The following represents an on-going discussion regarding "Knowledge Management Policy" and whether encouraging more KM policy might result in a potential bureaucratic nightmare. My professional and academic experiences all suggest yes, but I'm the minority view at the moment among the discussants having the conversation...
Feedback/comments welcomed!
Hi xxxx,
I think the trouble with the KMgov effort is they're jumping straight to the "how" and missing asking the *why* that needs to be considered antecedent to how... because the *why* will reveal deeper problems than just KM (that a KM initiative could either resolve or exacerbate if done incorrectly).
So... what I'll (briefly) try to convey you are two logical arguments... that also detail how such a "cultivator/gardener" role would look operationally:
(1) that the current system of government as it is structured would preclude success of a CKO (even if they were well-meaning)
(2) that a successful KM initiative that remedies the structural problems in government doesn't require a CKO (because that role becomes ubiquitous)
First for (1)
Let's assume we were able to find the right CKO who understood her/his role as a Gardener. We put her/him in a high enough position (within the EOP) so they had a good visibility. Now, as a Gardener, the CKO is going to need to influence the efforts of departments and (hundreds) of Federal agencies. How does she/he do that? What levers can she/he pull?
... Influence over the budgets of Departments? Probably impossible, since members of the President's Cabinet would fight tooth-and-nail to retain all the funding they could and if this became a "budget review" function, even with the buy-in of the Cabinet, you'd encourage protectionism by the civil servants of each agencies so much that they "fudge" their numbers, go on a defensive posture, and just wait until the CKO's term of service is up (again, passive-aggressiveness is what the system currently rewards).
... So, we can't influence budget and achieve a successful transformation, what can the CKO influence? Definitely not the hiring or firing of personnel for Departments, that's a sphere again currently protected by Cabinets, and even if you could "embed" personnel of the CKO into Departments, they face the same problem of how do they influence events in that Department? What sway do they have? Answer: very little.
... Okay so no luck in either path, so let's step back and realize that even if the CKO could try and influence collaboration, the whole hiring/promotion of government employees rewards individualistic behavior -- not collaborative behaviors. A government employee's six-month and annual performance review is based on what that employee did, not necessarily what you helped someone else do (or even if this is factors, the someone who lead/did the effort sees larger gains than the helpers). So the CKO would need to encourage structural changes in how our government handles hiring/promotions, but that's already the domain of OPM. OPM should be working this angle.
... Moreover, the whole three-year project-agency-budgets-in-advance cycle that Congress and OMB follow also lacks any rewards for collaboration, transparency, or even *honesty* in the projected numbers. Right now OMB doesn't give "extra funds" to projects demonstrating that they help not only your department, but other departments or agencies as well. You have money left over at the end of the year? No rewards for giving it back or to another agency, but rather *penalities*. Instead, there need to be penalties for projects that only help your agency and, conversely, *rewards* for pitching projects that help multiple agencies (with multiple collaborators). Okay, so the CKO would need to encourage this change, but that's both Congressional and OMB turf. The EOP working with Congress should be working this angle.
So what I'm trying to show you is that massive transformation, above and beyond KM, is necessary for a CKO position to have hope of succeeding. This isn't just a problem for a CKO, it's also a problem for a cyber-security czar or ODNI czar or any government leader/cultivator who's trying to encourage inter-agency collaborations. The very system wasn't built for folks in their position to operate effectively, and structural changes above-and-beyond "KM policy" are needed first before their positions ever have the hope of working.
Now for (2)
... How might we remedy the structural problems in government, well, I've suggested some above so with proof (1), so I won't detail them again. Let's say in our KM Initiative, we spent the next 12-18 months working to detail these problems quantitatively and qualitatively, demonstrating how things aren't working as they ideally should and produce case studies so much that it becomes *glaringly* obvious to OPM, OMB, and Congress that change is needed. This is a "bottom-up" approach to produce enough of a crisis that political appointees have no choice but to address the problems. We produce the mini-crisis that necessitates political appointees approaching us and saying, okay, so what's the solution.
... Thus, in parallel, we start piloting mini-solutions, but instead of a massive, centralized effort, we do mini-pilot efforts (where possible) in our own agencies and across agencies -- requiring brave souls willing to risk a "safe and easy" government career and to work together, possibly at the expense of easy upward mobility. We try mini "inter-forums" or knowledge ecosystem efforts, and *share* (freely) this technology with other departments that are interested. We start practicing what we're advocating for a new way of government working together. With our group of true believers, we try to remove ego from the equation, instead advocating peer-to-peer (vs. hierarchical) relationships. Also, we submit inter-agency budget proposals to OMB suggesting additional funding because this benefits multiple agencies.
