The Minciu Sodas laboratory's strategy to develop an

Import/Export Standard for Aggregates of Notes

Latest Steps | Previous Steps | Commercial Strategy | Underlying Projects

Latest Steps

Andrius Kulikauskas will prepare a proposal for our next investigation for Phil Stenton of HP Labs in Bristol, UK to review and evaluate.

1999.10.28: Letter of Introduction to Phil Stenton

Previous Steps

1999.10.06: Infrared Lets Ideas Move, letter to Robert Stuart, Chairman of the Marketing Committee of the Infrared Data Association.
1999.09.17: Developing Import/Export Standards for Aggregates of Notes submitted to the Workshop on New Paradigms in Information Visualization and Manipulation.
1999.06: Organizing Thoughts into Sequences, Hierarchies, and Networks presented at the Workshop on EMMSAD.
1999.04.21: Mobile Computing Encourages Thinking: Complement X-IRMC-FIELDS with vThought presented at the meeting of the Infrared Mobile Computing workforce
1999.03.30: EAI Takes on the Vertical Dimension: Integration of Documentation at the DCI conference on Enterprise Application Integration.
1999.01.28: Proposals for the Unified Knowledge Language at the first standards meeting of the Knowledge Management Consortium International.

Commercial Strategy

The development of an import/export standard for aggregates of notes affects a wide variety of companies. I am putting together a list of twenty or thirty companies that could benefit as catalysts for building relationships through the development of this standard. My goal is to find two or three companies that wish to play this role by sponsoring our investigations. Contact me at ms@ms.lt if your company might be interested. Andrius Kulikauskas, Director.

So many interests are involved that it is important to understand where they develop from. The original issue is that we thinkers want to reflect on our thoughts. This involves three steps:

Punctuating the thought, writing it down as an individual thought.
Manipulating the thought, placing it within a sequence, tree, and/or web of thoughts, archiving it.
Visualizing the thought, restructuring the sequence, tree, and/or web that it belongs to, reading those thoughts so as to reflect on them and create new thoughts.

All three steps can occur within the human mind. We may also augment our thinking with tools such as paper and pencil, or electronic devices, so as to more clearly punctuate, more decisively manipulate, and more broadly visualize our thoughts.

An individual recording several new ideas every day can build up a collection of ten thousand notes. Electronic devices open up the possibility of working with such a collection. The problem is that when individuals use software for organizing notes, the products get discontinued, and the notes get trapped in the product. The notes represent an investment that cannot be recovered and that is placed at greater and greater risk. So the key problem is that we want to work with a body of notes that we want to outlast the software that we use to work on it.

Synchronizers. Help us transport information from one archive to another, and in between products. Benefit from more varied and heavy traffic. Puma
Software makers. Help us punctuate, manipulate, visualize information. Benefit from use in corporate environment. Lotus, Microsoft Outlook.
Archiving solutions. Help ensure the longevity of data. Kodak.

Microsoft, Windows CE
Apple
IrDA
Pacific Gas & Electric Company
Ericsson
Hewlett-Packard
KMCI
Arthur Andersen
EIC
BEA: I spoke with Jena Smith, secretary for Barbara Britton, and will prepare materials for her.
IBM (Dr.David A.Ferrucci), New York: I wrote a letter and sent my paper. [AK, 9/99]
Indiana University: I spoke over the phone with Christopher Peebles, Associate Vice President, Dean of Academic computing, and sent him my paper. He invited me to come visit Indiana University.
Oracle
Qualcomm
Starfish "Global Synchronization and Integration of Wireless and Wireline Devices"
Computer Sciences Corporation:
Symbol Technologies:
Sun: Joseph A. Goguen knows one of the founders, Von Pratt, who is teaching at Stanford.
Visto:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Dr.James W.Doane is leading the knowledge management effort. Returns October 11th. Can give the web address for their knowledge management document, also help contact person in charge of expert connections. [1999.09.30, AK]
OpenText: Laurie A. Murphy of PSSoftware said they have just purchased her company, and might be interested. [1999.09.30, AK]

Notes:
Starfish

Underlying Projects

Our work on this standard depends on eight of our projects, four of which are already underway.

Clarify Rationale for a Standard. One project will help us keep clarifying the reason for having a standard.

Uses of Reasons for Thinking will consider domains of thinking, and what in each domain is considered creative. In particular, this project will help us identify domains where organizing and reorganizing sequences, hierarchies, and networks has creative value. Our results will point to fields where a standard is relevant, such as knowledge management, mobile computing, object technology, modeling languages, user interfaces, enterprise application integration, library sciences, and so on.

Design the Right Standard. Three projects will help us define the standard correctly.

Features of Structures for Thinking will consider the effects of structure on thinking, and what these effects determine about a general format for information. For example, organizing ideas in a sequence distinguishes the strong ideas and the weak ideas, organizing ideas in a tree - the broad ideas and the narrow ideas, and organizing ideas in a network distinguishes the vague ideas and the clear ideas. This is the key project for defining a standard because we need to define sequences, hierarchies, and networks in the way that is most appropriate for humans.
Structures for Thinking considers ways of structuring information, and the associated organizing principles. We are using this project to determine the appropriate scope for the standard. Andrius Kulikauskas, Ph.D. and Saulius Maskeliunas, Ph.D. discuss the results they have collected so far in their paper Organizing Thoughts into Sequences, Hierarchies, and Networks for the Workshop on Evaluation of Modeling Methods in Systems Analysis and Design (EMMSAD'99). The paper distinguishes between internal and external structurings, and shows that sequences, hierarchies, and networks are the basic external structurings, in that restructuring them accounts for the various ways of visualizing information.
Formats for Thinking considers standards for structuring information, and ways each may be interpreted as a format for thoughts. A conceptual standard for sequences, hierarchies, and networks will need to be expressed in various existing standards such as XML and UML.

Demonstrate Applications of the Standard. Two projects will help us check the usefulness of the standard, both for thinkers, and for devices.

Uses of Structures for Thinking will consider useful restructurings of information, and the tools and formats that each such restructuring requires. We need to design converters to transfer sequences, hierarchies, and networks of information to a standard from common formats such as HTML, Lotus Notes, and Microsoft Word. We will explore the advantages of transfering information from such formats to those of our members, such as Natrificial Software Technologies, www.thebrain.com, makers of The Brain.
Uses of Formats for Thinking will consider possible applications of a universal format for thoughts, and how they might be realized through existing formats. Members of the Infrared Mobile Computing workgroup of the Infrared Data Association indicated that a standard for sequences, hierarchies, and networks of information could be implemented within twelve months if the standard could be used for innovative exchanges via infrared waves between consumer appliances.

Find Sponsors for the Standard. Two projects will help us find sponsors for work on the standard.

Tools for Thinking considers tools for thinking, and the faculties of thought they support. This project helps us identify software makers who might participate in the development of the standard.

Uses of Tools for Thinking

software users