CONTACTS 
0201 - University of Colorado             303 492 2875 fax or 800...
020101 - Mr. Thomas K. Landauer
0202 - Working Resources                  415 546 1252 fax or 800...
020201 - Dr. Maynard Brusman

SUBJECTS
PMI Event, Planning, Jul, Speakers,
Landauer, Tom
Brusman, Dr. Maynard
Farming - Investing Saves Time
Ignorance, Fear, Denial

0707 -    ..
0708 - Summary/Objective
0709 -
070901 - Follow up ref SDS 16 0000, ref SDS 9 0000.
070902 -
070903 - Tom seems willing to present the ideas from anthroplology and
070904 - cognitive science in relation to better computer science and better
070905 - management.
070906 -
070907 -
070908 -  ..
0710 -
0711 -
0712 - Progress
0713 -
071301 - Tom responds to my letter, ref DIP 5 0001, in his letter. ref DRT 2
071302 - 0001
071303 -
071304 - He seems willing to do the psychological and cognitive science stuff
071305 - and to address the anthropological questions about the evolution of
071306 - knowledge work, i.e., scope for speaker 2 as well as speaker 4.  This
071307 - saves the cost of Brusman.  [Although later I am thinking of keeping
071308 - Brusman for a narrower agenda of just explaining breakdowns in office
071309 - communications that cause annimosity, per telecon with Morris on
071310 - 951103, ref SDS 6 4355, since it mirrors the escallation of lawsuits
071311 - that reflect greater organizational conflict].
071312 -
071313 -     [On 960229 follow up, ref SDS 20 0001, and discussion with Morris
071314 -     on speaker sequence on 960227. ref SDS 19 04DY
071315 -
071316 -
071317 -
071318 - Landauer's New Hardware Architecture
071319 -
071320 - Tom seems interested in the prospect that Chips and Intel will be
071321 - speaking, and notes he has some ideas on new hardware architecture to
071322 - present. ref DRT 2 CU5A
071323 -
071324 -     [See follow up submitting Tom's credentials to Intel and to Chips,
071325 -     ref SDS 21 line 178.]
071326 -
071327 - This is all the more reason why we need to coordinate with Intel and
071328 - Chips on integrating presentations, rather than just have everyone
071329 - show up and talk, ref SDS 9 line 285.  We want technologists to engage
071330 - ideas, for example to say "Oh we tired that and it didn't work for us
071331 - because...; or, "This doesn't seem workable because...; or, "I don't
071332 - get it; or, "Here is our procedure to test new ideas."
071333 -
071334 -     [See later discussion with Morris Jones on adding panels to permit
071335 -     direct interaction, dialog and challenge, ref SDS 19 04DY
071336 -
071337 -
071338 - User Centered Design
071339 -
071340 - Tom's expanse of expertise in anthropology, psychology, cognitive
071341 - science and computer science research enables him to provide needed
071342 - perspective on the link between human mental genetics (strengths,
071343 - weaknesses) and the evolution of technology in conjuction with the
071344 - evolution of business practices (the way office work is performed),
071345 - that creates cultural blinders and emotional resistance to the true
071346 - power of automation to improve the practice of management.  This is
071347 - what George Gilder has termed the "Power of the Microcosm" which
071348 - Gilder likely does not realy understand either, at least in this
071349 - context, per discussion with Intel, ref SDS 5 line 739.  I call it
071350 - "Investing Intellectual Capital."  Peter Senge at MIT talks about the
071351 - "Learning Organization."  ISO discusses "traceability to original
071352 - sources" and "continual learning," and PMBOK discusses "aligning
071353 - communications."  These all seem related to the way the human mind
071354 - converts information into knowledge, i.e., needs, connections,
071355 - schemas, paradigms, values, laws, traditions, culture.
071356 -
071357 -        [See ideas on speaker sequence at ref SDS 19 line 315.]
071358 -
071359 -
071360 -     Culture Empowers and Blinds
071361 -
071362 -     The essential role of culture to save people, organizations, and
071363 -     communities of states and nations from short term perspective by
071364 -     preserving hard won "knowledge" from thousands of years of painful
071365 -     experience, (discussed in the NWO paper on explaining religion ref
071366 -     OF 5 line 704, and with Turner at ref SDS 8 line 150), can be
071367 -     accomodated by Tom's prescription for pilot testing new ideas, ref
071368 -     SDS 3 line 807, which I think is part of what he calls "User
071369 -     Centered Design."  In this way Tom can set up the notion of the
071370 -     need for:
071371 -
071372 -                     Leadership with a Broader Vision
071373 -
071374 -     ...to meet the challenge of a New World Order, that Morris Jones
071375 -     from Chips & Technologies plans to discuss at Asilomar, ref OF 2
071376 -     line 24.
071377 -
071378 -      ..
071379 -     Farming, Investing, Time Management
071380 -
071381 -     Anthropology may be able to show a correlation between the way a
071382 -     modern executive operates and ancient hunter/gatherers, i.e.,
071383 -     foragers, who did not have enough time to learn the power of
071384 -     investing, ref SDS 2 4404.  Still today there are pockets of
071385 -     culture where farming has not caught on.  They strive to
071386 -     "expedite" by taking immediately whatever they see on the
071387 -     landscape at the moment. They are so busy, going from one area to
071388 -     the next, hunting and gathering nuts, ants and berries, as their
071389 -     cromagnum bretheren did, that there is enough time to till the
071390 -     land, put seeds in the ground, weed the garden and wait for a
071391 -     bountiful harvest.
