evolving a portal complexity theory & intranets tom reamy chief knowledge architect kaps group...
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Evolving a PortalComplexity Theory & Intranets
Tom ReamyChief Knowledge Architect
KAPS Group
Knowledge Architecture Professional Services
http://www.kapsgroup.com
Evolving a PortalComplexity Theory & Intranets
Tom Reamy
Intranet DeityKAPS Group
Knowledge Architecture Professional Services
http://www.kapsgroup.com
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Agenda
Introduction– Complexity Theory (abridged)
Complexity Theory and Intranets– Is there evidence of Intelligent Design on Intranets?– Environment, Evolutionary Mechanisms
Complexity Theory and Blogs, Wiki’s, Folksonomies Conclusion – Evolutionary Model
– Benefits of a Complexity Theory Approach
Source: Intranets May/June 2005
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KAPS Group
Knowledge Architecture Professional Services (KAPS) Consulting, strategy recommendations Knowledge architecture audits Partners – Convera, Inxight, and others Taxonomies: Enterprise, Marketing, Insurance, etc.
– Taxonomy customization Intellectual infrastructure for organizations
– Knowledge organization, technology, people and processes– Search, content management, portals, collaboration,
knowledge management, e-learning, etc.
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Complexity Theory (abridged)History
An interdisciplinary method– Applied to math, model systems, economics, ecology, etc.
Initial Hype Period – 1980’s-1990’s– Chaos theory, Catastrophe theory, AI, etc.
Current – half way between hype and practical– Beware articles that focus on one aspect – self-organizing
Santa Fe Institute, social research, our Keynote The Center for Complex Systems Research
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Complexity Theory (abridged)Examples
Complex Systems (not complicated)– Large number of independent relatively dumb elements
interact according to a small set of rules.– Self-organizing – order emerges– Local rules, local interactions – global order emerges
Definition by Example– Ant Colonies – clear tunnels with no idea of how to clear a
tunnel– Neighborhoods – create a structure with no central planning
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Complexity Theory (abridged)Essential Features
Large numbers of elements Local Interactions Emergence – global from local Feedback Self-organization
– Key idea – often over-hyped
Importance of the environment– Often overlooked
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Complexity Theory:The Hype
Business Organization / Taxonomy / Intranet Management
President
HR VP IT VP Products VP
Computers
Software Hardware Services
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Complexity Theory:The Hype
An Ant Colony, Blogs, Folksonomies,
Worker Worker Worker
Queen
Worker Worker
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Complexity Theory and IntranetsEvolution - Problems
Evolution takes a really long time– Even at electronic speeds
Evolution doesn’t care about the individual– A bit harsh even by Oracle Management standards
Evolution is sloppy– Needs to kill a lot of individuals to achieve progress
Evolution will lead to a better Intranet if:– We wait 100 million years – Are willing to have most people not be able to find anything
while we wait.
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Complexity Theory and IntranetsIs there evidence of intelligent design on Intranets?
IT Technoid Model– Web site units, drop down menus everywhere, cheap, lots of
content, no one can find anything
Corporate Communication Model– Pretty, organized top down, expensive, one way flow, all the
important content is stuck in one bin – no one can find anything
Library Model– Extremely well organized – alphabetical, rich content,
expensive, no one (except librarians) can find anything
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Complexity Theory and Intranets
Intranets – self-organizing gone mad– No central control– web sites everywhere– Designs – good to bizarre to truly tortuous
Intranets are complicated but not complex Turning Intranets into complex systems:
– Structured environments– Evolutionary mechanisms
• Feedback with consequences
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Complexity Theory and IntranetsStructured Environment – More structure Complexity – need right level of structure and disorder Unstructured systems can’t evolve Level of structure = value of order that emerges
– Color clumps, ants, neighborhood stores
Need “taxonomies” and metadata – content, users, activities
Units – not web sites, but documents, concepts, category nodes
– Web sites are too complicated – need simpler rules
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Complexity Theory and Intranets:Evolutionary Mechanisms
Feedback with Consequences– If an ant fails to follow a rule, it dies– If a store locates in the wrong place, it dies– If a web site locates in the wrong place or fails to organize it’s
content well – what happens?
Option - It dies – Simple rule -- minimum number of visits to survive– Good – universal and numerical measure - visits– Bad – too simplistic – visits not = quality – Really Bad – CEO web site dies
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Complexity Theory and Intranets Evolutionary Mechanisms
Need better Feedback– better than Top pages, most visits
Need eCommerce kinds of reports Need paths, activities – tied to categories and audiences
– WebTrends top paths – not very useful– Too much variation, not enough structure– Can’t see the patterns– Need categorization – documents, audiences, activities, paths
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Complexity Theory and Intranets Evolutionary Mechanisms
Build in feedback into everything– Implicit rankings of search terms, was this useful?– Explicit – usage tracking
Feedback into categorization– How good, suggested terms and modifications
Navigation and search– How good, ranking of content– Collaborative and Competitive Best Bets
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Complexity Theory and IntranetsEvolutionary Mechanisms–What do you do with feedback Refine categorization, taxonomies, search
– Uncover the effects of “interwingledness”– Discover natural category levels – by audience
Documents – classify dynamically by subject, activity– Class of document – single item, part of path-rule– Simple – top documents, most recently visited
• By topic, audience – more useful
Create rules or ontologies, clusters of order• Fly-Sleep-Drive• Facts – policy-form-email• Evolve rules – by usage, explicit feedback
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Complexity Theory and IntranetsEvolutionary Mechanisms: Rules alone not enough
Current situation – no good overall set of rules Intelligent Designer / Knowledge Architecture Team
– Create the structured environment– Create the rules and feedback system– Tweak the evolution of the system– Analyze data, paths to monitor– Develop initial candidates – interviews, search log analysis,
ethnographic studies
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Complexity Theory and Blogs, Wiki’s, Folksonomies
Wikipedia – fast cheap encyclopedia– Not really just mass of workers making local decisions– Role of initial environment and sets of rules – Feedback everywhere - including on structure and rules– Still have designers – administrators, councils of
administrators
Folksonomies – fast, cheap taxonomies– Currently – only flat keyword lists– Need designers and taxonomists for higher level structure– Economics of mass feedback, growing some structure
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Complexity Theory and Blogs, Wiki’s, Folksonomies
Blogs – within the enterprise – special case– As they grow – need more categorization
• “Set the Blog categories using keywords and topics”
– Design – which areas to develop policies and which areas to evolve• Policy – legal, corporate rules
• Evolve – reputations, conventions, etiquette
Theoretical rigor and Blog Buzz– Better use of blogs– Experimental area to try ideas
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Conclusions: Evolutionary Model
Designed structure at infrastructure level, not application Feedback and rules based on categories, not web sites Advanced feedback is necessary Knowledge architecture team is necessary
– Develop infrastructure, analyze feedback, facilitate Order is grown – from a combination of bottom up and
design Management is suggesting rules and testing and gathering
feedback about usefulness, not setting policies Make change part of the solution, not the problem
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Complexity Theory and IntranetsApproaches and Benefits Develop arguments for more structure –
– Better taxonomies, metadata, etc.– New focus for metadata – purpose, audience
Fresh perspective on approach for and value of:– Taxonomies, Management roles, metrics.
Benefits of research – Investigation itself yields ideas– Application of theory to Intranets– Framework for range of ideas – social bookmarking, Wiki, blogs,
folksonomies One tool to improve Intranet order and management
– Not THE answer
Questions?
KAPS Group
Knowledge Architecture Professional Services
http://www.kapsgroup.com