SRI International
333 Ravenswood Avenue
Menlo Park, CA 94025
650 326 6200



April 17, 2003

03 00050 60 03032501



D R A F T


Mr. Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net
The Welch Company
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111 2496
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Subject:   Research for SDS and Communication Metrics
Transcending the Barriers to Knowledge Management

Dear Rod,

I have recommended that SRI pilot test the Schedule Diary System (SDS) program through appropriate research that demonstrates Knowledge Management provides a powerful new path of progress for the nation and civilization. Based on experience with SDS records prepared for Doug Engelbart's OHS/DKR team that met at SRI during the year 2000 (listed in your record on October 17, 2000), and based further on continuing experience with SDS work product, as discussed below, I believe SDS technology and related practices for Communication Metrics enable a new way of working that substantially improves common management practices, which have traditionally relied on information technology (IT). This advance accomplishes a large part of what is commonly called Knowledge Management that supports Doug Engelbart's goal to augment human intelligence, and so fits SRI's mission to research basic science that benefits the nation and advances civilization, as we discussed in my office on July 29, 2002. To demonstrate this advance, SRI will publish this letter using conventional methods and will, also, publish a version on the Internet that provides access to references through HTML links into the SDS record on the Internet. These links demonstrate the meaning of Knowledge Space, as defined in POIMS, and which some theorists and practitioners describe as a "knowledge repository" (see for example Doug Engelbart's 1972 paper that describes a Knowledge Workshop reported in your record on March 27, 2000). The unique ability of SDS to implement several such specific elements of Knowledge Management draws our attention for research.
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 Knowledge Management Credibility Gap Slows Progress

