Curiouser and Curiouser! on information

This post is part of the liveTopics demo.

Tue, 02 Jul 2002 19:30:38 +0100

Radio is a really cool application. You can do lots of interesting things with it. Like publishing information in RSS format.

Software for Information Professionals

Sun, 07 Jul 2002 12:39:02 +0100

I'm on the look out for software that improves my lot as an information producer/consumer. I came across this article by Peter Morville which talks about software for Information Architects.

He identifies the following categories of tool:

Automated Classification
Automated Category Generation
Search Engines
Thesaurus Management
Collaborative Filtering
Portal Solutions
Content Management
Analytics
Database Management
Information Architecture Productivity

(Note some of the tool urls are now dead. This article was written in 2001)

As an individual I'm more interested in personal solutions than enterprise solutions. This means that I like tools like Copernic Summarizer and Personal Brain which put me in the driving seat. But I hope to have my own servers soon so I'll be interested in bigger solutions too.

Do you have a tool that you swear by?

The importance of unstructured content

Sun, 07 Jul 2002 12:49:34 +0100

Unstructured content. Martin Butler has written a brief and to-the-point article highlighting that 80% of the content in an organisation is "unstructured", [Column Two] [McGee's Musings]

Rich seams of text

Sun, 07 Jul 2002 12:58:40 +0100

Tools for mining text from the OpenDirectory.

TAO of topic maps

Mon, 15 Jul 2002 21:52:39 +0100

The TAO of Topic Maps. Steve Pepper has written a succinct introduction to topic maps, titled The TAO of Topic Maps. To quote Steve: Topic [Column Two]

» I finally got a chance to read this paper on the tube going to London today. A key paragraph that leapt out at me was:

"But knowledge is fundamentally different from information: the difference is that between knowing a thing versus simply having information about it. And if, as one writer claims, 'knowledge management covers three main knowledge activities: generation, codification, and transfer', then topic maps can be regarded as the standard for codification that is the necessary prerequisite for the development of tools that assist in the generation and transfer of knowledge."

In general the topic maps approach seems very sound to me with very laudible goals. It also dovetails nicely with a lot of my liveTopics efforts and lends some new and credible directions.

For example I have already implemented code in the liveTopics plugin to export the topical references in the weblog as an XTM topic map. Additionally my idea for topic themes seems almost identical to the concept of themes in the document.

It also highlights some things I should address. The idea of synonyms and homynyms are clearly important once people start sharing their topics (via topicRolls). It may also be useful to allow people to define their own glossaries (maybe integrated with the existing Radio glossary). And in order to generate occurrence data the permalinks of each posting should be used as topic references to that posting.

All in all a useful guide to the capabilities of topic maps. What is required now is another work building upon this that details some of the applications that topic maps will enable.

Email vs. k-logging

Mon, 15 Jul 2002 22:23:33 +0100

Email Email Everywhere.

E-Mail Storage Issues Facing North American Companies

According to a recently-released whitepaper from Osterman Research, 31% of North American companies say the average size of an e-mail mailbox in their message system is between 26 and 50 megabytes (Mb). Additionally, 46% of these companies say that e-mail users in their system send up to 50 messages per day....

There has to be a way for k-logging to help with this for at least a percentage of these people. Luckily, we don't have quotas in place at SLS or else my external email would be a real problem. Here I am with my own blog, I'm trying to move into k-logging, and I really haven't integrated email into that equation yet. How on earth am I going to get my staff to do this?

Are there any guidelines out there yet for how to integrate various information sources (web, email, chat, etc.) into a k-log, or is the format still too young?

[The Shifted Librarian]

» Too many good questions here I'm afraid.

My experience of KM leads me to expect that k-logging will not provide a turn-key answer to managing email. What it will do is, in all practical terms, to kill email. That's the solution.

Many of the business contexts for e-mail could be replaced by publish & subscribe RSS feeds and Wiki leaving e-mail purely for private correspondance. If we could solve this spam thing too then you might see mailboxs drop back to pre-1996 levels again.

I'd be interesting to hear what other people think on this topic.

Integrating klogs with Big-KM

Thu, 08 Aug 2002 23:08:31 +0100

In order for klogging to be successfully I think it is going to have to come to an understanding with Big-KM.

Example: BigCo has invested half a million dollars in a big knowledge management system for their world-wide operations. This kind of investment can become a lode-stone around any other systems neck. For klogging to thrive here it is going to have to integrate.

Here's one idea I have for how this could work.

