THE WELCH COMPANY
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111-2496
415 781 5700
S U M M A R Y
DIARY: June 24, 1996 06:20 AM Monday;
Rod Welch
Called Tom Landauer about status with Intel; his paper.
1...Summary/Objective
.....Anthropologist/Cognitive Scientist
2...Experience Builds Belief; Belief Needed to Build Experience Base
..............
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CONTACTS
0201 - University of Colorado 303 492 2875 fax or 800...
020101 - Mr. Thomas K. Landauer
SUBJECTS
PMI Event Program, Planning
Intel, SDS Study
Demonstrations
Landauer, Tom -- Author
0506 - ..
0507 - Summary/Objective
0508 -
050801 - Follow up ref SDS 32 0000, ref SDS 29 0000.
050802 -
050803 - Explained idea for a study using SDS to support his ideas on LSA.
050804 -
050805 -
050806 -
050807 -
0509 -
0510 -
0511 - Progress
0512 -
051201 - Called and left message to follow up the copy of the letter to Dave
051202 - Vannier, ref DIP 9 0000, that explains Tom wants to talk to the people
051203 - at Intel.
051204 -
051205 - Called Tom at his home number.
051206 -
051207 - ..
051208 -
051209 - Discussed correlation between "meaning drift" in his paper on "Plato's
051210 - Problem" and LSA, ref SDS 29 line 265, and presenting it in a paper
051211 - for Asilomar through a legal brief format to be delivered by David
051212 - Bouncristiani, ref SDS 34 line 220. We considered how the practice of
051213 - the law gives rise to a notion of "knowledeg Space" per, ref SDS 34
051214 - line 149.
051215 -
051216 - Tom seemed to express disappointment at not being able to address the
051217 - Asilomar Conference.
051218 -
051219 - I mentioned the significant effort that was made to accomplish this
051220 - goal, but the Committee could not see the relevance of a cognitive
051221 - scientist addressing a management conference.
051222 -
051223 - Explained the idea for a study which I would like Tom to support, and
051224 - the meeting at Stanford on Thursday. His prestige offers credibility;
051225 - and his expertise is needed to design the study criteria of what
051226 - "thinking," "remembering," and "communicating" mean, in a way that can
051227 - be measured.
051228 -
051229 - Anthropologist/Cognitive Scientist
051230 -
051231 - We need an anthropoligist to support the role of religion as a
051232 - scientific experiment that extends over centuries. Human values
051233 - take that long to figure out, and require constant reinforcement
051234 - because near term events encourage or entice deviation. Executives
051235 - are guided by culture evolved from technology over 5,000 that has
051236 - created work patterns to summarize in a way that is disconnected
051237 - from details. Technology that can connect the summary to the
051238 - details is obfuscated by the culture imperative that conversation
051239 - is an executive mode.
051240 -
051241 -
051242 - Tom seemed to recall notes of the meeting at Santa Clara University
051243 - ref SDS 9 5976, submitted to him via ref DIP 2 0001 on 951109.
051244 - ref SDS 10 5672
051245 -
051246 - He asked with whom I am working at Stanford.
051247 -
051248 - I explained it is the Civil Engineering Department, which is doing
051249 - research in Enterprise Workflow that is related, but tangential to the
051250 - general proposition of lifting basic skills which I am addressing, and
051251 - which seems to be Tom's area of interest. I mentioned my impression
051252 - that professors and Chairs of Departments at Universities spend a lot
051253 - of time on fund raising, and so do not seem to have time for carefully
051254 - thinking about basic ideas.
051255 -
051256 - Tom said he spends a lot of his time these days trying to get money
051257 - for research. He said it is not very rewarding work. I suggested
051258 - that one aspect that could be rewarding in this case is offering
051259 - people the opportunity to participate in an improvement of innate
051260 - knowledge acquisition.
051261 -
051262 - My sense is that the Welch work is closely related to Tom's work, and
051263 - so he may be able to support this study.
