Facilitating the Evolution of our Collective IQ

Strategically improving our capability for coping with complex, urgent, large-scale

problems.

Douglas C. EngelbartAccelerating-Change Conference

Stanford University, 7-Nov-04

Life-Changing Epiphany

Let me design a professional goal which will maximize the contribution my career can

make to mankind!

Just-engaged, 25-yr-old Country Kid, full of excited thoughts about building a family: “Hey, but there’s also that professional career.

Some big plans there, too?” (Over-does it!)

Weeks Later: Naïve Country Kid’s Lifetime Goal Emerged, and Stuck!

“As much as possible, to boost mankind’s collective capability for coping with complex, urgent

problems”

Continuous, dedicated pursuit now for over 50 years.

Consider a community’s Collective IQ as its relative capability for dealing with

complex, urgent problems

• To understand them as thoroughly as possible

• To unearth the best candidate solutions• To assess resources and operational

capabilities and select appropriate solution commitments

• To understand how best to organize and execute selected approaches

• To monitor progress and adapt effectively to unforeseen complications. Etc. …

Collective IQ:Emerged As Primary Strategic Focus

DynamicKnowledgeRepository

COncurrently Developing, Integrating, & Applying Knowledge

CODIAK Capability

“Capabilities” become a key, central consideration

… and we find very important things to observe about our capabilities:

Consider how they are derived;

And how they form an “infrastructure” that opens an important perspective to our quest for

significantly boosting

our “Collective IQ”!

CapabilityInfrastructure

Humans’ Capabilities Depend Upon

SkillsKnowledgeTraining

Basic Human Capabilities Sensory Perceptual

Motor Mental

(This interface is much more significant than “HCI”)

Tool SystemMediaPortrayalViewsStudyManipulationsRetrieveComputeCommunicate

Human SystemParadigmsOrganizationProceduresCustomsMethodsLanguageAttitudes

their Augmentation System

Purposefully pursuing accelerated evolution of mankind’s knowledge development and application capabilities is

a HUGE CHALLENGE, and requires very effective strategies in applying our resources.

This Augmentation Model is valid over huge scale!

Individual Human

CommunityOf Practice

A Complete Country

The World

Operative IQ

Collective IQCollective IQ

Collective IQ

Concurrency:Concurrency:

Scaling Up --Scaling Up --

actually, to, to

global scopeglobal scope..

Aggregate Aggregate DKRDKR

Intelligence Intelligence CollectionCollection

Recorded Recorded DialogDialog

DKRDKRIntell.Intell.DialogDialog

Critical Factor: “Concurrent” Evolution of

Society’s DKRs

Large-Scale Facilitated Evolution

• No one can specify the design for our future capability infrastructure– Far too many of the possible “improvement steps”

will change the design environment for other improvement candidates.

• Have to depend upon an Evolutionary Process!

• BUT, we CAN learn to FACILITATE this evolutionary process!

Anticipate-ableT

oday

The World’s Organizations in Human-Tool Space

Representative distribution of world’s societies

Tool System Utilization

Hu

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“Co-Evolution Frontier” Human-Systems and Tool Systems

Interactively Co-Evolving• Technology's quantum leaps generate

accelerating rate of opportunities.

• But, human paradigms already lag behind opportunities.

• The scale of technology change = >

• Paradigm changes have to be accelerated

– Human skills, culture, governance already severely stressed

Critically needed:

Effective Facilitation of our Co-Evolution.

Emergent Co-Evolution FrontierOn a scale we can barely anticipate

Outposts?

Best Routes?

Where best should your organization head? ….By what route? Who else is out there?

We need a DKR that provides the best possible understanding of the current and projected states of this frontier.

Every member organization can then make its own choices about its movements into this frontier.

Uncharted, and Changing

Tool System Utilization

Hu

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n S

yste

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Networked Improvement Community (NIC)

Dynamic Knowledge Repository

RecordedDialog

Networked Improvement Community (NIC)An Augmented Improvement Community,

Using best-practice Collective-IQ Capability To improve its common-choice group capability.

