August 1, 2000 03 00050 61 00080101
Mr. Cliff Joslyn
joslyn@lanl.gov
Computer Research Group (CIC-3)
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Distributed Knowledge Research Team; MS B265
Los Alamos, NM 87545
| Subject: | Knowledge Management, Effectance and Productivity |
|
Meeting on July 23, 2000 |
Dear Cliff,
You likely have a thousand things to do right now, having been away from the office for a week. This makes productivity a priority issue.
Please keep in mind that the goal we discussed when you visited on July 23, is to present a significant advance in "knowledge" technology that is stable enough for people to incorporate into their lives, since that is the only way to raise productivity, as set out in the letter to Professor Mary Keeler on June 24, 2000. The challenge of accomplishing this goal was illustrated by your visit at Welch, and later at SRI, explaining important ideas for technology, while at the same time pointing out that daily work practice is largely isolated from KM. This suggests that technology is moving too rapidly offering no time to experiment and figure out how to deploy tools usefully, before being replaced by something new, often with less capability and only cosmetic benefits to existing manual practice. Productivity is reduced, and substantive innovation is hidden like a needle in a haystack, because, in the case of Knowledge Management, it can only be discovered and refined by working with it every day.
Therefore, it seems that a control mechanism for development of KM might be useful. This gives rise to the consortium idea in the letter to you yesterday.
A big concern is that open source methods invite pluralism through empowerment to change on a massive scale. This is a core value of our culture; yet, it is tempered in governance by a representative process, rather than direct democracy. Doug Engelbart points out in his 1992 paper (reviewed recently on December 22, 1999), that when scale changes dramatically, unexpected, harmful results occur. Essentially this reflects the law of binary forces which can be summed up by the Country, Western song: "Honey, too much of a good thing ain't that good."
It appears that we may have at hand a rare opportunity to make a big advance on
alphabet technology, which has been the core engine of knowledge the past two millennia, per the meeting with Pat Lincoln at SRI on July 25, 2000, and then permit the public conscience time to absorb this change into their daily lives, transitioning from the alphabetic mind, to perhaps an SDS mind by changing from documents to Knowledge Space.It could be that the way to do this is to have thousands of different versions, of SDS capability produced under open source, but that seems distracting. Nothing will catch on, and in another 10 years, after spending millions of dollars on KM technology, our work practice will not have been improved, because the range of choice is too great to recognize the solution in a market place of frenzied change.
The basic idea is to foster continual improvement by enabling people to transition at the pace technology can be absorbed productively, otherwise we will remain in a rut, like a car spinning its wheels, expending enormous energy with the most advanced technolgy, but actually getting no where, as you pointed out has occurred over the past ten (10) years. On October 25, 1999 this dilemma was highlighted in reviewing an article by Peter Drucker published in Atlantic Monthly.
One idea that arises from experience dealing with Microsoft is the need for an independent body or mechanism to review proposed improvements, outside the constraints of market dynamics, which tend over time to eliminate capability that is useful, and settle on the lowest common denominator of desires and complaints voiced by customers, per Tom Landauer's book, The Trouble with Computers.
Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, in remarks to a professional event in February 1997, supported Landauer's point that markets constrain innovation, until a path is discovered that channels competition toward something that lifts productivity. So this is our challenge.
An independent body to submit proposed ideas for improving the core engine of knowledge could give customers a means to contribute toward advancing the technology in a controlled manner, that balances the advantage of stability and focus, with the desire to innovate. There could be a right of appeal through the courts, so that rejection of ideas, including failure to respond, must be justified under supervision of an independent body, rather than simply disappear into the corporate ether. Ideas accepted would vest the originator with royalty entitlement based on assessment of added value. Development could be within the entity that owns SDS, or contracted out to the originator. This provides a range of ways for people to actively contribute and benefit from growing the technology, without spawning a million different versions of SDS. Perhaps after 20 years, this structure might end, because by then we will have figured out in a controlled manner how to apply the technology, in the same way we have settled at this remove on how to structure a paragraph, place a period, and comma using alphabet technology.
Of course we are way ahead of the curve dreaming today about the future. There is a lot of work to do just to get KM off the ground, or more correctly, to the surface so it has a chance to rise from the ground, since at the moment it is buried beneath a mountain of cultural inertia, cited by Pat Lincoln last Tuesday. Moreover, it is easy to announce lofty ideals for review panels and appeals processes, when there is no responsibility to perform. It could turn out to be too costly and inefficient. Still, the need for a systemic solution that balances stability for deployment to realize productivity improvement, with the need for continual innovation and customer involvement, actually what Landauer calls effectance, is likely a big part of what energizes open source advocates, which is a threshold question at the moment.
Since you have been thinking about core issues you might be willing to take a crack at this idea, when time permits.
Thanks.
Sincerely,
Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net