Jack P:
You've posted some 400 messages to the list (or maybe it
was 500 -- I started losing track after 300 or so), most of which
point to some impressive, cool, or potentially useful technology.
John D:
You've posted in the neighborhood of 200 messages, most all
of which point to some powerful, cool, potentially useful
technology.
These pointers would be very useful, if I had anything like the kind
of time it takes to track down some 700 relative technologies,
understand what they are about, and figure out how they can be
applied.
However, I do not have that time. And as great as it is that you
keep finding new, interesting, useful, and cool technologies, I find
myself realizing that I am never going to be able to know how the
latest revelation compares with, or may possibly interact with, any
of the other 700 recommendations.
The "information explosion" exhibited by these pointers alone
illustrates some of the *vital* requirements for a useful collaboration
tool:
1) Categories
When recommendation "X" comes in, it needs to come in with
a category (or multiple categories) or, better, categories need to
be retroactively applied, so I can tell which recommendations
achieve similar goals, or perform similar functions.
2) Ratings
There is no way on God's green earth I am going to investigate
700 recommendations, until and unless that is my paid job
function
(at which point I will be more than happy to undertake the task).
Until that I occurs, I *must* have ratings for these things, so I
can idendify "best of breed" in each category.
3) Combinations
If someone can say, "we can combine technology X with
technology Y to do Z". That new combination can then
be categorized and rated, so it can be compared with
combinations X and M, or combination M and N and P.
At this point, I find myself in the exact same position as the CIA.
Someone will always be able to say, in retrospect, "see, I told you
it could be done using X", for any "it" and an "X", where "X" is one
of more than 1,000 alternatives that are buried in the list, once
everyone's contributions are taken into account.
However, the current system will only allow that recognition to be
achieve retroactively. When one person with a limited number of
technologies at their disposal figures out how to make something
work (because they aren't spending their life evaluating alternatives),
then it will be clear that "we had the information" in our possession.
However, our ability to proactively identify that solution by
examination
of the combinatorial explosion of possibilities before us is negligible,
at best.
A system that allows for categorizing, rating, and creating new
combinations
will allow that proactive identification of solutions, because any one
person
can contribute a small quantum knowledge (consisting of a combination
or a rating), and that quantum can be compared with other relevant
quanta (via categorization, which juxtapose related bits of
information).
Without such a system, I find myself in a hopeless quagmire. There are
too many options to consider, so "paralysis by analysis" becomes a real
threat, were I ever to feel optimistic enough to attempt a foray. Given
that any one combination is likely to prove untenable, the only way to
feel optimistic enough to make an attempt is to know that, even though
my approach will most likely fail, the result will be knowledge added to
the system that help others steer clear, and the expectation that with
all of us evaluating one combination or another, *some* combination may
very well succeed.
But, absent the ability to share my results in a way that others can
learn
from, in a repository from which I will reap the eventual rewards of a
solved problem, how can I begin to choose from among the 700
alternatives
offered to me? How can I begin to focus on one, knowing at the outset
that the effort may well be doomed at the outset and that, at the end of
the process, I simply will not know which other combinations may have
a greater chance of success. How can I even begin to figure out which
combinations to use, when I have no sense of categories which to
construct
a partial ordering of the options?
Recommendations, anyone?
eric
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0.0 : Wed Oct 03 2001 - 15:23:33 PDT