... Brave CIO's of agencies also start pushing their leadership and OMB to allow discretionary funding each year (say, 10% of their budget) to be spent on proactive, pilot projects for next-generation government... again with an eye to building from the bottom-up the future we want. Having already documented the problems earlier, now our KM Initiative group members collectively germinate several seed/pilot efforts in different domains, each year pruning and cultivating the more successful efforts and opening up successful efforts for reuse or expansion of use by other departments. But this will take brave governments willing to risk not being promoted because it "wasn't built by them" or "they didn't develop the solution" as well as cultivators of the pilot effort willing to "let go of sole ownership" of their creation and "share in the credit" with others.
... With all of this, such a bottom-up approach doesn't require a CKO, but instead a group of dedicated folks working from the grassroots-level to impact change. We continue to document the problems we're trying to solve in government, how they're structural and include the hiring/promotion/behavioral elements that OPM and OMB both need to address. And we also demonstrate proofs-of-concept that work for one agency, multiple agencies, and eventually reveal a solution that (if funded) could work for all of government. The funding comes when our documentation of the structural problems becomes too clear to ignore -- a "bubbling up" as it were.
... So, say 15 years from now, if government has undergone this transformation and now government workers are rewarded for collaborating with others in the basis of the problems to be solved and not on the basis of hierarchy or agency labels, and if budgets are done to reward addressing these problems, with some annual discretionary funds for emergent "new ideas" pilots as well as emergent problems or opportunity to be addressed, you now have to ask what is the role of a Agency "Director", what do they do with this next-generation form of government?
Well: they exist to cultivate networks of collaboration both within and across their agency to other agencies. They work to cultivate the best and brightest ideas and align budget funds to address those good ideas, emergent problems/concerns, as well as identified opportunities. They (the Agency "Directors") become the Agency "Cultivators" working together with other Agency "Cultivators" in a true peer-to-peer fashion. Hmm... that sounds a lot like what the CKOs we've been discussing would be doing. What I'm trying to suggest is that the agencies CKOs *aren't* needed if we become the government necessary for CKOs to succeed because the Agency "Directors" as "Cultivators" take up this lead role... at the EOP, the President is the uber-CKO. Moreover, individual government employees now are incentivized by the structure and behavioral rewards of the system to do the right thing generally, without the need for a distinct CKO separate from the leadership/cultivator-ship of this brave new world. We all (in government) become mini-CKOs working with other mini-CKOs for the betterment of government, like ants looking to identify sugar peaks (there is no CKO for ants, yet they're extremely adaptive to novel environments).
________________________________
... so, have I convinced you? :-)
(1) that the current system of government as it is structured would preclude success of a CKO as you detail below (even if they were well-meaning)
(2) that a successful KM initiative that remedies the structural problems in government doesn't require a CKO (because that role both folds into the role of Agency "Directors" and becomes ubiquitous)
Best regards,
-d.
11 May 2009
10 May 2009
On-going Discussion Regarding "Knowledge Management Policy" in Government - Part 2
The following represents an on-going discussion regarding "Knowledge Management Policy" and whether encouraging more KM policy might result in a potential bureaucratic nightmare. My professional and academic experiences all suggest yes, but I'm the minority view at the moment among the discussants having the conversation...
Feedback/comments welcomed!
Hi xxxx,
As background, Herbert Simon won the Turning Award in 1975, Nobel Prize for Economics in 1978, National Medal of Science in 1986, von Neumann Theory Prize in 1988, and APA's Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology in 1993. Apropos to our discussions he began his career looking at decision-making in government and concluded:
"The human being striving for rationality and restricted within the limits of his knowledge has developed some working procedures that partially overcome these difficulties. These procedures consist in assuming that he can isolate from the rest of the world a closed system containing a limited number of variables and a limited range of consequences."
... i.e., bureaucrats in a bureaucracy only see the solutions that the bureaucracy presents to them as solutions. Think of it as a landscape where you're on a small hill. You look all around you and you see a valleys and a mountain range that surrounds you... because you can't see over those mountains, you don't see that there might be a more green, richer, lusher hilltop over the mountains. You're bounded by the environment that surrounds you, in this case the government bureaucracy, and so you think the only solutions in your "toolkit" are bureaucratic ones.
