Message-ID: <19981024192723.AAA23513@LOCALNAME> Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 16:28:16 -0400 From: Kerry Miller <mailto:kerryo@NS.SYMPATICO.CA> Subject: Re: Knoweledge and Development To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Gee, do you suppose the way to not forget and to reduce uncertainty is to tell stories, with real people handing them down from generation to generation?
================ { Date sent: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 09:52:47 -0400 { From: <mailto:cubicomputer@GEOCITIES.COM> { Subject: Lost and NOT Found! { { The Cost of Lost Knowledge { { From Stonehenge to moon walks, great deeds become great mysteries. Can we { preserve today's knowledge for tomorrow's ventures? { { By Geof Petch { { Once upon time we put a man on the moon. It was July, 1969. Just eight { years earlier, JFK had pointed to the outfield like Babe Ruth, and the { U.S. summoned all of its intellectual and industrial muscle to knock one { out of the park. And what a home run it was. More than 400,000 of the { country's best and brightest-engineers, scientists, technicians, and { managers-united in the largest scientific and industrial achievement in { the history of mankind, invested their lives and $150 billion to turn the { dream into reality. { { Then, three-and-a-half years after Neil Armstrong first kicked up moon { dust, two other astronauts parked their lunar rover in a { four-billion-year-old lava-flooded valley southeast of the Sea of { Serenity, climbed into the Apollo 17 lunar module, secured the air latch, { and blasted back to earth. Back to the laboratories, the factories and the { new opportunities launched as a result of the investment in putting man on { the moon. { { Today, 26 years later, that investment in space is lost in space. The { terrestrial side benefits remain, but today we can no longer put a man on { the moon. { { { We forgot how. { The documents endure, but they are as devoid of meaning and human context { today as the rocks of Stonehenge. Useless. A few miles from Mission { Control in Houston stands a warehouse the size of a stadium, where shelves { climb 30 feet off the floor under the cool blue flicker of exposed { fluorescents. There, like the crated relics consigned to history in the { last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the documents of the Apollo mission { wait for eternity. Reduced to microfiche, millions of pages of plans, { specifications, reports, notes, correspondence, and test results-boxed and { shelved according to no plan whatsoever and with no automated system for { retrieval-collect dust. { { Thought to be missing from this vast storehouse is a critical set of { plans. It seems that 25 years ago, on a day thought unremarkable at the { time, someone threw away a set of blueprints for the Saturn booster, the { only rocket with enough thrust to send a manned lunar payload on its way. { Apollo missions completed, the job was thought done and project directors { were moving offices. Attention turned to designing a bigger rocket to put { man on Mars. The Mars mission was never funded, however, and that bigger { rocket was never designed. { { In all the time since, no other set of Saturn blueprints has ever been { found. { { The original Apollo workforce is long since retired or scattered to the { winds. The crews and mission directors no longer solve day-to-day { operational problems. What they learned-the 78 percent or so of enterprise { knowledge that employees carry in their heads-is lost forever. Even if we { could launch the Saturn again, we wouldn't remember how to fly it. This, { too, is buried in the documents left behind in storage. The documents { endure, but they are as devoid of meaning and human context today as the { rocks of Stonehenge. Useless. { { { Reconstructing context { Into this world of forgotten knowledge strides Dr. Richard Ballard. Like { Indiana Jones, Ballard is a unique kind of archeologist. He probes the { labyrinths of organizations as complex as NASA and the Department of { Defense looking for the lost, buried information essential to the future { and useless if left to history. { { Nine years ago, Ballard's Knowledge Research Group, located in Huntington { Beach, Calif., excavated the Apollo program's documentary remains to { uncover critical knowledge gaps that would have to be replaced if a manned { Mars mission was ever to be attempted. { { "Companies want to retain raw data, but raw data isn't the most important { thing to retain. Not forgetting what the data means to a process or a { function is what's important," Ballard said. "We need to learn how to use { technology to mine not data, but the rational structure that pulls the { data together." { { A physicist by training and computer scientist by vocation, Ballard has { been working on the problems of information structure and efficiencies for { knowledge storage since 1984. His theoretical framework separates problem { solving, with its dependence on data, from problem management, with its { much greater emphasis on the rational component. { { "Managerial problems are mostly about the how and why of things, and { rarely about information per se," he explained. "They are about having the { knowledge to reduce the options for action before taking action. Simply { put, knowledge is anything that reduces uncertainty." {