Extend Big-KM System-X so that it can aggregate RSS feeds like Radio, MT and others do now.
Extend your klogging software to allow per-post meta data. (liveTopics does this for Radio)
For each project in System-X define a set of topics that will act as trigger phrases for that project
Get the kloggers to use those topics when they want to involve a post in a particular project
Now subscribe System-X to every klog in the organization and watch as it indexes and archives all that information. Each project grabbing only those postings that are appropriate (by use of the trigger phrases)
This means that the klogs add value to the big-KM system. Suddenly it doesn't just have the dry dusty project documention, but all the live vibrant stuff that people are really doing!
Now extend System-X to generate a per-project RSS feed.
If I am on the project I can subscribe to this feed. Now instead of receiving email from System-X or having to go to an arbitrary web page, I get all the "official" project stuff (new documents, forms etc...) delivered in my RSS stream.

Closing the loop between the big-KM and the klog so that they both add value to each other.

Just an idea....

Software tools for information overload

Fri, 04 Oct 2002 12:40:23 +0100

Tinderbox, Mind Map Pro, and Inspiration 7 overview (v0.1).

[The Universal Church Of Cosmic Uncertainty]

» Mike's review of Tinerbox, Mind Map Pro and Inspiration is too long to repost here but is a fascinating insight into three interesting pieces of software.

I have been interested in Tinderbox for some time. It was through Tinderbox that I got into weblogging in the first place and I wait with anticipation for the Window port to come out.

Knowledge for success

Fri, 15 Nov 2002 16:59:39 +0000

I hold the view that for an organisation to be successful (i.e. to achieve it's goals) then it's people must be aligned to it's goals. Real achievement comes from real alignment. So how do you get alignment?

Goodwill - people who actually want to get aligned
Visibility - clear understanding of goals
Knowledge - what's required to achieve the right outcomes

But what are you giving your people? Putting aside the subject of goodwill for a second do people have a clear idea of the goals of the organisation and how they relate to their day-to-day existence? Do they have the knowledge that is needed to act to produce the right outcomes?

Just musing...

Information, Experience and Judgement

Sun, 08 Dec 2002 11:52:19 +0000

Information and Experience. One thing John Perry Barlow pointed out is that people today often are unable to differentiate between information and experience...[Ming's Metalogue]

A thought provoking post Fleming. I guess I am of the video game generation (I remember Atari consoles when I was kid) so make of my comments what you will.

I agree that there can be a sharp discontinuity between peoples experience of the world and what they get from the mass media. This is, I guess, because the media's job is not accurate reporting and thoughtful commentary but selling media. If you asked us we probably all realise this, we are just apt to forget it in our daily lives. Fear lives in the primitive, old, parts of our brain and it's easy to get us going.

If I have an argument with the "nothings happening to me or my friends so it's maybe not really a problem" line of reasoning it is that it can go the other way and let us ignore 'big picture' problems that do exist. So I think it's not simply about information, or experience, but also about judement. Do we have the perspective required to interpret information correctly and make sound decisions about what is going on in the world around us?

For that I think you need good role models.

Shrinking liberties... it doesn't wash with me

Tue, 25 Feb 2003 11:46:47 +0000

Smart Mobs picks up on a report by the ACLU which argues that surveillance is increasing, civil liberty guarantees are shrinking, and the combined impact of surveillance data from multiple sources is far greater than the sum of its parts.

Although I only follow the issues from the sidelines, I have growing concerns about corporate and governmental prying. The more my life is easily traced by following electronic trails, the more I worry about who is sniffing those trails out. Whether or not my career as a criminal mastermind is tediously pedestrian is beside the point - the fact that I have nothing to hide makes me more concerned about my actions being watched, logged, collated, catgeorised and cross-referenced.

Sometimes I take comfort in the thought that the more data the government has, the less it will know what to do with it. Trying to integrate it meaningfully will be way too complicated - trying to see and understand patterns across all the disparate data streams is just a cyber-spook's wet-dream.

But then I get back to cold reality. Just because they can't do it, won't stop them trying. The integration may not be meaningful - the patterns may not be understood - but patterns there will be. And in the paranoid world of the cyber-spook, an excess of false positives will be a fair price to pay for tracking down the bad guys.

So my real concern is not that they're sniffing my electronic trail. Sure, it's an invasion of my privacy but it's rather an abstract invasion. My real concern is what cock-eyed conclusions someone will draw from matching this parameter with that pattern and what real-life, concrete actions they will take against me (or you, or any of the other millions of people whose profile just doesn't smell right).

Paranoid? Maybe. Except, they are watching us...

