[ba-ohs-talk] Marketing Software, Killer App and OHS
Kevin, (01)
Glad to see you making use of the record in your letter today, quoting Doug's
work and commenting.... (02)
Kevin Keck wrote:
>
> To me, the most remarkable thing about the Englebart excerpt above is the
> enthusiastic, subjective perception of radical improvement of productivity
> in the context of collaboration, despite the professed total lack of
> a-priori effort to cultivate it. This is in such striking contrast to your
> POIMS/SDS accounts that I'm at a loss to come up with an adequate
> explanation for such a phenomenon. Nonetheless, I've experienced the same
> subjective difference myself, so I don't doubt the veracity of Doug's
> account. And whatever the explanation, I think the phenomenon is something
> that can clearly be exploited to help convince people to adapt. (03)
This reflects experience with Com Metrics. (04)
Perhaps 30 years after Doug and his crew in the 60s, I began noticing the impact
of adding an intelligence role in about 1985. It took another 10 years to refine
technology and work practices. While it has proven difficult to introduce this
role, as you point out, where it has been used two things happen... (05)
1. People who directly interact often have an initial aversion, although in a
few cases some folks get it right away, as seen by the record on 940901.... (06)
http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/94/09/01/105333.HTM#L371021 (07)
Generally, it takes a month or so for people being helped to recognize the help,
as seen from comparing the record on 961017 (just read a few para to get the
flavor of resistance).... (08)
http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/96/10/17/090055.HTM#L442798 (09)
...with the subsequent record on 961101.... (010)
http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/96/11/01/132459.HTM#L191740 (011)
...showing essentially that people cannot grasp the power of adding intelligence
to daily management until they acquire experience. Another quick example is
instructive showing that even people, who do everything possible to get it
stopped because they fear accountability inherent in organizational memory,
eventually discover that intelligence is their best friend, because it enables
getting things done on time and within budget, i.e., intelligence avoids
bumbling.... (012)
http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/97/01/07/074655.HTM#L481802 (013)
However...., (014)
2. People who interact with organizational memory on a regular basis, become
cut off from their colleagues who do not interact with the SDS record. They
become frustrated in not being able to impart their "knowledge" about the value
of an intelligence role to others, as seen from the record discussed recently on
020217.... (015)
http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/02/02/17/171709.HTM#G68H (016)
Once people experience the sugar of working "intelligently," as Doug reports in
the reference you provided.... (017)
http://www.histech.rwth-aachen.de/www/quellen/engelbart/3examples.html#B.7 (018)
..., they resist returning to the quagmire that paralyzes productivity described
by Eric Armstrong on 011003, and which dominates the scene in big organizations. (019)
This makes fostering a culture of knowledge the paramount task for enabling
people to accept help. A key factor is creating a role or vehicle for
developing and maintaining organizational memory. DOD has a role that lends
itself to doing this called a "Field Service Representative" (FSR). One of
these folks contacted us on 010608.... (020)
http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/01/06/08/111431.HTM#L491002 (021)
...so this is a step in the right direction. (022)
Your letter today is timely, in that I just finished talking to a DOD rep on the
FSR role. He feels, as you report, that putting intelligence to work is a big
PR effort. Thus, not only are tools and work practices needed, helping people
see that good management saves time and money is, also, a key factor in
advancing Doug's agenda, because it is at war with human drives to forage on
information. (023)
Rod (024)