This is why I continue to suggest we can either operate with the confining mid-20th century government environment (that has produced the very problems we face that require KM in government) or work to change that environment.
Why do we think using "old tools" that caused the problems we're trying to solve will help us now? Creating yet another centralized agency accompanied by top-down policy are 20th century bureaucratic solutions, and represent metaphorically that limited hilltop perspective that Simon describes. Instead, I'm recommending we try and rise above that, citing some pretty famous individuals who have employed empirical studies to suggest the same thing.
... Also, I respectfully disagree that INTRA-agency should be the focus. Sure, it's a problem and sure, the government should also work to fix that, but each agency Director has a direct sphere of influence in which they can shape the environment within their agency to improve collaboration. If they can't shape items in their own agency, then they should *not* be Director. The bigger, 21st century problems we collectively face require INTER-agency solutions; to wit:
* Another Hurricane Katrina <-- that's INTER-agency
* An effective U.S. Intelligence Community <-- 16 different Federal agencies and a *massive* budget
* A terrorism event on U.S. soil <-- that's INTER-agency (requiring over 90+ different Federal agencies to work together)
* H1N1 continued spread <-- INTER-agency (over 200+ Federal, state, and local agencies to work together)
* Climate change <-- INTER-agency Continued economic decline and attempts to trigger a rebound <-- INTER-agency
INTER-agency, no one but the EOP technically oversees the inter-agency space. This is where we need to assist because there's a vacuum at the moment. Sure, along the way we can provide suggestions for improved INTRA-agency collaborations, but that should evolve and be unique to each agency and the Director (if they're good at directing) has the ability to cultivate that environment. It's the INTER-agency one that the 21st century problems we face require a fundamental re-think of how our government works... together.
<\two_cents>
p.s. One last quote from Herb Simon: "The world you perceive is drastically simplified model of the real world." :-)
-d.
Feedback/comments welcomed!
Hi xxxx,
As background, Herbert Simon won the Turning Award in 1975, Nobel Prize for Economics in 1978, National Medal of Science in 1986, von Neumann Theory Prize in 1988, and APA's Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology in 1993. Apropos to our discussions he began his career looking at decision-making in government and concluded:
"The human being striving for rationality and restricted within the limits of his knowledge has developed some working procedures that partially overcome these difficulties. These procedures consist in assuming that he can isolate from the rest of the world a closed system containing a limited number of variables and a limited range of consequences."
... i.e., bureaucrats in a bureaucracy only see the solutions that the bureaucracy presents to them as solutions. Think of it as a landscape where you're on a small hill. You look all around you and you see a valleys and a mountain range that surrounds you... because you can't see over those mountains, you don't see that there might be a more green, richer, lusher hilltop over the mountains. You're bounded by the environment that surrounds you, in this case the government bureaucracy, and so you think the only solutions in your "toolkit" are bureaucratic ones.
This is why I continue to suggest we can either operate with the confining mid-20th century government environment (that has produced the very problems we face that require KM in government) or work to change that environment.
Why do we think using "old tools" that caused the problems we're trying to solve will help us now? Creating yet another centralized agency accompanied by top-down policy are 20th century bureaucratic solutions, and represent metaphorically that limited hilltop perspective that Simon describes. Instead, I'm recommending we try and rise above that, citing some pretty famous individuals who have employed empirical studies to suggest the same thing.
... Also, I respectfully disagree that INTRA-agency should be the focus. Sure, it's a problem and sure, the government should also work to fix that, but each agency Director has a direct sphere of influence in which they can shape the environment within their agency to improve collaboration. If they can't shape items in their own agency, then they should *not* be Director. The bigger, 21st century problems we collectively face require INTER-agency solutions; to wit:
* Another Hurricane Katrina <-- that's INTER-agency
* An effective U.S. Intelligence Community <-- 16 different Federal agencies and a *massive* budget
* A terrorism event on U.S. soil <-- that's INTER-agency (requiring over 90+ different Federal agencies to work together)
* H1N1 continued spread <-- INTER-agency (over 200+ Federal, state, and local agencies to work together)
* Climate change <-- INTER-agency Continued economic decline and attempts to trigger a rebound <-- INTER-agency
INTER-agency, no one but the EOP technically oversees the inter-agency space. This is where we need to assist because there's a vacuum at the moment. Sure, along the way we can provide suggestions for improved INTRA-agency collaborations, but that should evolve and be unique to each agency and the Director (if they're good at directing) has the ability to cultivate that environment. It's the INTER-agency one that the 21st century problems we face require a fundamental re-think of how our government works... together.