An SDS project must overcome a significant credibility gap because the usual sources for funding research are skeptical these days of anyone peddling advances in communication. Peter Drucker laments in his book Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, that everybody has given up because communication is too complex, shown by review in your record on November 30, 1993. You have pointed me to Dave Snowden's recent article Complex Acts of Knowing... published in the May 2002 issue of the Journal of Knowledge Management, which reports findings by IBM that Knowledge Management has failed to meet expectations. Drucker and Snowden are only the tip of the iceberg. Your record on October 3, 2001 lists exhaustive research showing people feel Knowledge Management will never work, including those who have, up until now, been staunch advocates and in many cases developers.
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This record of slow transformation from information to a culture of knowledge creates despair, frustration and disillusionment that makes people give up, causing reluctance to believe SDS succeeds where everyone else has failed.
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An example is Lotus Notes. Your record on November 14, 1994 reports a meeting where IBM found that SDS integrates key capabilities to improve traditional information management based on a coherent theory of knowledge explained in POIMS. IBM made plans to support joint development of SDS with Welch. Following that meeting, in 1995 IBM changed direction. Instead of investing a few million dollars to strengthen SDS, IBM invested $4 billion to acquire Lotus Development in order to get Lotus Notes. Subsequently, IBM has produced many excellent products with Lotus Notes for collaboration, using the Internet, instant messaging and application sharing, similar to Netmeeting available with Microsoft Windows, and cited by Dave Snowden in a letter to you on September 20, 2002 mentioning Quickplace, Sametime and Teamroom. IBM, also, reported on November 30, 2000 that efforts to convert Lotus Notes into a Knowledge Management program, which they had planned to name Raven, were not successful, because engineers could not develop an effective design for "knowledge" support. Difficulty getting Lotus Notes to support Knowledge Management, despite investing billions of dollars, presents a cultural credibility gap that helps explain Dave Snowden's letter to you on June 10 in which SDS is dismissed out of hand, without evident review comparable to analysis in SDS of Dave's paper, Complex Acts of Knowing..., shown in your record on June 8 last year.
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Loss of confidence in Knowledge Management dominates the halls of government, industry and academia, as you and I discussed on April 26, 2001. This record of cultural denial, spawned by fatigue chasing blind alleys, coincides with reluctance to study the difference between information and knowledge.
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 Dilemma of Knowledge Management Solved by SDS and Communication Metrics
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POIMS makes a common sense distinction between "information" that occurs from sensory perception when we see, hear and encounter daily life moment-to-moment; while knowledge is derived from the mind accumulating information over time that constructs connections which continually grow understanding about cause and effect based on the context of human needs. The result of this process that connects information into patterns of cause and effect, can be described as belief, understanding, experience, paradigms and knowledge. In some settings understanding cause and effect is called "intelligence." For clarity and convenience POIMS favors the notion of intelligence as the process of connecting information to create knowledge of cause and effect, and breaks this process into five (5) elements to organize, analyse, align, summarize and feedback. Under the POIMS theory of knowledge, a book, a movie, an email, looking at a sunset, driving to work all develop "information." The mind connects information to fit consistently into a web of prior connections that continually refine the accuracy of knowledge about cause and effect, which enables "continual learning," that separates conflicting experience into different patterns, commonly called new ideas, insights, rules and paradigms. You observe that merely getting information in a book, a meeting, a call or an email, does not impart knowledge, until the mind acquires enough experience to believe the weight of the evidence justifies taking action in relation to the risk of error.
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Mental metrics that weigh the strength of evidence through the intelligence process of accumulating experience are accomplished by "guessing," noted by Landauer in his paper on Latent Semantic Analysis, reviewed on March 21, 1996.
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SDS externalizes common mental metrics that weigh and segment information into relevant evidence for making judgements about knowledge of cause and effect, as developed in SDS on February 4, 1995. This significantly extends traditional practices for literacy, which people have used for thousands of years to to create and craft information with the alphabet, as the foundation and the engine of civilization. The flexible structure of SDS, described on May 23, 1989, enables an intelligence process for people to integrate traditional time management with information management, forming a new spreadsheet-like rendering that connects (i.e., links) cause and effect. New tools balance hand-eye coordination to increase harmony and synergy for organization and linking. This makes deliberative analysis fun, fast and easy to routinely capture and assemble lessons learned into case studies that guide daily work.
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Connections in SDS expand continuously over days, weeks, months and years, similar to, though necessarily stronger than, the way experience is organized based on context in the human mind, reported by the US Army Corps of Engineers on March 28, 1997. Unique line numbering presents a striking new format that is different from traditional documents. The new format of SDS expands functionality for dimensional space into an effective spreadsheet for knowledge. Integrating connections of cause and effect with the power of flexible structure to organize context increases command and control of the work, under the common rule that everything is in the right place at the righ time, as reported on April 25, 2001. Expanding traditional practices for finding physical objects in dimensional space to strengthen command and conrol for finding knowledge and ideas at the right time for performing daily work, leads to a new way of working through transformation from documents to Knowledge Space. Research under the OHS/DKR project sponsored by SRI has found that SDS enables amazing memory, illustrated by the report on September 16, 2001. Better command and control of the record was reported by Roy Roebuck in the Defense Department, cited on February 17, 2002. Since connections of cause and effect and flexible structure are missing from traditional information technology for letters, memos, reports, books, articles, computer systems, data bases, etc, there is justification for saying SDS enables a unique, powerful advance on traditional literacy. We believe this advance beyond information technology (IT) is embodied by the notion of Knowledge Management, as shown in the record of our meeting at SRI on July 29, 2002, and further explained in POIMS. In the same way that alphabet technology externalizes information management to enable literacy, SDS externalizes Knowledge Management to augment human intelligence by greatly expanding span of attention, using automated integration of time and information, described above. Since connections in SDS continually grow with daily use, SDS meets the criteria for a "dynamic knowledge repository," or DKR, that enables continual learning. SRI has long pursued the goal of a DKR, beginning the 1960s, when Doug Engelbart developed seminal work on Augment NLS.
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"Knowledge" supported by SDS is dynamic in another important sense beyond mere daily growth. On January 7, 1997 Robert Johnson, President of Dutra Dredging Company in San Rafael, California, observed that experience working on the Oakland Harbor project showed that SDS records are used to guide daily work, in addition to growing the repository for guiding future work. Mr. Johnson went on to note that no other traditional management system is used in this way, i.e., SDS enables a new way of working, as related earlier by Morris Jones on November 23, 1991. More recently, on December 19, 2000 eight (8) specific steps were identified for using SDS to perform Communication Metrics that creates knowledge by adding intelligence to information. This powerful break with traditional methods, supports describing SDS work product as a "Dynamic Knowledge Repository." Parenthetically, SDS support for both a clearly defined process of intelligence, and a thing called "knowledge" addresses, at least in part, popular concerns in the KM literature about how to treat knowledge separately from information, shown, for example, by Dave Snowden's paper that reviews this historical dilemma by theorizing that knowledge is paradoxically both a "thing" and a "flow." Theory and practice shows SDS transcends these issues with an elegant and practical solution that people readily recognize, when given the chance to experience SDS work product, as noted by Mr. Johnson when working on the Oakland Harbor project. Recognition that SDS enables a new way of working has been replicated by the team at SRI contributing to Doug Engelbart's OHS/DKR project.
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Doug's seminal work in the field, beginning in the 1960s at SRI, was honored in the year 2000 with award by President Clinton of the National Medal for Technology, reported on November 14, 2000. On December 10, 2001, Doug wrote to Terry Winograd who teaches computer science at Stanford University saying...
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I've known Rod Welch now for almost two years; he's spent a good many years focussing on improved ways to manage information-knowledge, developing a quite comprehensive and unique tool system [SDS] and associated working methodology [Communication Metrics]. ..
Upon investigation, a few days later on December 13, 2001 Professor Winograd, who has a long and distiguished career of writing and participation in professional committees, seminars and journals to advance information technology, noted that SDS flexible structure and functionality for making connections with hyperlinks supports a wide variety of purposes, similar to Doug's original Augment NLS.
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We need not accept any of the definitions in POIMS for intelligence, information and knowledge to recognize a simple fact: SDS enables capturing, organizing and retrieving a greater share of daily working information, which Doug Engelbart calls out in his 1972 paper for defining a Knowledge Work Shop. Analysis in SDS on September 24, 2001 notes that merely capturing organizational memory, while important, is not enough for Knowledge Management. POIMS explains the SDS design leverages human mental metrics for remembering the gist of information by expanding fragments of recollection into an accurate picture of organizational memory. Using technology for better memory of cause and effect offers a path to a paperless office that is another way Knowledge Management has been described.
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SDS records show research that extends Knowledge Management beyond the field of computer science. The record on March 3, 1990 reviews cognitive science. The record on October 21, 1992 reviews management practices at NASA and JPL. On December 5, 1992 Stephen Covey's ideas for a new practice of time management are reviewed, and Peter Drucker's writings are explored on November 30, 1993. Industry standards on management practices are analysed in a record on July 21, 1995, and a week or so earlier on July 10 of 1995 there is extensive review of Professor Thomas K. Landauer's book The Trouble with Computers that offers perspective on limitations and challenges of augmenting human thinking, which aligns with earlier analysis of Jeremy Campbell's work on March 3, 1990. The following year Landauer's paper on cognitive science was reviewed over an extended period beginning in March and culminating in a record on May 18, 1996 that identified meaning drift as a target of opportunity for technology to strengthen human span of attention. To fast forward a bit, on March 7, 1998 Andy Grove's book Only the Paranoid Survive chronicles transformation of Intel from a memory chip manufacturer to the world's leading producer of microprocessors. Grove endorses key management practices posed by Peter Drucker noting that organizations need to invest a portion of profits to experiment with new methods that address new realities of a changing world. Grove encourages diligence in capturing an accurate record to avoid mistakes caused by the ambiguity of mental maps. A year later on March 3, 1999 Professor George Miller's seminal paper published in the 1950s on cognitive science was reviewed, and showed that Professor Miller succeeded in quantifying limitations of human memory, which Grove later recognized in his book.
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Miller's research showed that people can remember only about seven (7) things before getting confused and then starting to forget. As the mind becomes consciously aware of more things within the moment, the number of things that fall outside span of attention increases under the common rule, we cannot think of everything at once. The flexible structure of the SDS design leverages this model of human cognition by integrating seven (7) elements of traditional management practice (schedule, diary, summary, people, documents, subjects, control). Providing a few common management areas that fit span of attention, which in turn direct the mind to more details, leverages human acuity under Miller's findings.
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On June 25, 1999 review of Kaiser's Healthwise Handbook for patient care revealed that communication is a critical ingredient of medical treatment. A few months later Kaiser's ideas drew support from studies published on September 12, 1999 showing that failed communication is a major cause for the high cost of medical mistakes that are 300% greater than automobile and airplane accidents combined. The SDS record on October 25, 1999 reviews an article by Peter Drucker calling for technology to routinize tasks for basic knowledge work by applying cognitive science. Later that year, on December 22, 1999 Doug Engelbart requested review of his paper on groupware published in 1992, for correlation with Communication Metrics supported by SDS that routinizes practices for applying theory from cognitive science. This was submitted, and subsequently on February 8, 2000 Eric Armstrong asked for advice on the core problem to solve in a dynamic knowledge repository, and this was explained in an SDS record submitted to the OHS/DKR group citing authorities reviewed here. Later that month, on February 21, 2000 Jack Park cited the dilemma that arises from the complexity of organizing knowledge into a useful ontology that overwhelms limited span of attention. This makes finding information a Pandora's Box that frustrates scientists, engineers and people on the job. At that time, Dick Karpinski reported to the OHS/DKR group that he requested a meeting and subsequently observed SDS being used, and that this showed SDS makes Knowledge Management fast and easy. On May 15, 2000 Jack Park commended the work of Charles Peirce on semiotics. Peirce developed an important correlation between knowledge, accuracy and experience, which is supported by the flexible design of SDS. On June 2, 2000 Jack pointed to work by Ontologos, who claimed to have technology that, also, solves the complexity problem of ontology. Research over the next several days discovered on June 7 that this claim was a mistake. Fast forwarding again to the current period, on May 4, 2002 review in SDS of the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) shows alignment with good management practices advocated by NASA and JPL, Covey, Drucker, Grove and Kaiser, all calling for better listening to understand and follow up that makes communication effective through traceability to original sources that applies the lessons of history through case study and root cause analysis. A month later on June 8, 2002 John Maloney, who leads a professional organization for knowledge management, commended a paper by Dave Snowden at IBM, and two days later on June 10 Dave also asked you to review his paper on Knowledge Management titled Complex Acts of Knowing and published as a Special Edition Journal of Knowledge Management in May 2002.
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Dave's paper is carefully reviewed in the SDS record on June 8 showing lineage to other work by prominent people in the KM movement, e.g., Skyme, Zacks, Nonaka. This overview is only a small part of the approximate 2,000 SDS records for research, and this research is only a small part of the overall SDS record containing approximately 25,000 records extending from 1988. Dave's paper is one of approximately 11,000 documents, which occur within SDS records that are managed for context using approximately 150,000 subjects.
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Why is this significant?
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 The Dog that Didn't Bark
Lack of Analysis of SDS Shows Lack of Progress Toward Knowledge Management

