Eric asks the perennial and proverbial question, and the key one in the
knowledge management era. First, if I were a newbie in a particular forum, how
do I cull the key elements of relevance to me so that I can either answer my
pressing question or so that I can bring myself up to speed with those who have
been here from the start. Second, if I do have a pressing issue, how do I find
the key information locked in this list and which is relevant to my specific
issue. There are, of course, variances and expansions on these questions. But
they are the same issues whether we are academics, policy wonks or concerned
with a problem in the business world from manufacturing and marketing to
management and finance.
The issue is even more complex when one builds "engines" which are able to
analyze great quantities of information and map them against each other in "n"
dimensional space to find correlations and trends to identify patterns of
information on subjects which were below the individual's event horizon. And the
problem becomes most interesting when the information which was important
yesterday, becomes irrelevant or different in light of the present.
thoughts?
tom abeles
Eric Britton wrote, in a very small part:
>
> ...Here is what I would like to have your views about this morning if you
> will:
>
> 1. How might we provide anyone who comes to us in a search for new ideas and
> inspiration on our troubled world of work with handy "one-click" access to
> your exchanges, historical and present?
> 2. Ideally, all this would also be one-click searchable. E.g., call up for
> me all mentions of "Lester Brown", "population", "Sally Lerner", etc. And
> various combinations and permutations of whatever might be our key words.
> 3. We think that this is very important in a situation such as you have here
> where there is really quite a lot of useful material, thoughtfulness and
> references - which should not be lost or hidden away. FW has of course all
> those great archives, but do you think we might do something together to
> open them up a bit? Of at least encourage someone to do so?
> 4. And perhaps our communications frame and various utilities might be
> useful from time to time for some of you.