<\two_cents>
p.s. One last quote from Herb Simon: "The world you perceive is drastically simplified model of the real world." :-)
-d.
09 May 2009
On-going Discussion Regarding "Knowledge Management Policy" in Government - Part 1
The following represents an on-going discussion regarding "Knowledge Management Policy" and whether encouraging more KM policy might result in a potential bureaucratic nightmare. My professional and academic experiences all suggest yes, but I'm the minority view at the moment among the discussants having the conversation...
Feedback/comments welcomed!
Dear xxxx and xxxx,
Though I respect a lot of what you've said, afraid I have to respectfully disagree with the specific comments pro a centralized, top-down policy approach. If I were to recommend one book for this discussion it would be "The Science of the Artificial" by Herb Simon:
www.amazon.com/Sciences-Artificial-Herbert-Simon/dp/0262691914
... now, as for why I disagree:
(1) Government is an organization of human beings, and therefore can be whatever we want it to be. It can *be* a bureaucracy, but there are no fundamental laws of the universe that says it has to be as such.
... As a bureaucracy it has merits and weaknesses, but I disagree with anyone who says government is inherently a bureaucracy. We could be a monarchy or a dictatorship if we wanted to be (but fortunately, we don't). We can either try and work within the confines of a pre-defined environment (in this case the current bureaucratic government) or work to change that environment.
(2) I suggest that the problems that our Initiative attempts to address and the problems that require KM in government stem from the *very bureaucracy* that was created as part of its evolutionary design.
... The bureaucracy was not designed to encourage collaboration, the designers of the bureaucracy did not envision the government needing to respond rapidly or solve problems that span multiple departments and agencies. The designers of the bureaucracy wanted to reward protectionism and empire-building because this was a way to prevent any one part of government from becoming too powerful (ambition to counter-act ambition)
(3) Thus, if the reason why we need KM stem from the bureaucracy that was created... why do we somehow think that a bureaucratic solution would remedy the existing flawed environment that necessitates KM?
... The problems we're confronting are structural and behavioral. I'm not saying we won't need policy to complement the larger transformations needed to make this happen, but policy is an often-used-and-abused lever which I have not seen used (yet) to address inter-agency, complex problems in government successfully. I'm open to someone demonstrating a recent example that can prove this statement wrong.
(4) If our current government bureaucracy was designed to have "isolated islands" and for divisions within agencies not to have incentives to collaborate, or agencies within departments to have incentives to collaborate, why do we think a bureaucratic solution will somehow *fix* this? We're going against the very design of the system.
... Again, we can either try and work within the confines of a pre-defined environment (in this case the current bureaucratic government) or work to change that environment... I suggest we work to change that environment through the very way that we are presently: grassroots transformation.
(5) Ergo, I suggest that we need solutions that recognize that top-down government (through policy) works only when you're not trying to span across different groups and address complex problems... I can testify both as an academic who has researched this in several U.S. government agencies and as a practitioner currently working with the U.S. and military forces in Afghanistan: top-down approaches will fail when addressing complex problems.
________
p.s. If I were to suggest a lofty goal for our KM effort, it would be to recognize that we're really advocating something much more transformative: a shift from bureaucratic to a post-bureaucratic form of government necessitated by the global challenges and opportunities we now confront. With this, I'll end with one last book recommendation: "The Post-Bureaucratic Organization: New Perspectives on Organizational Change"
www.amazon.com/Post-Bureaucratic-Organization-Perspectives-Organizational-Change/dp/0803957181
... I'm not saying we may not need policy to complement the large transformations we need to do to make this happen, Again, we can either try and work within the confines of a pre-defined environment (in this case the current bureaucratic government) or work to change that environment... I suggest we work to change that environment through the very way that we are presently: grassroots transformation.
-d.
Feedback/comments welcomed!