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made famous the logic of analysis through exception in his masterful book The Hound of the Baskervilles, when Sherlock Holmes drew an inference from "...the dog that didn't bark"!
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The SDS body of work containing 11,000 documents, 25,000 records and roughly 150,000 subjects generated over a period of 15 years demonstrates a system that works. SDS records comprise a knowledge repository in the sense that records are linked forward and backward in time to plan and perform new tasks, and grow understanding of cause and effect, which emulates human thought, as noted by the US. Army Corps of Engineers in a report on March 28, 1997. The ability to implement a coherent theory of knowledge using technology that supports cognitive science aligns with Peter Drucker's call to routinize good management practice in the sense that 25,000 records, 11,000 documents and 150,000 subjects shows routine application of a new way of working using eight (8) steps to implement the plan, perform and report intelligence process endemic to the SDS design. (see the record on December 19, 2000)
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By contrast, our research shows that no other system has produced such a record that can, in any real sense, be described as a "new way of working," for routinely creating a "knowledge repository" of connections that show cause and effect based on context, as described above, despite millions, even billions, of dollars invested to achieve that objective. This lack of work product appears as another "..dog that didn't bark," measured against daily, routine work produced by SDS. This suggests an inference that for all intents and purposes the design for knowledge management is a secret of SDS, and so can very likely be unlocked only by following that design or hitting upon a comparable design through comparable experience and research working in a particular way for a long time.
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Second, while there is extensive analysis in SDS of other people's efforts on knowledge management, there is total silence among other people about SDS, as noted by Jack Park in a letter on May 4, 2000 to Doug Engelbart's OHS/DKR group. The refusal to read, study and comment with any degree of rigor and scholarship on POIMS, which clearly seems required for advance, demonstrates the challenge of transformation from information to a culture of knowledge, explained in POIMS. Two notable exceptions are Lieutenant General Henry J. Hatch (RET), former commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers, who reported on April 3, 1996 having read the New World Order (NWO) paper three (3) times because SDS presents challenging new ideas. The other exception is professor Joseph Ransdell at Texas Tech University who commented with depth and perception in a series of analyses on NWO over a span of several weeks, beginning on July 16, 2000.
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Why this disparity? Why careful study in SDS of other people's work, but no study at all of SDS?
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During our meeting last year on July 29 we talked about one reason.
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Serious researchers want to be published. The culture of research within government, academia and industry has evolved over several thousand years to require researching other work that has been published. Research on SDS has been published on the Internet because that is fast and easy, and because it demonstrates a new way of working using a paperless/virtual office model that can be experienced online via the Internet, but which cannot be experienced using traditional print media, as related to you by staff on the National Science Foundation, reported on June 15, 1999. You describe this in POIMS as transformation from documents to Knowledge Space. This gap between traditional print technology and Communication Metrics enabled by SDS presents an impasse that prevents discovery of breakthroughs needed for advancing Knowledge Management through the culture of research and serious scholarship that remains fixed to traditional ways of publishing documents. Gary Johnson correctly points out on November 19, 2002 that many people simply refuse to review publications on the Internet largely for reasons of historical inertia, i.e., because they have always used printed works, while others feel pressured by economic necessity to rely solely on the existing infrastructure for paying people in the traditional publishing business. These cultural and economic dynamics may explain some reluctance to study and ponder POIMS, as Jack Park noted earlier, and is evident in the fields of cognitive science, computer science and management science where there has been total silence about SDS, POIMS and Communication Metrics. Moreover, John Maloney notes in his letter on June 10, 2002 that even in the fledgling field of Knowledge Management, where there is a lively subculture of regular publications devoted to KM, there is silence on SDS.
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This presents another Knowledge Management dilemma where formal education, established publications and professional events are engaged in a rich and continuing dialog proposing advances in computer science, cognitive science and management science that move only in circles. From a base of existing knowledge, engineers, experts and pundits alternately speculate about glowing benefits from advancing beyond information technology by using linking, meta data, dialog and topic maps, then retreat in the face of slow progress on transformation, only to appear again in different names. all because people are only speculating and never in fact gain any actual experience using capabilities beyond traditional information technology, because powerful cultural and economic forces reward conformity.
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Resistance to SDS, however, is driven by deeper forces than mere economics. Slow progress by the larger community creates a dynamic of denial that Knowledge Management cannot be done, and consequent refusal to see by those who nominally are seeking a solution. Professor Ransdell touched on this in his letter dated July 16, 2000, observing that SDS enables a theory of knowledge that has escaped discovery since at least the 17th century, and went on to observe that patience is essential to meet expected resistance arising from difficulty people have differentiating information from knowledge. Eric Armstrong's letter to the OHS/DKR group on May 3, 2000 expressly cites this problem, and Professor Randell's analysis was further supported by IBM's announcement reported on November 30, 2000 that failure by the Lotus Notes team to develop technology under the name of Raven, was caused by inability to define Knowledge Management.
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You describe an innovation loop that begins with lack of a coherent theory of knowledge for developing tools that permit people to acquire experience in sufficient measure over a sufficient period of time to grasp a meaningful advance from information to a culture of knowledge.
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This circularity of hope and despair that recycles every few years the same ideas that prevent progress is illustrated by the letter from John Maloney on June 10, 2002 pointing out that SDS does not fit any of the criteria established by the community of Knowledge Management professionals. John goes on to commend Dave Snowden's article which in turn observes that expectations for Knowledge Management have not been met. John later wrote on August 23, 2002 that the tools he posed in his letter on June 10, 2002 for evaluating the efficacy of SDS do not in fact support Knowledge Management, but rather are mere technology gadgets.
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At about this same time on August 20, 2002 Murray Altheim wrote that linking is not an element of Knowledge Management because people have voted against using this method. The same letter appears to discount the importance of accuracy for informal communication in email and conversation. (see below cultural forces of two (2) worlds that drive people to give up on linking) A few days later, on August 22, 2002 a weblog from Ray Ozzie, who is CEO of Groove Networks, and who earlier helped develop Lotus Notes, reported that people are feeling "pain" using Lotus Notes and email. Ozzie went on to report that "Although email is a great place to start conversations, it's increasingly difficult to carry on productive work in our overloaded InBoxes. Messages often get misplaced, for example, among responses from people who much too casually press the 'Reply to All' button." A year earlier on September 9, 2001 Jack Park made a nearly identical observation explaining that laziness drives people to forego analysis, and instead press Reply to respond on impulse to email with whatever happens to pop into the mind at the moment. Jack went on to presage Ozzie's later recognition that conventional email practice causes a lot pain by reducing productivity, saying that email is not well organized and it tends to allow rambling. John Maloney echoed these misgivings about conventional email in a letter on August 23 where he hoped that Groove technology would help retire onerous constraints of email. None-the-less, John paradoxically argues in the same letter in favor of conventional email and against links that make it fast and easy to verify accuracy and expand span of attention. A month later on September 20, Jack Park made a similar plea to ignore Ray Ozzie's warning and oblivious to his own prior advice about the danger of conventional email practice, and further ignoring Doug Engelbart's express advice to put links in email, as a first step toward knowledge management, reported on April 5, 2000 and citing Doug's prior papers.
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To "square the circle," as the saying goes, a key element of knowledge management has been the emergence of "meta data" to organize an ontology that makes finding information fast and easy. The need for better ways to find information was cited by Eric Armstrong in a letter to the OHS/DKR group on September 19, 2001 which complained that finding information in time to support daily work is impossible. A few weeks later on October 3, Eric asked if anyone knew how to solve this problem, and Jack Park replied there are no clues, despite several years of research beginning at least with Jack's letter on February 23, 2000 when he related the challenge of complexity posed by developing and applying an effective ontology. Just about a year later on October 31, 2002 Sergey Brin, who developed the world famous Google search tools that are popular for finding things on the Internet, reported research showing that people have voted against adding meta data to organize information into a coherent ontology for finding information, similar to Murray's report the prior August that people have given up on linking in email.
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Clearly, the frustration of failure is driving people to roam endlessly in circles, where exhaustion eventually leads to giving up. Yet, since the need for improvement is so overwhelmingly evident from poor productivity using conventional methods for communication in meetings, calls and documents, every five (5) years or so a new generation comes forward with new enthusiasm to repeat the prior cycles of hope, effort, realization and giving up -- again, and again, and again. You point out in POIMS that these patterns repeat because the mechanics of information are external, and so are well understood, while the mechanics of intelligence that generate knowledge are innate, and so are hidden from the conscious mind, and thus much harder to discover. This has the effect on the ground of paying people to create information in meetings, calls and documents, but trying to save money by not paying anyone to add intelligence that enables people to work productively by converting information into useful knowledge.
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I believe the better course is to follow advice of Tom Munnecke's group reported in your record on July 26, 2002. Instead of giving up, we need to break out of the innovation loop to....
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Study What Works

