Month: February 2003

The End of Doneness

The End of Doneness – A 1998 Dave Weinberger JOHO article [via Gurteen’s Blog] [Quote] The cards are stacked against documents. We are seeing a massive cultural shift away from the concept of done-ness. The Web allows for constant process and enables open-ended groups of people to be invited into the process. Documents are things that are done. That is why the Web will kill them. [Unquote]

I think this is healthy – a process view of web information.

Cost Effective Meta-Data

Cost Effective Meta-Data – From Stefano Mazzocchi [via Seb] [Paraphrasing] The more, higher quality meta-data the better, because the quality of meta-data heavily influences the effectiveness of retrieval systems. Meta-data mark-up-based “semantic” web solutions (RDF, Ontologies) are economically infeasible (because the human assignment of the right tags is in addition to defining the content itself and is either expensive to do properly or compromised by cutting corners.) The best semantic meta-data solutions are based on transparent inference, without heuristics (in publishing the content). User feeling is important (in creating meta-data, and in how it is perceived as relevant later). [End Paraphrasing – my italic emphasis]

IMHO – The quest is for some kind of ontology that captures (or infers) the creator’s actions and intent at the point of creation and/or publication, not some misleading post-rationalisation according to some fixed prescribed ontology. ANKOO – A New Kind of Ontology ? Maybe not, “AnOint” perhaps – An Ontology of Intent ? Has your blog / output been annointed yet ?

If the human assigns meta-data to their own output, the “intent” problem just shifts along one – from why did Mr X say that, to the question of why did Mr X assign that meta-data to it. When the Mr X says his latest offering is the best thing since sliced bread, do you believe him because it is, because he says it is, or because you believe him (or not as the case may be) ?

Progress via Disruptive Technologies

Progress via Disruptive Technologies – From Hugh Blackmer, Science Librarian, Washington & Lee Uni. [via Seb] Particularly on the subject of colaborative web tools, but on the message of emergence and change – mainly technology driven – usually hingeing on chaos at disruptive cusps in development. See my dissertation on business change.

Interesting and related story today on BBC Radio 4, about business cycles in large successful family run businesses, being driven by the three generations rule. Very much my view of Kondratiev in economic cycles (Techno-Economic Paradigms) generally – One generation to learn & grow – One to succeed & exploit – One to lose-focus & fall prey to the next disruptive influence. 80 Year knowledge cycles are predictable. Is the cycle of change really faster in the e-memes age ? I doubt it – still human limited – unless artificial knowledge can really supplement the rate of human knowledge transfer, evolution and emergence.

Conversational Terrorism

Conversational Terrorism [via Seb] For example, as the same quote used by Seb, sums it up …
[Quote] “Think vs. Feel” Any person will likely be off-center of the analytical / emotive spectrum in any heated exchange. By pointing out which side the other person is on, (either side will do) he/she is obliged to defend his/her temperament instead of the case at hand. Either
(1) “Your cold, analytical approach to this issue doesn’t take into account the human element.”, or
(2) “Your emotional involvement with this issue obscures your ability to see things objectively.” [Unquote]