Dear xxxx and xxxx,
Though I respect a lot of what you've said, afraid I have to respectfully disagree with the specific comments pro a centralized, top-down policy approach. If I were to recommend one book for this discussion it would be "The Science of the Artificial" by Herb Simon:
www.amazon.com/Sciences-Artificial-Herbert-Simon/dp/0262691914
... now, as for why I disagree:
(1) Government is an organization of human beings, and therefore can be whatever we want it to be. It can *be* a bureaucracy, but there are no fundamental laws of the universe that says it has to be as such.
... As a bureaucracy it has merits and weaknesses, but I disagree with anyone who says government is inherently a bureaucracy. We could be a monarchy or a dictatorship if we wanted to be (but fortunately, we don't). We can either try and work within the confines of a pre-defined environment (in this case the current bureaucratic government) or work to change that environment.
(2) I suggest that the problems that our Initiative attempts to address and the problems that require KM in government stem from the *very bureaucracy* that was created as part of its evolutionary design.
... The bureaucracy was not designed to encourage collaboration, the designers of the bureaucracy did not envision the government needing to respond rapidly or solve problems that span multiple departments and agencies. The designers of the bureaucracy wanted to reward protectionism and empire-building because this was a way to prevent any one part of government from becoming too powerful (ambition to counter-act ambition)
(3) Thus, if the reason why we need KM stem from the bureaucracy that was created... why do we somehow think that a bureaucratic solution would remedy the existing flawed environment that necessitates KM?
... The problems we're confronting are structural and behavioral. I'm not saying we won't need policy to complement the larger transformations needed to make this happen, but policy is an often-used-and-abused lever which I have not seen used (yet) to address inter-agency, complex problems in government successfully. I'm open to someone demonstrating a recent example that can prove this statement wrong.
(4) If our current government bureaucracy was designed to have "isolated islands" and for divisions within agencies not to have incentives to collaborate, or agencies within departments to have incentives to collaborate, why do we think a bureaucratic solution will somehow *fix* this? We're going against the very design of the system.
... Again, we can either try and work within the confines of a pre-defined environment (in this case the current bureaucratic government) or work to change that environment... I suggest we work to change that environment through the very way that we are presently: grassroots transformation.
(5) Ergo, I suggest that we need solutions that recognize that top-down government (through policy) works only when you're not trying to span across different groups and address complex problems... I can testify both as an academic who has researched this in several U.S. government agencies and as a practitioner currently working with the U.S. and military forces in Afghanistan: top-down approaches will fail when addressing complex problems.
________
p.s. If I were to suggest a lofty goal for our KM effort, it would be to recognize that we're really advocating something much more transformative: a shift from bureaucratic to a post-bureaucratic form of government necessitated by the global challenges and opportunities we now confront. With this, I'll end with one last book recommendation: "The Post-Bureaucratic Organization: New Perspectives on Organizational Change"
www.amazon.com/Post-Bureaucratic-Organization-Perspectives-Organizational-Change/dp/0803957181
... I'm not saying we may not need policy to complement the large transformations we need to do to make this happen, Again, we can either try and work within the confines of a pre-defined environment (in this case the current bureaucratic government) or work to change that environment... I suggest we work to change that environment through the very way that we are presently: grassroots transformation.
-d.
17 November 2008
Science of Security
Currently at a series of day-long meetings with NSF, NSA, and IARPA folks regarding whether or not we can create a "Science of Security" (focused on cyber-issues) and what such a science, if possible, would look like. Interesting discussions and many different perspectives, ranging from hard-core experts in computer science, physics, biology, and sociology.
My own thoughts, for now, are probably baised by the fact that my background includes both cyber and a biology background. I think any science, if possible, would have to draw from complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory. I ask these thoughts similar to the discovery of the “Omega” and “Super-Omega” numbers (see article below). Could it be, with cyber-security efforts, we are facing a complex environment that includes complicated behaviors bordering at times on randomness that occasionally presents itself as having links and reason; that is, that the default state is “anarchy, not order”? (Again, see article below for more on how mathematics has recently revealed itself to be riddled with holes and anarchy).
This is not to say we shouldn’t engage in the activity of trying to assess a Science of Security, but approach it with the realization it will never be complete (even at the high level) and it can only be a reflection of what we can best imagine, envision, and potentially know with the purpose being, as best as possible, pro-actively positioning resources to try to reinforce the security of such systems as well as be ready to respond when/if a system is attacked, compromised, or crashes?
Thoughts?