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In large part this requires studying POIMS and NWO, and, also, gaining experience using SDS rather than continuing to talk about Knowledge Management while relying solely on information technology. Why should only one person be routinely creating a knowledge repository of organizational memory consisting of 25,000 records, 11,000 documents and 150,000 subjects? If one person can learn to press the buttons that convert information into knowledge surely others can as well. But many ask why should we change our work practice? To underscore this point, recall that Eric Armstrong wrote two letters on September 16, 2001. As noted, the first letter cited failure of methods using meta data, topic maps and other popular approaches for search engines, to find things on the computer. Eric's second letter, however, pointed out that SDS enables amazing memory with mechanisms that obviously work. Moreover, apart from Eric's letter, some simple arithmetic demonstrates that SDS works beyond the wildest dreams for better management.
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Some people feel that anyone can produce SDS work product by using other methods. However, the effort to perform Knowledge Management using other tools is so difficult that people are abandoning functionality and thus stripping Knowledge Management of any meaningful distinction from information technology (IT). For example, Murray Altheim's letter to the OHS/DKR group on August 20, 2002 observed that since linking is hard to do using tools that people like, it is easier to eliminate linking as a criteria for Knowledge Management than to learn to use tools that enable knowledge management. Sergey Brin offers a similar rationale for abandoning efforts to organize the record, and proposes, instead, using Brin's very popular Internet Google tools for keyword searches to find information on a personal computer.
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Doing the math on just one SDS record reveals startling support for this analysis. If people cannot transition from information technology to Knowledge Management, then eliminating requirements for good management to verify accuracy using alignment and organization is mandatory. For those who support good management, SDS appears to offer a direct and robust solution.
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Let's pick the record of our meeting on July 29, 2002. That record has 249 links. From observing you use SDS during the meeting at SRI on May 17, 2001, and based on input from you and others who have observed SDS being used, it takes less than one second to create a link with SDS, making the task essentially a matter of volition. It takes 5 - 10 seconds to find a record and the location for creating a link within a record or another source of some kind, such as a book, an article, email, specification, regulation, etc. Let's say it takes about 10 seconds overall to create a link using SDS. About 50 links were created automatically by the SDS program itself, so they take no time at all; that leaves about 200 links at 10 seconds each = 2,000 seconds or about 30 minutes to create links to verify accuracy of understandings and expand span of attention on subjects related to our meeting on July 29, 2002.
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By contrast, it takes 20 - 60 seconds to manipulate technology, like Microsoft Word, Lotus Notes and similar tools, to create a link; it takes 10 minutes or so to find a source to link, if indeed any can be found at all, under the reports by Sergey Brin and Eric Armstrong that nobody can find anything using other methods, and it takes another 30 seconds or so to add an anchor. Support for the 10 minute figure is in your record on April 6, 1996 relating common difficulties finding information that people encounter on the job every day. In that case, several hours were invested by an attorney and then a secretary to find one document. On July 20, 2002 Murray Altheim observed that creating links using conventional technologies takes considerable time, which discourages the practice all together. The acuteness of this problem is recognized by Microsoft. On November 8, 2002 Bill Gates announced on the Charlie Rose broadcast that Microsoft plans a new project to develop technology for finding information on computers. In the meantime, for this estimate, let's round off and assume an order of magnitude saying it takes 10 minutes to create a link using other methods. So, 10 x 249 = 2,490 minutes; say 40 hours using other tools versus 30 minutes with SDS. Few people are willing to invest a week to verify accuracy and expand span of attention on a meeting that lasted about an hour. Even assuming a lot of people would not invest 30 minutes for this, at least on important matters, like say national defense, saving the company, or personal medical matters, many might invest say 20 minutes or at least 15 minutes. By any measure, this means that using other tools, the work is less accurate and overlooks a lot of connections for making action effective.
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Research reported by the US Army Corps of Engineers on October 7, 1997 showed similar disparity occurs between using SDS and conventional methods for assigning subjects and identifying action items. Thus, using other methods it takes two weeks to produce SDS work product, that takes a few hours using SDS. My sense is that people have voted against linking and against meta data, not because experience has shown these are not valuable requirements for any conceivable notion of knowledge management, but rather because it is beyond reach using tools everybody likes. This disparity affects attitudes about using good management. While federal law in the form of requirements for procurement, called FAR, and while industry standards all call uniformly for traceability to original sources that ensures accurate communication, people have uniformly given up because the effort is too hard using tools people like. Thus, if standards and regulations are enforced, the market for SDS will explode, because as, shown by the math, there is no other practical way to meet requirements for good management. The letter on September 12, 2002 from Stuart Harrow with DCMA (part of the Defense Department) showed promise by asking for information on SDS support for explicit links that make creating alignment, called out by the regulations, fast and easy.
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Why then research SDS, rather than simply allow market forces to sweep SDS into homes and businesses across the nation and around the world? The SDS record on March 3, 1990 offers an apt explanation, or analogy, for distinguishing information from knowledge. People act on knowledge from experience, rather than information, especially where there is a discernable cost involved like investing a few weeks to learn how to press some new buttons that change work practices from grazing on information to investing intellectual capital. When transformation takes more than 20 minutes to learn a new way of working, people try instead to get by with skills they already have unless they are 100% sure of success. Currently, people have information from USACE, DNRC, SRI and others individually that SDS is a stronger solution, but that is not the same as having "knowledge" from experience that SDS is faster, better and cheaper. Since the rewards of knowledge are deferred, in the beginning people feel they can get by sticking with methods we already know, rather than learning to use new methods that promise future benefits. Intel's chairman, Andy Grove, describes helping executives improve is like walking through the valley of death. Lynn Conway is cited by George Gilder in his book "Microcosm" reviewed in the SDS record on June 12, 1996, for framing the challenge of change....
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How can you take methods that are new, methods that are not in common use and therefore perhaps considered unsound methods, and turn them into sound methods? ..
Gilder argues that Intel somehow successfully navigated the ageless challenge of transformation to new methods in the manufacture of microprocessors. Intel's success overcoming powerful cultural forces that resist improvement, then ignited the personal computer industry nearly a quarter of a century ago, leading to the information revolution today. Grove warns, however, that successful people have a hard time admitting that the magnitude of the problems they face require new methods to meet new realities created by past success. In other words, the advance of civilization is cyclical. Improvement spawns new problems with consequent opportunities for extending the march. In this case, everybody feels that an information revolution is a good thing, under the common rule that "more is better." However, the New World Order... paper notes that, since human biology is constant over thousands of years, getting more information overwhelms human mental metrics that limit span of attention. Therefore, in order for Intel's innovation to help people think, remember and communicate, another innovation is needed that helps people make connections that convert information into useful knowledge, discussed above relating the innovation of SDS. Since Intel's innovation was integrating computer processes into a microprocessor, this success seems like ideal experience for the next innovation to use computers for integrating processes that augment human intelligence. Since this now seems not to be true, it presents another Knowledge Management dilemma for investigation through research.
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For example, about ten (10) years after pioneering the microprocessor, Intel flush with victory and cash was casting about for new worlds to conquer. Byte magazine published an article in 1991 reporting that Intel set a new objective to make computers useful for management, which at its core requires augmenting human intelligence, according to Professor Landauer in his book The Trouble with Computers. Of course, our own Doug Engelbart identified this strategic objective more than a decade earlier growing out of research conducted at SRI. Doug's seminal article on Groupware published in 1992 summarized some 30 years of study that endorsed "intelligence" support, which he called CODIAK, as reported in your record on December 22, 1999, when Doug asked you to review his work in relation to Communication Metrics.
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You argue that the path to reach Doug's goals for "intelligence" embodies the tactical approach in the Byte article, which quotes Intel's program manager, Dave Vannier, as holding up a standard notepad, and saying...
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This is my laptop, today. I'm looking for something that replaces this. This is it. This is what I want. When I can do everything that I can do with this pad of paper and this pen, I might be happy. That means being able to tear things out and hand them to my secretary. It means being able to draw pictures, it means being able to put in text, it means being able to keep my calendar, and everything else. This is my calendar. So, this is how I live, and this is what I'm looking to replace. If you can imagine this is a laptop, this in electronics, that's how I can account for 15 million transistors. Now what do I do past that? I guess I can start talking to it. ..
During the same interview, Vannier's colleague, Bill Rush, expanded Intel's vision further by saying...

