There is the story of the ass starving between two sheaves of hay. He just
couldn't make up his mind which of the two sheaves to eat from first.
Rod, insisting that "to build KM you must do KM," made an offer that's hard to
refuse. He offers at low cost materials and training that should permit users to
link their thoughts and actions directly to a record far more retentive than human
memory.
While the Colloquium was still in progress, he already impressed some of us with
what his SDS can do. When on Nov. 5, he showed his system to me at his home in
S.F. he actually wasn't telling me all that much new because already he had been
integrating my words that entered his records over a period of about half a year.
He emphasized the value of a hard record by reminding me of psychologist
Gazzaniga's observation that all we naturally remember decays to just the gist of
things.
Combining the gist of things with false memories (memories we hold to be true and
act on as if they are true), it is easy for anyone to go off on a tangent because
it is a natural thing to do. Of course, not even when things are on record, they
are not necessarily accurate. Interpretation by the recorder is a factor. But with
a team working on a project, any recorded false memories are more easily detected,
straightened out, and the record corrected.
It seems to me there is a benefit that Rod did not mention. Accepting his SDS as a
provisional DKR/OHS, working with it ought to provide a clearer picture (more
concrete) of "what is missing," what more is expected from an ultimate OHS than
the SDS offers. For example, the specific document-manipulating techniques found
only in AUGMENT and of any supplementary tools that may be attached to AUGMENT.
I do not know how Rod's offer fits in with the manner in which OHS will be
developed in the future, i.e. whether there will continue to be private
development work alongside institutionalized, funded development work. That does
kind of make it hard to decide which hay to attack first: continuing slowly along
the winding path with many false turns or first coming to a dead-stop to learn the
SDS and then speed up later. This is something I cannot make any recommendation
about.
Moreover, I like to berlieve that a good DKR or OHS shall be more than a record,
that it shall be designed to stimulate higher levels of thought than only
fortifying frail memory, especially speed up the judiceous evaluating
alternatives.
Back to Rod and his SDS, I learned that Sunday that it has its foundation in
time-tested project work in construction and in the U.S. army. Rod's achievement
is that he had this experience converted by a skillful programmer into a useable
software product.
As things now stand, it appears to me that Rod deserves an answer, even if a
higher-power development program by SRI is in the offing. It also seems to me that
Rod's SDS may well profit from a collaborative effort by possibly taking it to a
higher level of usefulness.
Henry
Rod Welch wrote:
> Adam and the gang,
>
> Please see my letter with ideas on using the record, and incorporating
> conversation to create a DKR that supports project objectives for an OHS and
> DKR...
>
> http://www.welchco.com/04/00067/61/00/11/2101.HTM#0001
>
> Thanks.
>
> Rod
>
> Adam Cheyer wrote:
> >
> > Just for fun, I called Doug to see if he could shed light on the definitions
> > of these terms. Here's what I got:
> >
> > Hyperdocument: "The knowledge container. No one says it has to be a file,
> > any container."
> >
> > Dynamic Knowledge Repository: "The handbook, the conversations and
> > annotations,
> > the contents. Dynamically up to date representing the state of the
> > repository.
> > If you want more depth, you can trace back and find the evolution of
> > that in
> > the record."
> >
> > OHS : "A toolset with the structure and properties of the knowledge
> > containers plus the functions that you can execute on them, including
> > viewing,
> > traveling, linking, editing, etc. Includes auxilliary languages,
> > compilers, tools,
> > user interface. Does not include the contents of documents itself,
> > only how you structure and operate on them."
> >
> > HyperScope: "Part of the OHS, that you can implement early and get
> > immediate
> > utility in the context of legacy files. As it evolves to add more
> > features
> > (e.g. backlinking, editing), it becomes a bigger part of the OHS."
> >
> > OHS to me now seems almost like the term "MS Windows", which contains the
> > operating
> > system, the look and feel, the philosophy, as well as a set of included
> > tools such
> > as the web browser or media player. But it appears OHS does not represent
> > the content
> > of the knowledge repository or containers (documents).
> >
> > Doug was thrilled to be asked about it and was happy that we are having
> > dialogs
> > about this because he emphasized how working through terms is an essential
> > part
> > of cooperative knowledge work.
> >
> > -- Adam
> >
> > ps: Does reply work better not that I'm not sending as HTML?
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Eric Armstrong [mailto:eric.armstrong@eng.sun.com]
> > Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2000 4:46 PM
> > To: unrev-II@egroups.com
> > Subject: Re: [unrev-II] Re: Tuesday's meeting
> >
> > Thanks for looking into that, Adam.
> > Good to know that I hadn't just missed something obvious.
> >
> > Consistent terminology makes sense. It's the only tool we
> > have to attack the problem with.
> >
> > I am totally in love with:
> > HyperScope -- the viewer
> > HyperDocument -- the thing viewed (a "slice" taken
> > from a repository)
> > Open HyperDocument Repository -- where they are kept
> > OHS: HyperScope + OHR + HyperDocuments
> >
> > At the moment, I continue to reserve the term "DKR" for
> > future developments. Jack and Howard are constructing
> > the ontology for the OHS, and we need that. But later on
> > they are going to want to build bigger and better
> > ontologies to solve even deeper problems (yes?).
> >
> > I know that the OHS as currently envisioned will solve
> > a lot of problems, and provide us with the ability to
> > carry on intelligent, far-ranging discussions that can
> > eventually "coalesce" to reach one or more conclusions.
> >
> > I'm not yet convinced, however, that it will give Jack
> > and Howard *all* the tools they need to play with
> > bigger and better ontologies -- to construct them,
> > operate on them, and use them to deal with information
> > in meaningful ways. Much as I want to see the capability
> > come into existence, it is not all clear to me that the
> > current design will be capable of doing that.
> >
> > So I tend to use DKR for that still-nebulous thing we
> > hope to get to sometime downstream. In many ways, it
> > is a label for my ignorance -- for all the things I
> > have to understand about what we need, and about how
> > to provide them. (The difficulty I have in following
> > ontology-related discussions convinces me that the
> > system I understand (the OHS) is unlikely to qualify
> > as a DKR.)
> >
> > [BTW: When I reply to your messages, the automatic
> > quoting feature does not seem to work. Perhaps because
> > it is in HTML form? Or do you use IE, and it is doing
> > something that is incompatible with Netscape's quoting
> > mechansim?]
> >
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