051264 -
051265 -
051266 -
051267 -
0513 -
SUBJECTS
Sales Do Not Reflect Potential
Difficult to Understand
Sales Results Do Measure Potential
5000 Year History From Writing to Summary
Credibility - No Faith to Make Effort to
Experience SDS/Communication Metrics Only
Alphabet as Knowledge Tool
Alphabet Information Generation
Alphabet Hard to Learn Not Intuitive, but is Powerful
Alphabet Most Powerful Technology
Counterintuitive Writing More Saves Time, New System Knowledge VLSI
Counterintuitive New System Knowledge Conflicts Common Sense
1915 -
191501 - ..
191502 - Experience Builds Belief; Belief Needed to Build Experience Base
191503 -
191504 - Tom said he understands the difficulty getting a large enough base of
191505 - people to try new tools and processes long enough to achieve improved
191506 - results, so that others will try, based on a record of experience
191507 - despite not understanding how or why new methods work. This point is
191508 - expressly made in Landauer's paper, "Plato's Problem," reviewed on
191509 - 960321. ref SDS 15 8668
191510 -
191511 - On 890809 Morris posed example of this difficulty using SDS.
191512 - ref SDS 1 2079
191513 -
191514 - On 921205 analysis shows "faith" helps overcome lack of understanding.
191515 - ref SDS 3 8493 Climbing mountains shows willingness to take immediate
191516 - and difficult action, but changing work practice to avoid future
191517 - difficulties that are not presently in view, is a much harder mountain
191518 - to climb, discussed on 950915. ref SDS 8 4930 Leadership overcomes
191519 - resistance to change for avoiding future danger, reviewed on 920128,
191520 - ref SDS 2 1199, explained on 940227 in POIMS as "push, pull, prod,
191521 - wait, try again..." ref SDS 5 7294
191522 -
191523 - [On 980307 Andy Grove cites intertia of success blinds people to
191524 - benefits of new methods that solve problems which people deny.
191525 - ref SDS 37 3740]
191526 -
191527 - [On 990527 "disruptive technology" takes a long time to emerge.
191528 - ref SDS 38 3034, due to cultural resistance. ref SDS 38 1233]
191529 -
191530 - Lynn Conway reported that acceptance of VLSI technology took a long
191531 - time because counterintiutive benefits are tough to explain, i.e.,
191532 - ideas that seem to conflict with "common sense," reviewed on 960612.
191533 - ref SDS 33 1368 On 960523 Intel did not have enough "bandwidth,"
191534 - i.e., faith, to study SDS technology for improving leadership.
191535 - ref SDS 31 4032
191536 -
191537 - [On 970703 leadership helps people overcome ignorance, fear and
191538 - denial. ref SDS 36 9603]
191539 -
191540 - I mentioned the alphabet required a long time to bring recognition of
191541 - generalized benefits, reported on 930112, ref SDS 4 3443, and noted
191542 - that SDS improves alphabet technology by adding connections to
191543 - information, i.e., "intelligence," which yields "knowledge" of cause
191544 - and effect, ref OF 1 0582, per discussion with Morris on 950204.
191545 - ref SDS 7 4995
191546 -
191547 - Tom said the alphabet is a good example of counterintuitive benefits.
191548 -
191549 - Alphabet technology leverages innate strengths to grow, shape, convey,
191550 - retrieve and preserve "meaning," explained in Tom's paper on Latent
191551 - Semantic Analysis (LSA), reviewed on 960321. ref SDS 15 2882 People
191552 - are not aware of this complex process becasue it occurs automatically
191553 - in the human mind, albeit often incorrectly due to "meaning drift,"
191554 - explained in Tom's paper reviewed on 960518. ref SDS 29 3734 There is
191555 - nothing to see nor hear that shows a big, important process is being
191556 - helped, see on 940609. ref SDS 6 8854
191557 -
191558 - People can see the benefit of a dump truck performing work. But the
191559 - alphabet takes a long time to learn, and benefits are mostly deferred.
191560 - Reading and writing today, doesn't pay off until, days, weeks, even
191561 - years later. Therefore, it took a long time for everyone to "get it,"
191562 - and the government had to pass a law requiring universal exposure.
191563 -
191564 - Tom said he has to go to a meeting.
191565 -
191566 - He requested a letter with action items to consider this idea further.
191567 -
191568 - [On 960812 followed up. ref SDS 35 0001]
191569 -
191570 -
191571 -
191572 -
191573 -
191574 -
191575 -
1916 -
Distribution. . . . See "CONTACTS"