People are going to really think through some of these scenarios of what people do, and what kinds of technologies have to be integrated into a PC to really make everybody more productive and (do) less drudgery work on their computers. And I think there's a lot to be done in the world of software. ..
You later met with Dave Vannier at Intel on September 27, 1995 and demonstrated that SDS implements Intel's vision for integrated tools that combine time and information management to provide "intelligence" that supports a spreadsheet for knowledge. Dave disclosed, however, that, by then, inability since 1991 to accomplish Intel's earlier vision had led Dave to revert back to a conventional paper notebook, because Intel discovered that no matter how much money is available, without the right design, no progress can be made to advance from using computers for information to apply technology in a way that grows a culture of knowledge. This cycle of hope and despair has been repeated throughout the 90s and to the present day in the field of Knowledge Management.
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Following several years where Dave gained familiarity with SDS records, and based on the report by the US Army Corps of Engineers saying that SDS enables an effective intelligence role for daily management, Dave proposed using SDS on a new project he was assigned to manage at Intel, as related in an SDS record on June 3, 1997. Dave later reported that his boss would not approve using SDS. Similar experience occurred with the US Army Corps of Engineers, and with DNRC. In every case, people who gain experience with SDS become advocates (see USACE and DNRC) yet, those with experience are overruled by those who have none. This record powerfully sustains analysis in your record on March 3, 1990 explaining the central role of experience in the formulation of knowledge, recognized by such notables as Charles Peirce in his theory of semiotics, cited above, and by Albert Einstein, reviewed on November 24, 1999.
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Of course, as the saying goes, it doesn't take an Einstein to understand the importance of experience in forming human knowledge. Moving from a general, common sense notion of experience, as simply showing up and putting in time on the job, to the specifics of using SDS for capturing and organizing experience as a strategic asset of organizational memory, explained in POIMS, requires a big leap of faith, because transformation from information to a culture of knowledge takes time to learn new skills. The SDS record on August 9, 1989 relates discussion with Morris Jones, who developed tools for creating SDS in the 1980s, and now is at Intel. At that time review showed that overcoming resistance to approval for using SDS to save time and money requires teaching an executive cognitive science, computer science, and management science. Ten (10) years later on May 27, 1999, Morris again cited powerful cultural resistance because most executives feel they know enough management science by virtue of time on the job, and in some cases having received an MBA degree. People in the technology sector in many cases feel they know enough about computer science. As a result, trying to educate seasoned people within the 30 seconds and 25 word sound bites allocated for learning new ideas is met with understandable resistance from an impression that personal competence is being challenged and even insulted. Moreover, cognitive science is a relatively new field, and so is viewed by many as mere quackery, and by some as an invasive threat to traditional reverence for the soul that explains human sentience. These dynamics largely foreclose explaining cognitive science as a rational basis for Knowledge Management. Since people cannot be taught the fundamentals required to understand SDS support for "intelligence" that converts information into knowledge, this idea must be acquired through experience.
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 2 Worlds - Documents Stifle Transformation to Culture of Knowledge
Knowledge Transforms Information into Intelligence Assets

