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[ba-ohs-talk] Organic Growth of Knowledge


Rod Welch wrote:    (01)

> Gary Johnson raises interesting questions...
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Subject: More on Com Manager role
> From: "Garold \(Gary\) L. Johnson" <dynalt@dynalt.com>
>
> As related at
> http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/01/09/16/213549.HTM#4J4J Eric
> appears to support the need for an additional role to convert incoming
> information into a form that is accessible. In the specific case he is
> talking about Topic Maps, and onotologies, but it is clear that the
> problem will exist anything that human beings must supply additional
> information to the communications that they receive in order to
> convert them into a form that can contribute to their knowledge.
>
> ...The problem of having to break apart a communication into the
> multiple topics that it addresses and to work those pieces into a
> structure that is more useful than the raw information is an overhead
> that cannot be entirely removed. Better tools to address some of the
> issues can help..
>
It is here that the *Brilliant Idea*(TM) enters in.    (02)

Using a form of intellectual judo, I propose accumulating topical
classifications
organically, precisely because they let people be *lazy*.    (03)

The people most motivated to do so, I believe, are people doing support,    (04)

because accessible knowledge can save them from having to spend their
time answering the same question over and over and....    (05)

But a knowledge base that makes it possible for people to find answers
themselves requires a lot of categorization and extra overhead.    (06)

So my suggestion (and prediction) is that support personnel will become
ontologists. Whenever a user query fails to find an answer that the
support personnel, with their superior intelligence, *can* find, they
will take
a moment to make make the KB a little "smarter".    (07)

They may add a concept to the ontology, refine a scope, or use existing
ontology entries to further categorize extant information, so it can be
more
easily found in the future.    (08)

Over time, knowledge will accrete, because the "extra effort" entailed
in
categorizing will be paid back with an overall savings in effort.    (09)

One can imagine measurement systems, in fact, that track ontology
changes and categorizations, and rate personnel on the number of
questions automatically answered in a satisfactory manner as a result
of the interventions.    (010)

I believe the whole system is expedited by purple numbers, even though
they are not a necessary precondition. With them, sections of existing
material can be easily categorized, without having to break it up into
multiple parts. That makes it lot easier to incorporate existing
documents,
without having to build the KB from scratch.    (011)

But if one were to invest extra effort in building the KB, it would be
possible to get by without the fine grained addressing that purple
numbers provide.    (012)