“Haystack is a tool designed to let every individual manage all of their information in the way that makes the most sense to them. By removing the arbitrary barriers created by applications only handling certain information “types”, and recording only a fixed set of relationships defined by the developer, we aim to let users define whichever arrangements of, connections between, and views of information they find most effective. Such personalization of information management will dramatically improve each individual’s ability to find what they need when they need it.” [1]
Category Knowledge Management
Thesis 2: Think Different!
Most Semantic Web or AI discussion is about finding adequate information with intelligent retrieval systems. Ontologies are used to identify content based on formalized knowledge, either by automatic statistical reasoning or by human annotation. Usually, knowledge management applications concentrate on one ontology for a certain area of expertise to provide retrieval systems for a specific group of users aka experts.
The Semantic Web will be very much about communication/interaction between different, even contradictory world views. Ontologies are the computational equivalent to value systems because they define terms/concepts and their relationship. For future content or knowledge management systems, this means, that they must be able to handle multiple ontologies. Especially, if we think of innovation as based on new insights, multiple ontologies applications become interesting to knowledge based economies. Just imagine applying different, maybe contradictory ontologies aka world views to a specific or global information pool.
One major prerequisite for such a sophisticated system of multiple and interactive realities and interpretations based on ontologies, is that ontologies become easy and inexpensive to create. Also, they need to be transfered between applications. In this respect, Weblogs could server as an initial start, because here individuals categorize their Weblog entries based on self-made, usually flat structure of categories. Although this does not meet the requirements of ontologies, it would be interesting to see Weblogs not only interact on the basis of Weblog entries (e.g. via trackbacks), but also related to their catalogs/subjects/categories.
Thesis 1: Atomize your Content!
The Weblogs cosmos demonstrates that only information available in little bits and pieces is useful for social knowledge interaction. Look at scientists, how they work: They quote certain paragraphs or ideas from other books in their new works – but they do not integrate whole books. This means: interactive, Web-based knowledge work can be achieved only, if applications allow for granular information management. This is exactly what happens with Weblog entries being trackbacked, pingbacked, or commented.
For future CMS, this concludes to the imperative: Atomize your Content! This means that future CMSs need to work with structured content (XML) and related technologies to identify parts of contents (XPath, XPointer). This allows for information reuse (e.g. integrating a diagram from a published work into a new text) and information contextualization (e.g. relating the metadata from the new text to the text where we took the diagram from).
Background:
Attending and speaking at OSCOM 3 [1] gave me a good opportunity to testify some theses about future Content Management, espeically compared to Weblogs and the role of Ontologies. After OSCOM 3, I stayed for two weeks in NYC and attended a CMS users group meeting [2]. There, I also presented some of my ideas for discussion and we tried to shape out some differences between Content Management Systems and Weblogs.
This post presents some of these ideas that have been presented, discussed, developed, etc. at those two events. Each thesis is posted in a single Weblog entry. This is work in progress.
Many thanks to all those you have inspired me in vital discussions!
[1] http://www.oscom.org/Conferences/Cambridge/
[2] http://www.egenius.com/Members/chalu/News_Item.2003-06-07.4150
Swarm Intelligence: An Interview with Eric Bonabeau
“DS: Okay, let’s dig in a little bit and tackle swarm intelligence. You’ve commented in some of your previous writings that the world is becoming so complex that no single human being can comprehend it. And that swarm intelligence offers an alternative way of designing “intelligent” systems in which autonomy, emergence, and distributedness replace control, preprogramming, and centralization.
So let’s start at the 30,000 foot level here. In broad strokes, how is swarm intelligence a different approach, compared to the typical way we use now, to managing vast amounts of information?
EB: The most amazing thing about social insect colonies is that there’s no individual in charge. If you look at a single ant, you may have the impression that it is behaving, if not randomly, at least not in synchrony with the rest of the colony. You feel that it is doing its own things without paying too much attention to what the others are doing.
But sometimes you also see “ant highways,” that is, impressive columns of ants that can run over hundreds of feet. Ant highways are highly coordinated forms of collective behavior.
Human beings suffer from a “centralized mindset”; they would like to assign the coordination of activities to a central command. But the way social insects form highways and other amazing structures such as bridges, chains, nests (by the way, African fungus-growing termites have invented air conditioning) and can perform complex tasks (nest building, defense, cleaning, brood care, foraging, etc) is very different: they self-organize through direct and indirect interactions.” [1]
[1] http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2003/02/21/bonabeau.html
Metacrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia
Cory Doctorow identifies [1] the following problems when it comes to metadata:
* people lie
* people are lazy
* people are stupid
* people are lousy observers of their own behaviors
* schemas aren’t neutral
* metrics influence results
* there’s more than one way to describe something
via blog.bitflux.ch
MetaData and Adaptive Object-Model Pages
“These MetaData and Adaptive Object-Model pages are a collection of shared ideas and visions about how to build dynamic and adaptable systems. I have been looking at MetaData ideas for a few years, including the design of a few applications that use MetaData and Adaptive Object-Models to describe the business rules and/or views. Trying to make a system dynamic and easily configurable can be hard, but the payoff can be large. This is highly related to Business Rules research, specifically when you want to have automated ways to describe business rules and either generate the code or have the descriptive information for the business rules live in a database so that they can be easily manipulated. This is also related to Generative Programming Techniques, Metamodeling, and Model Driven Architecture.” [1]
Book On Artificial Intelligence
I am currently reading a very good book on artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, it’s available in German only: “KI – Künstliche Intelligenz. Grundlagen intelligenter Systeme” by Klaus Mainzer. What I like about this book is that the author is far from assuming that computers can become intelligent in a way that human beings are. He rather defines intelligence on the basis of communication theory (the complexity of digital patterns) and physics/biology (entropy and autopoietic systems) and accounts for the difference of intelligent systems that evolved during evolution (e.g. human beings and computers).
For intelligence to take place, it needs an open system that can keep information flow, he states. Maybe someone wants to write a PhD based on these theories about the Open Source movement? 😉 Or maybe someone knows about such a thesis that has already been written, then please comment.
Peter F. Drucker: Knowledge Work and Knowledge Society
A brief introduction to the Knowledge Society[1] by Peter F. Drucker[2] from a speech at Harvard where he discusses the chances and drawbacks of a Knowledge Society.
[1] http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/ifactory/ksgpress/www/ksg_news/transcripts/drucklec.htm
[2] http://www.innovation-award.ca/about_peter.html
Website of German Green Party Foundation on WSIS
The Heinrich Böll Foundation (foundation of the German Green Party) has put up a Web site[1] on the World Summit on the Information Society.
WSIS – The World Summit on the Information Society
The World Summit on the Information Society[1] will be held in two phases. The first phase of WSIS will take place in Geneva hosted by the Government of Switzerland from 10 to 12 December 2003. The second phase will take place in Tunis hosted by the Government of Tunisia, from 16 to 18 November 2005.
Sandro Groganz 