Eric Armstrong offered a strong clue about the character of research needed to advance Knowledge Management when he pointed out in a letter on October 3, 2001 that doing Knowledge Management with conventional tools is so hard that people must be paid to make the effort. Ad hoc, part-time and spare-time efforts do not make progress, as seen by failure of open source and other efforts, because people revert to methods that are comfortable, fast and easy, and so never discover a meaning of knowledge that can advance beyond information technology. Since the rewards of creating knowledge are deferred, the immediate, emotional satisfaction of information presents a powerful psychological barrier against investing time for intelligence. The disparity of incentives between immediate utility of information weighed against deferred rewards of knowledge helps explain the overwhelming tendency to use bad management, because cursory, spontaneous reaction feels good in the moment by relieving the stress of a perceived need for action. On September 7, 2001 Jack Park explained laziness is attracted to email because spontaneous response feels like progress, much like fools gold feels like sudden riches. Under this rubric, executives need to be convinced within 30 seconds to approve SDS for intelligence support, and those further down the chain of command insist on being able to learn how to save time and money within 20 minutes. As you know the theory of knowledge in POIMS cannot be taught in 30 seconds nor can the practice of Communication Metrics that implements SDS be learned in 20 minutes. Recent experience with Gary Johnson shows that people need a period of 4 - 8 weeks to acquire sufficient skill to transform work practice for applying SDS on the job. This presents another knowledge management dilemma. People on the job generally feel that being employed establishes existing skills for information technology using meetings, calls and email are good enough to get by, otherwise they would have been let go along with others during the current economic downturn.
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Another dilemma that resists transformation to a culture of knowledge is viscosity that clings to tried and true methods. Andy Grove at Intel says people like to work on familiar things in familiar ways, reviewed in your record on March 7, 1998. Despite intellectual acceptance and even advocacy by many of the benefits for a paperless office that replaces traditional documents with instant access to a new form of Knowledge Space enabled by SDS, in the beginning, people hesitate. Dave Snowden who champions Knowledge Management at IBM noted on September 20, 2002 that using information on the computer is more difficult than using printed media. Others resist deliberative analysis, reported on August 23, 2002, and still many worry about giving up traditional practices like making notes while reading in bed. Of course notebook computers solve the latter problem, and increased fire power from speed and accuracy evident in using SDS for improving common literacy (i.e., reading and writing) far outweigh all other considerations. But, until people gain experience with this practice, the prospect that SDS technology augments intelligence seems both funny and foreign compared to sticking with comfortable methods, as reported by Intel on July 13, 1999.
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An example that is easy to grasp is the tension between reading on a computer and printing information to facilitate intelligence, defined in POIMS as organization, analysis, alignment, summary and feedback. These tasks, common to the military for strengthening command and control, have not caught the attention of business executives. Since the cost of failure in business is far less than the cost of failure in the military, business has historically ignored investment for intelligence that enables proactive management to save time and money. None-the-less, it turns out that the battle to advance beyond information technology (IT) creates enormous tension for both military and business practitioners in attempting to use hyperlinks, as one of the many tools SDS uses for converting information into knowledge. Traditional practices for information management, explained, for example, in your record on August 9, 1989, store printed documents in binders and file folders that connect information through physical association using proximity of common binding. People study information by making notes in the margin of documents, or on separate paper, and adding highlights that preserve understanding of correlations, implications and nuance derived from reading and memory of other sources in books, meetings, reports, calls , etc. Yellow postits are attached to documents that summarize meaning and expand span of attention by making information memorable. These methods have worked well for thousands of years in school and on the job, which necessarily creates powerful cultural inertia that resists improvement, reported on May 27, 1999.
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A typical application is to use different binders for different subjects, and draw on the contents in meetings, while adding new information after a meeting. During a meeting, people discuss how information relates to experience, objectives, requirements and commitments by drawing on their knowledge of other meetings, calls and documents. This leads to widely disparate interpretations, because everyone's experience is different. People innately make different mental connections of cause and effect, because sources for controlling authority in law, policy, contracts, industry standards and work history are not readily available in a meeting to verify accuracy of memory. When differing memories are evident, strong leadership, perhaps using a facilitator, may draw people into alignment through skillful collaboration; or, alternatively, differences cause emotional conflict that disrupts the meeting, reducing productivity for everyone. Personalities vary greatly in tolerating conflict and in ability to express differing interpretations constructively. As a result, people often suppress feedback. Moreover, differing memories that cause conflicting links in the mind are not always evident during a meeting. Communication continues to be interpreted by "digesting" meaning after a meeting in relation to subsequent events. When differences in the mental links people make are not identified and resolved, this causes continual bumbling from people taking conflicting, rather than complementary, action, as explained in NWO. (see also discussion of rework in the report by the US Army Corps of Engineers on October 7, 1997)
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Hyperlinks help solve this problem in SDS by providing common connections to relevant history and authority that build and maintain shared meaning. Since this solution greatly expands the amount of information to print, handle and organize, people using traditional information methods strike a balance by avoiding links to original sources, and instead rely on personal memory that is fast and easy. Research stemming from Doug Engelbart's Colloquium at Stanford, reported on March 7, 2000, anticipated Eric Armstrong's worry a year so later, related above, that Knowledge Management is very slow, hard work using traditional information technology methods. Similarly, research by the US Air Force Institute of Technology reported on July 7, 1977 that management degrades to entropy, driving up time and cost, because information overload forces reliance on memory that is highly susceptible to error. Knowledge Management is loudly and widely proposed for solving this problem in the abstract of a theoretical paperless office, shown by professional journals and seminars that extoll the benefits of linking. Yet, as seen, links are rejected as a practical method of daily work, because people have to spend all of their time at the printer and putting things into binders in order to manage information available through linking. Soon people, who previously advocated links, come to demur, because links represent loss of control using traditional information management methods that dominate daily work today.
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In the same way that printing is essential and links are avoided for information management, printing is avoided and links are essential for Knowledge Management. SDS makes the intelligence process of plan, perform, report fast and easy, provided nothing is printed and everything is online, because links can be created and accessed much faster than people can put paper in a binder, add highlights and postits, and flip through pages to find relevant connections of cause and effect, when needed, as explained in the example above. Unlike traditional practice that suppresses error from memory of disparate events, SDS uses triangulation to verify accuracy of knowledge from other meetings, calls and documents that reduce error and conflict.
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The issue to be researched is how to bridge the gap between the two (2) worlds of existing practices for information management that rely on printing and eschews links, and a new way of working with SDS for Knowledge Management that eschews paper and requires links, explained above and illustrated by this report. What are the steps for enabling transformation from information to a culture of knowledge, where the core mechanisms conflict and incentives are in opposition? People doing information management are spending time at the printer to get information from computers into a binder. People doing Knowledge Management are wasting time getting printed and PDF material into a computer for creating the connections that convert information into knowledge. It's a dilemma.
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 Accountability: 800 Pound Gorilla Blocks Knowledge Management

The challenge of explaining Knowledge Management to busy executives, and helping busy, managers, engineers, and marketing people invest time to learn new skills is further compounded by the "800# gorilla" cited by your contact, Jim Lovo, at the US Army Corps of Engineers, who related on November 3, 1999 that fear of accountability makes the advantage of organizational memory seem like a threat to job security.
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Paradoxically, fear of error that has fueled the march of civilization for 2,000 years toward better technology to improve accuracy of communication, has evolved over the past several decades with the rise of the information revolution into a sclerotic fear of accuracy. We discussed on May 22, 2001 how legal jurisprudence has tilted perspectives to the point where the light of knowledge now seems like a bigger danger than the darkness of ignorance. This phenomenon first appears in the SDS record on March 23, 1989, when, at that time, accuracy was reported as a liability that reduced wriggle room for management to be creative. On November 30, 1991 you discussed the problem with the Honorable Stanley J. Mosk, who was an associate Justice of the California Supreme Court until his death in 2001, and was formerly Attorney General of the State of California. At that time in 1991, Justice Mosk was disappointed that jurisprudence to punish error and reward accuracy has had the opposite effect. The Justice indicated that legislation may be needed to restore confidence in efforts to ensure accurate communications. The evolution away from accuracy that blocks Knowledge Management is seen, as well, in the broader culture. Your letter to Morris Jones on September 27, 2002 related how cultural drift, that worried Justice Mosk 10 years earlier, is an understandable reaction against insidious side effects of the information revolution. Morris responded a few days later relating that advances to improve accuracy and reduce costs using information technology in the 50s, 60s and 70s had the opposite effect by eliminating the traditional role of human beings processing information with some measure of deliberative analysis. Without analysis, people are cut off from understanding correlations, implications and nuance from connecting information into patterns of cause and effect related to the context of objectives, requirements and commitments. This makes organizational memory a threat rather than an asset, because, as Morris points out, the only people doing analysis are lawyers, who discover a lot of overlooked intelligence, but long after anything can be done except to deny and defend. The result is a kill the messenger mentality, rather than an effort to improve the message.
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This is not a new problem. The SDS record on November 8, 1999 relates how transformation from orality to literacy occurred only through courage and persistence over many centuries at the time of Plato and Aristotle in about 400 BC. The history of struggle to overcome resistance is evident through the Legend of Prometheus in Greek mythology, who was banned for bringing the light of knowledge to humanity. As well, while Gutenberg was honored by modern day experts for having contributed the most to advance civilization over the past millennium, as reported in your record on October 10, 1999, Gutenberg's breakthrough invention of a printing press was not accepted during his own time, as he died bankrupt. The printing press did not achieve commercial success for nearly 100 years after its development.
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In sum, research over the past 10 years demonstrates significant technical and social obstacles hamper progress in Knowledge Management, so much so, that many have abandoned the effort, and are busy scrambling to find another name for the same basic task identified by Doug Engelbart in the 1960s to augment human intelligence. While SDS has breached some of the technical barriers, there is still much to accomplish in the social arena to enable transformation from information to a culture of knowledge.
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Why then pursue Knowledge Management?
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 Knowledge Management Path to Advance Civilization
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The obstacles that resist a new way of working are also obstacles to economic growth and security in a new world order, explained in NWO. We see and experience the pain when intelligence fails in the national security arena, shown by tragedy on September 11, 2001. More recently, tragedy again marked the failure of conventional methods to analyse the record at NASA with loss of the Columbia Space Shuttle and her brave crew, reported on March 4 of this year. On a broader scale, we see how a sluggish economy is bogged down by failure of leadership in boardrooms to provide effective management, where the collapse of Enron is barely the tip of the iceberg, reported on February 4, 2002. Ray Ozzie's report that people are feeling pain using conventional information technology necessarily drives demand for improvement, reported on August 22, 2002.
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In all of these cases, the cause of pain is error, described by Henry Kissinger as an Alice in Wonderland of continual bumbling due to information overload, reviewed in your record on June 9, 1994. As a result, progress toward Knowledge Management is essential because the goals to improve collaboration and accuracy are deeply felt by every person who attends a meeting, makes a phone call and sends an email. Since communication is 80% of the work people do, failure to achieve a breakthrough in this dominate task, that is now overwhelmed by a pandemic of information overload, relegates productivity to permanent paralysis with devastating consequences for everyone, noted by Eric Armstrong in his letter to the OHS/DKR group on October 3, 2001. In other words, even though improvement is emotionally problematic, the cost of standing pat and allowing bumbling to escalate into crisis and calamity is increasingly being seen as too devastating to endure.
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SDS enables a striking advance from documents to Knowledge Space. On October 10, 1999 a select committee of prominent leaders in government, industry and education were asked to identify the one person who contributed the most to advance civilization over the past millennium. Many powerful inventions were considered in physics, chemestry, biology, agriculture, technology, and government, e.g., the Declaration of Independence, but ultimately Gutenberg was selected because this one invention of a printing press made documents universally available, which in turn strengthened the foundation of literacy that makes all other inventions in all other fields possible. It follows, therefore, that, if SDS enables transformation from documents to Knowledge Space (see above), then civilization is once again on the verge of significant improvement in the quality of life for all peoples everywhere in all endeavors based on the fact that "knowledge" is a more powerful cognitive resource than "information."
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The opportunity to turn devestating loss into the blessings of unprecedented advance attracts our attention for urgent action on transformation.
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As a result, the first order of business is to set realistic goals for transformation. I propose three (3)...
  1. SDS Records Light the Way