Org 2

Org N

Org 1

• Investigate & collect intelligence • Share experience of using leading-edge, collective-IQ practices. • Objective: provide best understanding of the “Co-Evolution Frontier” for augmenting this capability.

KnowledgeProducts

Intelligence Collections

Large-Scale Facilitated Evolution

Common Goal: Continuous Improvement of Large-Scale Collective Capabilities.

• Networked Improvement Communities (NICs) defined around specific areas of interest

• Prime Goal: Improve Collective IQ of NICs!

• Organize NICs into a large-scale Improvement Infrastructure

– for facilitating the Concurrent Evolution

– of the associated Augmentation Systems.

Central Strategy: Bootstrapping

The better we get at getting better, the better and faster we’ll get better.

1. Currently available information about Collective IQ

2. Best DKR/knowledge about improving Collective IQ

The Bootstrap Feedback Loop

3

3. NIC immediately utilizing the best Collective IQ improvement knowledge

NIC for Improving

Collective IQ

1 2

Bootstrapping: Extension to Many NICs

The Bootstrap

Feedback Loop

NIC for Improving

Collective IQ

NIC for Improving

Capability Z.

NIC for Improving

Capability X

Towards Effective Facilitation Where/How to Start our First NICs?

NIC Candidates?

Special Improvement

Infrastructures?

Government Agencies?

Businesses?

Professional Societies?

Universities?

Philanthropic Organizations?

OHS - the critical missing piece

The Need For AnOpen Hyperdocument System (OHS)

To support the implementation and use of DKRs

• “Open” - Scaleable, evolvable, interoperable across domains

• “Hyper” - To enhance access, maneuverability,verification, study and integration.

• “Document” – The Knowledge Container into which the emerging heterogeneous knowledge is captured, integrated, and managed.

• “System” - Provides a complete “Community Knowledge Workshop”

Generalize and Extend the “Hyper” term

Let “Hyper” mean this:

“anything that new technology can bring to the generation, storage, processing, and portrayal of symbolized knowledge.”– This definition provides much more than is

included in current “Hypertext”. – E.g.: High-Resolution Addressing;

Optional Viewing; Heightened Mobility; Powerful Manipulation Capabilities; etc…

Other Framework Items:

• Early Kickoff: a DKR about example DKRs• Open Hyperdocument System (OHS)• Launching OHS evolution: The HyperScope• Knowledge-Workshop Architects• Pedestrian Users … High-Performance Users• Multiple UIS Options• High-Performance Support Teams• Inevitable: Hardcopy documents become

obsolete.

Challenges for DKR Development & Use:

Rationale for Building a DKR of DKR’s • Special sets of skills required for increasing

capabilities

– Who will provide the integration & linking of disparate information into the solid, verifiable DKR structures

• Properties & structural principles for DKR knowledge containers will be critical part of DKR evolution

• Dynamic, seamless integration of new data while preserving the DKR’s evolutionary history

• Assessment and rating of the organization’s capabilities to develop and use its DKRs

• Capability Infrastructure – support a wide range of usage capabilities, e.g. multiple user interfaces that reflect increasing levels of user expertise.

Selected Reference Links

• Subset of pubs that are on the Web: http://www.bootstrap.org/institute/bibliography.html

With Special interest in Items below:

• #3: Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework. Douglas C. Engelbart. 1962.

• #29: Toward High-Performance Organizations: A Strategic Role for Groupware. Douglas C. Engelbart. 1992.

• #32: A Draft OHS-Project Plan (The HyperScope) Douglas C. Engelbart. 2000.

Argument visualization resources

• Scholarly Ontologies Projectwww.kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/scholonto

Visualizing Argumentation (2003)

www.VisualizingArgumentation.info

Argument mapping for scholarly publishing, scientific and public policy debates, education, teamwork, and organisational memory.

More Reference Links• Extensive general listing:

– http://www.usabilityvews.com/eng_by_backlinks.html .

THE END!!

AC Conference PresentationCreated and Presented by:

Doug Engelbart