[Making Connections]

Simon neatly identifies the conumdrum facing most of us in relation to privacy issues. We see our rights being eroded on the back of claims of this or that (today it's terrorism) but we have no trust in the custodians that they will not betray us.

That the government cannot possibly assimilate all the information it eventually hopes to hold does not, however, make me feel any happier. This is, I think, for two reasons:

We have seen many times how a single idea (or cluster of related ideas) can revolutionise an industry completely. Today they may not be able to use the data in aggregate, but they will keep it and, who knows what they will be able to do tomorrow?
The data may not be useful in aggregate but it will be open to targetted abuse. That is, if my data is separable somehow from everyone elses then what is to stop corrupt officials from selling it to those who, for their own reasons, would wish to use it against me.

Even if these massive TIA style super-databases are a boon in the fight against crime (and I have yet to see the cogent and persuasive arguments for this) I would, I think, still be find the countervailing arguments for liberty more compelling.

Total Information Awareness and it's ilk are sledgehammer solution to the wrong problem. We should not be asking how to catch more terrorists but how to avoid situations in which terrorists want to kill us.

Turbulence

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 10:37:45 +0100

In the language of “chaos” theory, America – if not all of Western civilization – is in a state of turbulence of such intensity that efforts to restore order by recourse to traditional systems and policies will be to no avail. On the contrary, it is our insistence upon established practices that has led us to our plight; and only a fundamental, creative change in our thinking and behavior can extricate us from the destructive consequences of our prior assumptions. -- Via Butler Shafer

I started getting interested in complex systems by listening to David Snowden describe his work. The first time was almost 3 years ago to the day. I heard him again almost a year later and it reinforced his ideas and concepts.

Dave introduced me to the idea that some spaces are complex and in such spaces cause & effect is a retrospective coincidence so that the tools and techniques that used to yield results may cause unpredictable future effects. The challenge of complex spaces is that, when you're in them, they don't necessarily look any different to the knowable spaces we are comfortable with. (Dave also introduced me to the exploits of the incomparable Mulla Nasrudin for which I am very grateful).

From that point onwards I got very interested in sense-making and, given my background and my fascination for blogging, I became very interested in topics and topic maps as a tool for understanding and representing things of interest. In a sense my topic map defines my world, or at least the subset of my world I choose to make public. What has always tripped me up is how poor are the tools we have to work with. My own efforts in addressing this situation, small as they were, have stumbled and failed.

Originally my interest in these things was purely theoretical but over the last 3 years my interest in politics and the nature of the world around me has blossomed and my interests in complexity, systems, sense-making, and reasoning have seemed more practical. I have gone from being an unthinking socialist to a thinking... for want of a better word libertarian. I hesitate when I use the term because I still understand so little of the philosophical underpinnings that define it.

What I do know is that many people who hear me talk about politics and life these days appear to think I am, at best, misguided and, at worst, delusional. I'm treating that as a good sign. For people who believe they are in an ordered space where the old answers remain true then anyone who acts like they believe they are in a complex space may appear to be out-of-step or irrational. Of course I cannot utterly dismiss the possibility that I am misguided or delusional but I see no way to address that other than to keep asking questions.

Recently (although not so recently as I would like) I started studying psychology. I found it to be a fascinating subject both from the perspective of personal discovery but also as a source of tools for thinking about human problems. Social psychology has many interesting things to teach us. From a political perspective one need only consider GroupThink and then look around.

Lately I have been thinking about my future and what I would like to do, if finances and personal situation permit. I am a generalist and aspire to be a PolyMath. I believe that much of interest lies at the interstices of the sciences and arts. I have expressed an interest in doing research and am looking for the right opportunity.

In the meantime I continue to self-educate as best I can. Right now I am honing up my logical argument skills and beginning to read about the very interesting area of Systems Theory. Systems Theory seems to be the ultimate polymath science that seeks always to unify, it's exciting.

The goal of all this effort, like most of my goal, is not yet directed to any specific purpose (not even a political one) but to providing myself, and hopefully others, with better tools to master life. In Gregory Benfords fantastic novels about human future (e.g. Great Sky River) he describes how humans have an enhanced sensorium and access to the aspects of the wisdom of their dead.

I see the shearing forces that act on our society, like the evolution of technology outstripping the pace of social change, and the increasing uncertainty and turbulence we face and cannot but believe that we need new and better tools if we are to survive. Right now I believe that my lifes work is in researching, developing, and using such tools.

Phew... This post went somwhere other than I where I was expecting and, despite being something of a ramble, wanted to be written. I think that reflects my growing uncertainties about my present and my future: my own personal turbulence.