    An easily obtainable goal is to continue publishing SDS records on the Internet. Having a visible, growing presence sets a standard and builds faith that a new way of working is within reach using the SDS program, because (1) good management is fast and easy by working intelligently to produce knowledge rather than using conventional technology to produce information overload; and, (2) because SDS records show that organizational memory improves the work to earn credit for saving time and money, rather than opprobrium for disclosure of mistakes, which creates crushing fear of accountability that extinguishes the light of knowledge, under the Legend of Prometheus. Moreover, SDS records on the Internet provide an essential resource for people to study what works. To the extent that SDS remains an experimental vanguard movement, research funding, perhaps through a foundation of some kind, may be needed to ensure this vital beacon continues to light the way.
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  2. Study What Works.

    To study what works requires publishing articles in professional journals about the phenomenon of SDS records on the Internet, as the only recognizable body of work that demonstrates the meaning and value of a "Dynamic Knowledge Repository." An example is the letter on April 25, 2000 from Cliff Joslyn, who leads the KM team at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and observed at that time that he wished to be able to cite the record the way that SDS supports. Later Cliff made a presentation at SRI on SDS. Similarly, Jeff Conklin on November 5, 2001 observed that SDS records on the Internet are fascinating because they demonstrate a unique capability that others only talk about. Accordingly, Cliff, Jeff and others active in publishing papers and attending Seminars and professional events can advance Knowledge Management by, in the words of Jack Park, beginning to ponder POIMS, since it explains the only working system available.
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    It should be a simple and useful research exercise to study the thesis that people can create SDS work product using other tools and methods, per above. How long does it take and how much does it cost compared to using SDS? That is a direct measure of added value.
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    Overcoming resistance to transformation from information to a culture of knowledge, discussed above, yields four (4) major theses that justify research....

    1. Distinguishing information from knowledge, as Eric Armstrong related on May 3, 2000. This hurdle can be overcome by gaining experience doing KM, and SDS is the most direct way to get that experience.
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    2. Fear that accountability enabled by knowledge about the cause of mistakes causes more harm than making mistakes caused by ignorance due to information overload.
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    3. What is the rate of decay in memory of meetings, calls and email that drives the high cost of mistakes in health care, government, industry and education due to meaning drift explained in POIMS, and what level of support for intelligence is needed to reverse the current trend toward reliance on cursory understanding?
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    4. Study can explain how to determine cost/benefits of literacy for producing information that by inference yields insight about potential for Knowledge Management to advance civilization.

      Suppose we did not have literacy? Theoretically, there would be a lot of cost savings because people would not spend so much time writing things down. Most people intuitively say that civilization has established over many centuries, even millennia, that time invested to write things down is returned many times over in savings from accurate memory, otherwise we would not go to the time and expense of sending everyone to school to learn the ABCs. Research can therefore investigate value SDS adds to traditional literacy, and then use that as an indicator to estimate cost savings, rather than wait for several thousand years to discover it would be a good idea for everyone to work intelligently, as occurred in the case of literacy that was formulated in about 2000 BC and was instituted uniformly in about 1850.
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      Jeremy Campbell says in his book "The Improbable Machine" that people pay a price for relying on common sense to fill in the gaps from remembering the gist of information, about 5% from communication in meetings, calls and documents, commonly called "expediting," reviewed on March 3, 1990. Andy Grove says in his book "Only the Paranoid Survive" that mental maps are awfully forgiving of ambiguity, and so Andy says writing copious notes avoids mistakes that cause productivity, earnings and stock prices to fall, reviewed on March 7, 1998.
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      This is a common thesis that can be researched.
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      Maybe Jeremy and Andy are mistaken. Maybe people don't pay any price at all, or perhaps the price is small and it is not worth investing time to remember correctly.
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      Maybe people remember most of the important facts and only use common sense to fill in unimportant ones, based on executive training that teaches only 20% of information impacts 80% of results, reported on April 26, 1995. What would be the effect though, if, say, people need to accurately remember 20%, i.e., 400% more than the 5% people typically can remember accurately, in order to achieve favorable impact on 80% of results? Surely a mathematician could have a field day discerning various formulas that at last explain the pernicious yo-yo effect that causes people, groups, organizations, industries and the entire nation to suffer through continual cycles of economic collapse and recovery.
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      USACE says in two published reports that Communication Metrics supported by SDS provides an intelligence role that costs a lot less than the price people pay to fix mistakes caused by relying on common sense.
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      This thesis can be researched.
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      USACE reported with certainty that SDS saved about $200K on a small matter that took about 10 minutes to assemble the record, and maybe $2K - $3K to prepare using SDS, reported on October 27, 1998. USACE paid an additional $30M on another matter for which they likely owed about $10M. What would be the ROI for paying out another $200K or so to avoid paying the additional $20M? What does this tell us about the value of knowledge in relation to continued reliance on IT? How would these savings benefit national security posture and the economy at a time of tight budgets where every penny needs close scrutiny and taxes to pay for bad management have become a luxury that the nation can ill afford?
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      Eric Armstrong says in a letter on September 16, 2001 that SDS enables amazing memory with mechanisms that obviously work for finding everything. Eric says in another letter on the same day that using the IT methods everybody likes nobody can find anything. Later on October 3, 2001 he reported that inability to find anything paralyzes productivity. Morris Jones observed on April 25, 2001 that using SDS is a utopia compared to other methods because everything is in the right place at the right time. Earlier, on March 27, 1994 Morris noted that SDS support for better memory is a self-evident benefit.
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      This thesis can be researched.
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  3. Research Implementation