Excerpt text re: Omega and Super-Omega Numbers
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17022856.400-omega-man.html
Gregory Chaitin, a mathematics researcher at IBM’s T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, has shown that mathematicians can’t actually prove very much at all. Doing math, he says, is just a process of discovery like every other branch of science: it’s an experimental field where mathematicians stumble upon facts in the same way that zoologists might come across a new species of primate. Mathematics has always been considered free of uncertainty and able to provide a pure foundation for other, messier fields of science. But math is just as messy, Chaitin says: mathematicians are simply acting on intuition and experimenting with ideas, just like everyone else. Zoologists think there might be something new swinging from branch to branch in the unexplored forests of Madagascar, and mathematicians have hunches about which part of the mathematical landscape to explore. The subject is no more profound than that.
The reason for Chaitin’s provocative statements is that he has found that the core of mathematics is riddled with holes. Chaitin has shown that there are an infinite number of mathematical facts but, for the most part, they are unrelated to each other and impossible to tie together with unifying theorems. If mathematicians find any connections between these facts, they do so by luck. “Most of mathematics is true for no particular reason,” Chaitin says. “Math is true by accident.”
This is particularly bad news for physicists on a quest for a complete and concise description of the Universe. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but even Steven Weinberg, a Nobel prizewinning physicist and author of Dreams of a Final Theory, has swallowed it. “We will never be sure that our final theory is mathematically consistent,” he admits. ... Omega is infinitely long and utterly incalculable. Chaitin has found that Omega infects the whole of mathematics, placing fundamental limits on what we can know. And Omega is just the beginning. There are even more disturbing numbers—Chaitin calls them Super-Omegas—that would defy calculation even if we ever managed to work Omega out. The Omega strain of incalculable numbers reveals that mathematics is not simply moth-eaten, it is mostly made of gaping holes. Anarchy, not order, is at the heart of the Universe.
[... excerpt ...]
But Chaitin already knew that each digit of Omega is random and independent. This could only mean one thing. Because finding out whether a Diophantine equation has a finite or infinite number of solutions generates these digits, each answer to the equation must therefore be unknowable and independent of every other answer. In other words, the randomness of the digits of Omega imposes limits on what can be known from number theory—the most elementary of mathematical fields. “If randomness is even in something as basic as number theory, where else is it?” asks Chaitin. He thinks he knows the answer. “My hunch is it’s everywhere,” he says. “Randomness is the true foundation of mathematics.”
[... excerpt ...]
The fact that randomness is everywhere has deep consequences, says John Casti, a mathematician at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and the Vienna University of Technology. It means that a few bits of maths may follow from each other, but for most mathematical situations those connections won’t exist. And if you can’t make connections, you can’t solve or prove things. All a mathematician can do is aim to find the little bits of maths that do tie together. “Chaitin’s work shows that solvable problems are like a small island in a vast sea of undecidable propositions,” Casti says.
My own thoughts, for now, are probably baised by the fact that my background includes both cyber and a biology background. I think any science, if possible, would have to draw from complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory. I ask these thoughts similar to the discovery of the “Omega” and “Super-Omega” numbers (see article below). Could it be, with cyber-security efforts, we are facing a complex environment that includes complicated behaviors bordering at times on randomness that occasionally presents itself as having links and reason; that is, that the default state is “anarchy, not order”? (Again, see article below for more on how mathematics has recently revealed itself to be riddled with holes and anarchy).
This is not to say we shouldn’t engage in the activity of trying to assess a Science of Security, but approach it with the realization it will never be complete (even at the high level) and it can only be a reflection of what we can best imagine, envision, and potentially know with the purpose being, as best as possible, pro-actively positioning resources to try to reinforce the security of such systems as well as be ready to respond when/if a system is attacked, compromised, or crashes?
Thoughts?
Excerpt text re: Omega and Super-Omega Numbers
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17022856.400-omega-man.html
Gregory Chaitin, a mathematics researcher at IBM’s T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, has shown that mathematicians can’t actually prove very much at all. Doing math, he says, is just a process of discovery like every other branch of science: it’s an experimental field where mathematicians stumble upon facts in the same way that zoologists might come across a new species of primate. Mathematics has always been considered free of uncertainty and able to provide a pure foundation for other, messier fields of science. But math is just as messy, Chaitin says: mathematicians are simply acting on intuition and experimenting with ideas, just like everyone else. Zoologists think there might be something new swinging from branch to branch in the unexplored forests of Madagascar, and mathematicians have hunches about which part of the mathematical landscape to explore. The subject is no more profound than that.
