This page is of special interest to computer industry professionals,
and to others concerned with the problems and potentialities related
to organizing and accessing information in the network-era.
ADM: THE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT DESKTOP
General Introducton
The thrust towards knowledge management is, as you know, an impressive new conjuncture of forces in the computer world. From our perspective, however, there is still one missing ingredient needed to effectively complete this agenda: The knowledge management Desktop.
We believe that we have that missing ingredient.
We have developed, over the past two years, a detailed conceptual and functional model, and a simple prototype, for a product we call `ADM' (Advanced Data Management). We are firmly convinced, based on our research, that ADM represents a uniquely effective solution for general desktop information management for the millions of computer users who must navigate vast quantities of information in today's networked
world.
In broad terms - and unlike all other existing approaches - ADM will enable users to intuitively and easily organize, access, and share ALL of their relationships to electronic information, regardless of whether thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of files or data-objects are involved; and regardless of whether this information resides on the users hard-drive, LAN, WAN, or the Internet. ADM accomplishes these objectives through its unique and user-friendly `hierarchical data-structures', whose advantages are immediately apparent when seen.
To further explain ADM's advantages, we want to use the notion of
`metadata'. As you know, `meta-data' is a concept developed by
contemporary library science, which refers to `data about data'.
In the computer world, as you also know, metadata refers to any data which helps to identify, describe, and locate networked electronic information. Though not normally thought of in such broad terms, metadata can be said to include both html links and icons on GUI desktops, for the simple reason that both `identify, describe, and locate' a web page or file.
The concept of metadata provides a new window on issues of information management. The ability, for example, to manage metadata through the icons and folders of a GUI interface such as Windows is, in fact, almost pathetically weak. To begin with, identification and description is realistically limited to just a few words of readily viewable metadata per document. In addition, the users ability to structure the metadata is effectively restricted to a few hundred icons in clunky folders and sub-folders. Finally, the ability to share this already severely limited desktop metadata with other users is, for all practical purposes, almost
nonexistent.
By contrast with GUI's and other traditional approaches, ADM's
data-structures provide whole magnitudes increase in metadata
management power.
Where GUI's such as windows limit desktop metadata to a few words per document, ADM permits as many words of metadata as necessary to describe the document for the users purposes.
Where GUI's such as windows restrict the user to a few hundred
abbreviated metadata items organized as folders and icons, ADM's simple-to-use data-structures enable the user to create, organize, and effectively manage hundreds of thousands or even millions of items of metadata.
Where GUI's such as windows provide no real ability to effectively
share desktop metadata, metadata organized into ADM data-structures can be easily shared between users, who can even build data-structures together over the network.
To underscore just why we call it the `uniquely effective' information management system, we want to make one last point: Due to its special way of structuring information, ADM users will be able to easily traverse a data-structure containing a million items, using as few as six mouse clicks, while selecting for each click from only ten items. Moreover, as previously stated, these ADM data-structures can be easily shared between users!
We believe that by adding ADM's superior capabilities for management and sharing of desktop metadata, the knowledge management revolution can take a significant stride forward.
Detailed information on the ADM program, and a copy of our executive summary and business plan, can be made available to qualified individuals or organizations. Intererested parties may contact me, or my associate Arne Heramann. I'm currently in Korea and you can reach me at 011-82-11-9626-5014. I've just arrived, so my cellphone voicemail box isn't working yet, and you might have to call once or twice to reach me. My email address is: ericsommer@hyperoffice.com.
Yours for progress on all fronts,
Eric Sommer
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Contact Information:
Eric Sommer, CO-CEO, Advanced Data management:
Email: ericsommer@hyperoffice.com
Phone: 011-82-11-9626-5014 (in Korea)
Arne Herman, CO-CEO Advanced Data Management and CEO of Synercom-EDI arneh@istar.ca Phone: 604-682-4144 (Vancouver, Canada)
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