    You noted during our meeting at SRI on July 25, 2000 that Knowledge Management is essentially a research project. We discussed this again during a meeting with Curt Carlson on January 22, 2001. At that time, my take was that SRI support might follow the path of the government, industry and other institutions, both private and public, working on technology. In light of the record since that time showing people have not only failed to advance the technology, but have given up on the goals, the critical area for research is implementation of SDS to demonstrate that Knowledge Management is not only possible, but that it offers a viable path to advance beyond information technology to a new way of working.
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    This sets a clear agenda for more "boots on the ground" helping people discover that "intelligence" is not paperwork, that saving time and money, requires investing time and money on working intelligently? At the present time, "working intelligently" is only a slogan. Moreover, there is a large cultural dynamic that fears the light of knowledge more than the darkness of ignorance. It is another knowledge management dilemma that only experience can remedy. As a result, one area of research is to gather this experience on a broad range of applications.
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    One indicator is the favorable result with DOD staff on September 5, 2002 which demonstrates that in about 2 minutes managers and executives can learn to use explicit links, enabled by SDS, and that advantages of this method for improving accuracy of communication to save time and money is sufficiently discernable to drive demand for good management above the threshold of denial, as reported on September 12, 2002. This has the practical effect of indicating that experience with SDS changes people's attitudes, cited by Gary Johnson at Boeing on June 18, 2002.
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    Another indicator is Gary's subsequent interest in using SDS, and, as of this writing, success learning to use and implement SDS at Boeing, shown by Gary's SDS record on April 13, 2003. While the pace is slow, along the lines of transformation from orality to literacy 2,000 years ago, research offers a vehicle that can advance the pace of progress toward a culture of knowledge.
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    We are therefore currently looking for appropriate research projects to study SDS in the following areas....
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    1. Transformation Under 3-layer Architecture

      Transformation entails leadership that helps people discover benefits and fun from adding intelligence to information. People are wired biologically to like information that brings immediate emotional rewards through sensory perception. see POIMS This crowds out awareness that people actually need knowledge to survive in a complex world. How then to overcome this dilemma by transforming "need" into demand for what people "like" that drives performance in an environment of chronic information overload?
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      Empowering people to save time and money must overcome ignorance, fear and denial by changing attitudes about working intelligently to improve, as discussed with Morris Jones on August 17, 1999. Experience enables people to discover that a connected record, which at first seems to boggle the mind, as reported on January 25, 2000, actually saves time and money, as discussed above.
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      Com Manager role enables many people to benefit from intelligence without having to learn anything, when only one person is using SDS under a 3-layer architecture discussed in the record on August 20, 2002.
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      These theses present good targets for research under Eric Armstrong's report on October 3, 2001 that Knowledge Management is so difficult using conventional tools that people have to be paid to undertake the effort. This aligns with the report from research by the OHS/DKR group on March 7, 2000 showing that Knowledge Management is a lot of hard work using conventional methods. Obviously, if people never do Knowledge Management, then cost savings can never be determined. Many forms of research pay people to do things they would not ordinarily do in order to discover the effects, because without experience knowledge cannot be derived, under Einstein's rule above. Thus, paying people to use SDS and to do comparable work with other methods yields data showing absolute and comparative cost savings, and enables people to discover that Knowledge Management is fast and easy and fun using SDS for adding intelligence to information.
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    2. Education and Continual Learning

      SDS extends the power of literacy from traditional use for information, to creating and managing knowledge. Advancing the underlying engine of civilization requires eventual transformation of the education system to teach children at the least the rudiments of Knowledge Management (see eight steps) along with the ABCs. Research can evaluate the scope, introduction modalities and pace of this new learning experience in relation to the present curriculum, along with the implications of continual learning that is endemic to using SDS. An early question to investigate is how the practice of thinking through writing augments intelligence by using the flexible structure of SDS that leverages the power of ordinary reading and writing?
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      Research can assess the impact on learning from acquiring new skills along the lines proposed in the record on October 10, 1995 reporting a meeting at University of Santa Clara. Since SDS enables continual learning, explained in POIMS, the impact on civilization should be quite dramatic under Havlock's observation that alphabet technology greatly accelerated the growth of civilization.
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      History is a subject that directly benefits from a method to track the chronology of events. Realizing benefits of wisdom gleaned from connecting the dots showing cause and effect from history can be obtained faster by adding a "journalism" role to the practice of management.
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    3. Journalism and the Press

      Using SDS is largely a journalism role applied to the daily microcosm of tasks performed by individuals, teams, projects and organizations at all levels.

      Research can show the degree to which conventional journalism benefits from adding "intelligence" to reporting, similar to benefits for studying history, since journalism is the front line of writing history.
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    4. Management and Communication

      Professor Joseph Ransdell pointed out on July 16, 2000 that SDS enables a theory of management and communication that has escaped discovery by researchers since the 17th century. Peter Drucker argues that "analysis" is the primary task and responsibility of daily management, reviewed on November 30, 1993. Better management aids business and government. On November 23, 1991 SDS was identified as a new way of working that strengthens analysis.
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      This thesis can be studied for verification, because if true, it impacts education, government, industry, research, health care, the whole of civilization.
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    5. National Security

      On August 15, 1998 warnings went unheeded that national security has eroded because resources for intelligence have been diverted from analysis to technology that gathers information. On September 11, 2001 national security failed because analysis failed.
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      SDS enables doing analysis faster, cheaper and better than other methods. This thesis can be researched, as explained above.
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    6. Science and Research

      The SDS plan, perform, report intelligence cycle fits the model of scientific method for research that requires ability to organize data into chronology and context showing cause and effect.
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    7. Health Care

      Kaiser reports that communication is a key ingredient for good care, reviewed on June 15, 1999. Communication occurs between doctor and patient, between doctor and staff, and innately within the doctor's mind, more commonly called analysis, intelligence and research. National reporting on September 12, 1999 found that communication mistakes are a major cause of medical mistakes, and that medical mistakes cause more death and injury than automobile and airplane accidents combined.
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      Communication Metrics maintains alignment in communication that reduces mistakes. This thesis can be tested in the doctor/patient channel, the doctor/staff channel, and for the doctor to avoid continual bumbling from getting mixed up by the new realities of a more complex work environment.
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    8. Law

      On November 30, 1991 Justice Stanley Mosk on the California Supreme Court reviewed SDS and found this new way of working improves present methods of traditional literacy (see for example the record on February 4, 1995, and also POIMS).
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      This thesis can be researched.
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 Conclusion
SDS Presents Vital Research Opportunities

The New World Order... paper observes that the human mind has created a world for which it is not well suited. The argument is made that technology creates chronic information overload that prevents deliberative analysis under the common rule that people do not have time to think, and goes on to observe that market forces urge people toward the abyss by frantically acquiring tools of self-destruction, much the way cattle can be stampeded to rush off a cliff. The story of the Pied Piper also comes to mind when we think of large cultural forces that sweep people along unwittingly toward future calamity. Knowledge Management under the POIMS vision proposes a remedy by using a new kind of technology that converts information into knowledge. Hope for this concept rests on the history of the alphabet which Havlock describes as an explosive technology that changed the course of civilization, reviewed in SDS on November 8, 1999. More recently Douglas Lenat maintains that literacy makes people superhuman, reported on June 22, 2001. There is widespread agreement that success using alphabet technology and its derivatives in the commercial media that include television, radio and the Internet, cause information overload, reported by CBS News on April 12, 1998. Therefore, research to find a solution seems justified and urgent on the basic thesis that a new way of learning and working is needed, called out by Douglas Engelbart. Since SDS has demonstrated there is indeed a viable new way of working with potentially significant cost savings, this presents a good target for researching the truth and implications of the proposition that SDS is a major advance on alphabet technology that can lift civilization to a new plateau, and so falls within the mission of SRI.
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Sincerely,

SRI INTERNATIONAL



Patrick L. Lincoln
Director
Computer Science Laboratory
Lincoln@csl.sri.com