The reason for Chaitin’s provocative statements is that he has found that the core of mathematics is riddled with holes. Chaitin has shown that there are an infinite number of mathematical facts but, for the most part, they are unrelated to each other and impossible to tie together with unifying theorems. If mathematicians find any connections between these facts, they do so by luck. “Most of mathematics is true for no particular reason,” Chaitin says. “Math is true by accident.”
This is particularly bad news for physicists on a quest for a complete and concise description of the Universe. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but even Steven Weinberg, a Nobel prizewinning physicist and author of Dreams of a Final Theory, has swallowed it. “We will never be sure that our final theory is mathematically consistent,” he admits. ... Omega is infinitely long and utterly incalculable. Chaitin has found that Omega infects the whole of mathematics, placing fundamental limits on what we can know. And Omega is just the beginning. There are even more disturbing numbers—Chaitin calls them Super-Omegas—that would defy calculation even if we ever managed to work Omega out. The Omega strain of incalculable numbers reveals that mathematics is not simply moth-eaten, it is mostly made of gaping holes. Anarchy, not order, is at the heart of the Universe.
[... excerpt ...]
But Chaitin already knew that each digit of Omega is random and independent. This could only mean one thing. Because finding out whether a Diophantine equation has a finite or infinite number of solutions generates these digits, each answer to the equation must therefore be unknowable and independent of every other answer. In other words, the randomness of the digits of Omega imposes limits on what can be known from number theory—the most elementary of mathematical fields. “If randomness is even in something as basic as number theory, where else is it?” asks Chaitin. He thinks he knows the answer. “My hunch is it’s everywhere,” he says. “Randomness is the true foundation of mathematics.”
[... excerpt ...]
The fact that randomness is everywhere has deep consequences, says John Casti, a mathematician at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and the Vienna University of Technology. It means that a few bits of maths may follow from each other, but for most mathematical situations those connections won’t exist. And if you can’t make connections, you can’t solve or prove things. All a mathematician can do is aim to find the little bits of maths that do tie together. “Chaitin’s work shows that solvable problems are like a small island in a vast sea of undecidable propositions,” Casti says.
10 August 2008
Two New Discussion Papers / Working Drafts Posted
As a quick update, two new discussion papers have been posted on SSRN that may be of general interest to folks; they are:
1. Collective Intelligence in the Executive Branch: Ten Priority Issues for the Next U.S. President to Consider
2. Collective Intelligence: Promoting Diversity, Crowd Performance Algorithms, and Better Decision Outcomes
As always, feedback welcomed!
1. Collective Intelligence in the Executive Branch: Ten Priority Issues for the Next U.S. President to Consider
2. Collective Intelligence: Promoting Diversity, Crowd Performance Algorithms, and Better Decision Outcomes
As always, feedback welcomed!
03 August 2008
S. Korean government takes on "infodemics"
Below is excerpt from an evolving story of when the collective intelligence of the crowd clashes with what the S. Korean government perceives as correct information/information control. side-note, this was in a large part predicted by Bruce Sterling as part of his 1998 novel "Distraction", http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/17/bruce-sterlings-visi.html
Specifically:
Bruised S. Korean government takes on "infodemics"
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/08/03/asia/OUKWD-UK-KOREA-INTERNET.php
The mass access to the Internet, which helped ex-CEO Lee Myung-bak to his resounding presidential election victory, went on to become the instrument helping shatter that popularity in just five months in office.
Now the government is working on new rules to rein in the excesses of its netizens and bring some control to the information--and disinformation--that bombards the nation's computer screens.
"We have to guard against `infodemics,' in which inaccurate, false information is disseminated, prompting social unrest that spreads like an epidemic," Lee told parliament early in July.
... the article goes on to discuss the government's perspective and proposed solution (creating a Cyber Defamation Law) vs. the public's perspective and response. Should be interesting to watch this play out -- and again, for those who haven't read it, worth reading Bruce Sterling's "Distraction" as a forewarning of what might come within this space.
