 -     stable, which is essential for people to learn new capability and
111051 -     incorporate into life style, and work practice.
111053 -  ..
111054 - Doug's home is a complicated design.  He said it burned down in the
111055 - early 70s, and it took 5 years of construction and litigation, before
111056 - he and his family were able to move back in.  They lived in 15
111057 - different temporary locations during that period.
111059 -  ..
111060 - On the way driving home, John Deneen explained his understanding that
111061 - Doug's work at SRI was funded by a Vietnam war research effort.  At
111062 - some point, Xerox was the low bidder on the contract, and so the
111063 - technology wound up at Xerox.  The government then dropped the
111064 - project, and so Xerox did nothing with the technology for 8 years or
111065 - so, when Steve Jobs saw the mouse, and windows.
111067 -  ..
111068 - In the meantime, Doug was out of a job about the time his house
111069 - burned down, so he had a very difficult struggle.
111070 -
111071 -
111072 -
111073 -
111074 -
111075 -
111076 -
111077 -
111078 -
111079 -
1111 -
Distribution. . . . See "CONTACTS"