Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Center of Excellence Proposal
à
The Taos Institute
(on the possibilities)
[bead thread on curriculum
reform]
Communication from BCNGroup Founding Committee
We are really interested in what possibilities exist. Especially what is possible in 2006 from maturing paradigms about the Federal Enterprise Architecture, industry supported web services, and ontology mediated Internet processes. We would like to create (entirely) new business processes using deep innovations.
We know that any adoption of innovation has (actual or potential) driving forces supporting the adoption and (actual or potential) restraining forces opposing the adoption. Douglas Barry’s excellent book “Web Services and Service-Oriented Architecture” has a chapter on how balances are shifted so that adoption can be enabled.
However, the business process re-engineering (or engineering) or knowledge management, or what ever, is not enough if the available (standards based) technology has deep flaws. If these deep flaws really do exist and yet cannot be discussed politely, then the problem is complexed.
By “cannot be discussed politely”, I mean to point to the recent example. The recent discussion shows that the criticism of first order logic turns into questions about whether or not one is a believer. Even if perfectly introduced, any analysis of the flaws built into the Semantic Web standards (the Tim Berners-Lee “layer cake” architecture) leads very quickly into difficulties. Knowledge of why and how the flaws exist is extremely rare, and in most cases one can expect imperfect personality. (smile) So anyone hoping to develop a community understanding that first order logic is wonderful when it fits, but is simply not sufficient to model complex social/economic interaction; well this person must have a perfect personality and infinite personal funds and etc…
The BCNGroup has the foundation to map the complete space of all technology innovations (via patent and literature conceptual roll-up), and to thus bring objectivity to the question of “what to believe”. We have actually created maps as far back as for my talk to the university patent officers conference at Georgetown, in 1992. I was invited to make a presentation on using neural networks to map innovations to markets.
The point is about how really hard this innovation adoption thing is. Even with perfect technology, understood perfectly; the cultural adoption issues remain and require “additional” great skill and knowledge. My point is that the knowledge management / process re-engineering has to be solved at the same time; else the solution will not last. Corporate adoption, of IT, histories should make the case.
The system property that has become entrenched depends on
the iterated non-solution to IT problems (like spam or cyber threats). General systems theory easily establishes
how such a systemic property would be established in a situation were no good
solution to IT problems can be formulated within the “existing scientific
paradigm”. Again refer back to Gary’s
reference of the Rockefeller Foundation report [254].
I know that I can, and those that I know can, make a strong contribution within a community. If the community is the right one, we will be able to step back, see what is really working (often due to simplicity), what is not working (often due to proprietary interests).
In my world, there is a lot of positive talk about the possible status of a "Santa Fe Institute" but in Taos. Certainly the "anticipatory design" work that David and Scott Sargert has done here and around the world is an approach that needs a home. The key that has to be acknowledged is "education", and the long term process of re-educating science and business to see the world not as a unity but as a diversity.
If one accepts both diversity and ordering structure, then one has the basis for anticipatory science and the representation of ontology as both "relative" and stratified. (I can talk about the details here, but perhaps just this sentence is ok.)
But, whether here or somewhere else, there is an awareness in many minds that we, the Americans - including Mexico, Canada, South America; have explored this notion of "unification of science" to the point where some objective observations can be made.
Gary Berg-Cross hits the nail on the head with his communication regarding post WWII Rockefeller Foundation internal report, "The Institute for the Unity of Science: Its Background and Purpose." (I posted his note and quote from this report at [254].)
A small group has worked hard over the past six months to rough out a system design for marketing Taos to Asia, Europe and South America. The key to economic success is the production of fine reproductions of artistic work (mostly in oil) from Taos and the Big Bend.
The Giclee production and marketing "system" is well defined, advertising in place (South West Art magazine and Taos Magazine, production facilities in place, and an innovative referral marketing plan. These marketing plans have sometimes had great success, by allowing informal market development (friends and family) while also being supported by national and local print advertising.
à [The Taos Discussion [53] ]
Funding is perhaps at hand, with the interest of one of the founding families of Taos in spending about 2.1 M on property. He is aware of the business value that the “virtual museum system” has, and is therefore expressing an interest in funding the activities. But he is also someone who deeply appreciates the artwork and life story of the artist Kelly Pruitt. The technology is also demonstrative, depending on the following:
1) natural language parsing that produces an Ontology referential base (Orb) with a Topic Map encoded ontology of linguistic invariance, concepts being expressed in weblogs (using Readware), Python interface to the Orb and the Topic Map (for computing with ontological constructions).
2) a simple e-commerce system having web services expressed in simple XML and accessed via Perl scripts and Python. (see
http://www.bcngroup.org/python3/home.htm
3) a Multiple User Domain like the Manor
(http://www.madwolfsw.com/index.php )
and a collaborative environment like Groove
(http://www.groove.net/home/index.cfm )
We discuss this in more detail at: [255]
Several individuals have learned from me the principles behind the Orb construction, including Don Mitchell, Nathan Einwechter, and Dr Peter Stephenson. This learning has been a two way street, with me learning a great deal from these three individuals and from several dozen others (who happened not be pick up on what is really astonishing about the Orbs.)
This is where we, I, am now. My hope is that from here we can “walk forward”.