Ten years from now, imagine political candidates possessing cyber-teams: one team actively seeks to manage all information associated in the blogosphere and wider webspace about their candidate, proactively containing any possible negative spin or information that could be incorrectly misconstrued -- another team actively seeks to misconstrue and exploit all information in the blogosphere and wider webspace about rival candidates, proactively encouraging negative spins or incorrect characterizations that, on the web, take on a force-multiplier effect of anonymous amplification. Potentially a dangerous future indeed.
Specifically:
Bruised S. Korean government takes on "infodemics"
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/08/03/asia/OUKWD-UK-KOREA-INTERNET.php
The mass access to the Internet, which helped ex-CEO Lee Myung-bak to his resounding presidential election victory, went on to become the instrument helping shatter that popularity in just five months in office.
Now the government is working on new rules to rein in the excesses of its netizens and bring some control to the information--and disinformation--that bombards the nation's computer screens.
"We have to guard against `infodemics,' in which inaccurate, false information is disseminated, prompting social unrest that spreads like an epidemic," Lee told parliament early in July.
... the article goes on to discuss the government's perspective and proposed solution (creating a Cyber Defamation Law) vs. the public's perspective and response. Should be interesting to watch this play out -- and again, for those who haven't read it, worth reading Bruce Sterling's "Distraction" as a forewarning of what might come within this space.
Ten years from now, imagine political candidates possessing cyber-teams: one team actively seeks to manage all information associated in the blogosphere and wider webspace about their candidate, proactively containing any possible negative spin or information that could be incorrectly misconstrued -- another team actively seeks to misconstrue and exploit all information in the blogosphere and wider webspace about rival candidates, proactively encouraging negative spins or incorrect characterizations that, on the web, take on a force-multiplier effect of anonymous amplification. Potentially a dangerous future indeed.
23 July 2008
When Crowdsourcing Fails
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/12/when-crowdsourcing-fails-cambrian-house-headed-to-the-deadpool/
This supports what we found from the Oxford University 14 case studies -- none of them showed a repeatable magic recipe, instead they grew to meet the needs of their audience and actively listened as to what would get their participants more engaged as a community (and thus working more together as a "crowd").
Crowdsourcing clearly has cases where it works, but also clearly has some crash-and-burn examples (e.g., bigthink.com) ~ poor participation/interaction levels. For this specific case, I found their addendum comments to be the most telling:
'Indeed, our model failed. In short: we became a destination people loved to bookmark more than they loved to actively visit (our traffic pattern was scarily VC-ish). The limiting reagent in the startup equation is not ideas, but amazing founding teams.'
'A key assumption for us, which proved out NOT true: given a great idea with great community support and great market test data, we would be able to find (crowdsource) a team willing to execute it OR we could execute it ourselves. We needed amazing founding teams for each of the ideas – this is where our model fell short.'
'What we learned: it would have been better to back great teams with horrible ideas because most of the heavy lifting kept falling back on us, or a few select community members. A vicious cycle was created leading all of us to get more and more diffuse.'
'Hence: the wisdom of crowds worked well in the model, but it was our participation of crowds aspect which broke down. Trying to find people willing or capable to take on the offspring (our outputs) of the CH model was hard and/or incredibly time consuming.'
This supports what we found from the Oxford University 14 case studies -- none of them showed a repeatable magic recipe, instead they grew to meet the needs of their audience and actively listened as to what would get their participants more engaged as a community (and thus working more together as a "crowd").
Crowdsourcing clearly has cases where it works, but also clearly has some crash-and-burn examples (e.g., bigthink.com) ~ poor participation/interaction levels. For this specific case, I found their addendum comments to be the most telling:
'Indeed, our model failed. In short: we became a destination people loved to bookmark more than they loved to actively visit (our traffic pattern was scarily VC-ish). The limiting reagent in the startup equation is not ideas, but amazing founding teams.'
'A key assumption for us, which proved out NOT true: given a great idea with great community support and great market test data, we would be able to find (crowdsource) a team willing to execute it OR we could execute it ourselves. We needed amazing founding teams for each of the ideas – this is where our model fell short.'
'What we learned: it would have been better to back great teams with horrible ideas because most of the heavy lifting kept falling back on us, or a few select community members. A vicious cycle was created leading all of us to get more and more diffuse.'
'Hence: the wisdom of crowds worked well in the model, but it was our participation of crowds aspect which broke down. Trying to find people willing or capable to take on the offspring (our outputs) of the CH model was hard and/or incredibly time consuming.'
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