071392 -
071393 -     This mind set seems evident still today in corproate offices
071394 -     throughout the land.  Executives are so busy going from meeting to
071395 -     meeting, making phone calls, flying to more meetings, sending
071396 -     faxes and email that...
071397 -
071398 -                     there isn't enough time
071399 -
071400 -     ...to invest intellectual capital, or to consider, investigate and
071401 -     test out what that phrase might mean in the modern era of the
071402 -     Information Highway, per discussion with Intel ref SDS 5 line 253
071403 -     and more recently at ref SDS 12 line 113.
071404 -
071405 -         [See discussion with Morris ref SDS 19 line 568.]
071406 -
071407 -     Turning Straw Into Gold
071408 -
071409 -     Might it be that the process of investing seeds in the ground can
071410 -     yield an even richer harvest if applied to convert information
071411 -     into knowledge?  Does the historical record support the notion
071412 -     that, by dedicating someone to invest new information and
071413 -     maintaining the garden of knowledge, then everybody else has a lot
071414 -     more time for other things like leaving early to wath a ball game,
071415 -     taking 3 day weekends with the family?  Could this be the meaning
071416 -     of the fable about "turning straw into gold?"
071417 -
071418 -
071419 -     Ignorance, Fear, Denial, Faith
071420 -
071421 -     How long did it take for farming to catch on? The Alphabet?  Can
071422 -     User Centered Design shorten this period for investing
071423 -     intellectual capital through Communication Metrics?  When new
071424 -     methods arise that conflict with cultural norms, it takes a lot of
071425 -     courage, almost blind faith, to buck the culture, especially when,
071426 -     as here, management practice has evolved certain patterns of
071427 -     conduct to summarize and "expedite" based on the evolution of
071428 -     technology that over thousands of years increased the flow of
071429 -     information.  We are now in a veritable frenzy of summary.
071430 -
071431 -     If we are ignorant of the facts that:
071432 -
071433 -        •  Summary disconnected from details of reality is harmful.
071434 -
071435 -        •  Our ignorance arises because the harm and pain of summary
071436 -           disconnected from reality (i.e., mis-communication) often is
071437 -           delayed for days, weeks, months, years, so the mind does not
071438 -           form a causual link between pain and conduct.  Culture does
071439 -           this, and thereon is a dual edged sword.
071440 -
071441 -        •  Automated tools can create the connections that convert
071442 -           information into knowledge that can give us more time to
071443 -           attend meetings and talk on the phone, wander around the
071444 -           office and visit,
071445 -
071446 -        ...then this ignorance causes fear that there isn't enough time
071447 -        to invest and it is too costly.  Ignorance and fear cause
071448 -        denial that more knowledge can save time and improve earnings,
071449 -        similar to the hunter/gatherer cultures.
071450 -
071451 -        Ignorance, fear and denial prevent people from discovering the
071452 -        benefits of better methods.  Only credible sources can engender
071453 -        the faith needed to penetrate these cultural barriars to enable
071454 -        people to gain sufficient experience to discover that investing
071455 -        intellectual capital through automated integration of time,
071456 -        information, people, documents and subjects saves time like
071457 -        farming does.
071458 -
071459 -        This is why religious faith is so critical to cultural advance
071460 -        by offering a rationale that transcends endemic fears so people
071461 -        can try and try again, in the face of continual failure, the
071462 -        testing that Tom calls out in User Centered Design.
071463 -
071464 -
071465 -
071466 - Tom suggests I give a presentation, ref DRT 2 line 24.  He also urges
071467 - that his presentation will reflect some of my ideas, but will likely
071468 - as well vary in some respects, ref DRT 2 line 35.  This is to be
071469 - expected.  What might be done is for Tom to talk and then I introduce
071470 - Morris with Chips and Dave or who ever winds up doing the Intel stuff,
071471 - with some comments about how the theme of the conference developed and
071472 - the vision that brought the speakers together.
071473 -
071474 - This is another reason why we need papers from the speakers, to build
071475 - a consistent, affirmative, useful set of ideas, per discussion with
071476 - Turner at ref SDS 8 line 490.
071477 -
071478 -
071479 - Project Management is Top Career Choice
071480 -
071481 - The need for Asilomar to integrate ideas and critical thinking from
071482 - Tom and others, that strengthens project management, is evident from
071483 - the notice PMI mailed with membership renewal cards, reveived today,
071484 - advising that Project Manager is now the No. 1 career choice, ref SDS
071485 - 18 line 33.  Successful project management requires authority, and it
071486 - requires considerable application of thinking (planning), remembering
071487 - and communication.  All of these are painful but necessary ingredients
071488 - to success in a complex world, that require new ideas, and the faith
071489 - and courage to try them.
071490 -
071491 -
071492 -
071493 -
071494 -
0715 -
0716 -
0717 - 1252 received letter from Dr. Brusman
0718 -
071801 - He submits a contract form for his $2K payment to address Asilomar,
071802 - ref DRT 1 line 19.
071803 -
071804 - We need to advise Dr. Brusman on this very soon.
071805 -
071806 -
071807 -