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~~~ Ramana Rao's INFORMATION FLOW ~~~ Issue 2.12 ~~~ Dec 2003 ~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Information Flow is an opt-in monthly newsletter. Your email address was entered on www.ramanarao.com or www.inxight.com. You may forward this issue in its entirety. Send me your thoughts and questions: [email protected] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~ IN THIS ISSUE ~~~ December 2003 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Introduction * New Articles * 21 Books * 49 Classics Wrapped ~~~ Introduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No doubt, some of you noticed the missing November 2.11 issue. I wrote it on 11/30 as I flew from Oakland to New York La Guardia. My new laptop with its 9-cell battery lasted the entire flight. Then I had another hour as I waited for a shuttle to Stamford. But tired and dissatisfied with what I had, I decided not to bore you with it. The material will be worth sending eventually, but not yet. (This probably kills my chances as a journalist or a VP of Engineering.) In 2004, I'm going to go ad hoc, meaning I'm going to try to get at least 10 issues out next year, roughly a month apart with some slips and drops. 2004 is going to be busy, lot's going on for Inxight and me personally, so I need the flexibility. I wish all of you the best for 2004. It's been great interacting with and meeting many of you this past year. And I look forward to more in the new year. Send me email, come visit me in San Francisco, or Inxight in Silicon Valley, or invite me over. Prost. Salut. Kippis. Kong Chien. Chinchin. Kia ora. Cumpai. Konbe. Serefe. Fi sahitak. Skaal. Le'chaim. Oogy wawa. Selemat. Cheers. ~~~ New Articles ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The last two months have seen plenty of work on two papers. One paper, based on last year's draft, Rich Interaction with Content, has been published in the IEEE peer-reviewed magazine IT Professional. The other article, based on October's Information Flow, will be included in a forthcoming book on KM practices. ~> From Unstructured Data to Actionable Content IEEE IT Professional, Nov/Dec 2003 http://ramanarao.com/papers/rao-itpro-2003-11.pdf ~> Leveraging Content in Enterprise Knowledge Processes to be published in Knowledge Scaffolding: How Practitioners Use Knowledge Management Tools, Edited by Madanmohan Rao. Butterworth-Heienemann, 2004 http://ramanarao.com/papers/rao-kmchap-2003-12-draft.pdf Recently, digging around in my electronic archives, I discovered a paper I wrote in 1995 on Information Visualization. I drafted this paper with Scientific American in mind, but a European company with similar French and Spanish magazines happen to invite me to submit such an article. Ironically, publishing it in French and Spanish derailed its submission to Scientific American, so it's never been "published" in English until now. ~> Information Visualization and the Next Generation Workspace http://ramanarao.com/papers/rao-infoviz-nextgen-workspace-1995.pdf ~~~ 21 Books ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 2003 has been a year that I read, reread, preread, part-read, or browsed quite a few books. 21 books seem particularly significant to Information Flow activities including the Classics, the Diagrams, and various Talks. I could say more about these, but now that's for 2004, but for now let me offer them as good reads. ~~~ History ~> Technomanifestos: Visions from the Information Revolutionaries, Adam Brate, 2001 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=1587991039 ~> The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal, M. Mitchell Waldrop, 2002 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=014200135X ~> Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology, Howard Rheingold, 1986, 2000 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=0262681153 ~~~ Values ~> The Human Use of Human Beings, Norbert Wiener, 1954, 1986 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=0306803208 ~> Living With the Genie: Essays on Technology and the Quest for Human Mastery, Eds. Alan Lightman, Daniel R. Sarewitz, Christina Desser, 2003 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=1559634197 ~> The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?, David Brin, 1999 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=0738201448 ~~~ Philosophy, Criticism, Thought ~> Passion of the Western Mind, Richard Tarnas, 1993 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=0345368096 ~> The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness, Virginia Postrel, 2003 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=0060186321 ~> Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web, David Weinberger, 2002 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=0738208507 ~> Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins, 2000 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=0316353000 ~~~ Social Context, Innovation, Decision-Making ~> The Social Life of Information, John Seely Brown, Paul Duguid, 2002 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=1578517087 ~> Cultivating Communities of Practice, Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, William M. Snyder, 2002 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=1578513308 ~> Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions, Gary Klein, 1999 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=0262611465 ~> Open Innovation, Henry William Chesbrough, 2003 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=1578518377 ~> Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age, David M. Levy, 2001 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=1559706481 ~~~ Classics ~> Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1991 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=0060920432 ~> The Sciences of the Artificial - 3rd Edition, Herbert Simon, 1969, 1981, 1996 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=0262691914 ~> The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition, Frederick Brooks, 1975, 1995 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=0201835959 ~~~ Fun ~> The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker, 2000 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=0060958332 ~> Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson, 1992 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=0553380958 ~> E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation, David Bodanis, 2001 http://ramanarao.com/cgi-bin/book.cgi?isbn=0425181642 ~~~ 49 Classics Wrapped ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wrapped, but not buried. Below is the last installment of Information Flow Classics nominees via newsletter. Future activity now moves to the website, where I'll maintain the ongoing list. Call me a lazy evaluator or a late binder, but I still am not finalizing any into the 49 Classics list. Nevertheless, I think all of these papers are worth reading or at least browsing to get a feel for the sweep of ideas related to Information Flow. ~> The Computer for the 21st Century, Mark Weiser, Scientific American, 1991 http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/SciAmDraft3.html ~> Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation, John Seeley Brown and Paul Duguid, Organization Science, 1991 http://www2.parc.com/ops/members/brown/papers/orglearning.html ~> A Brief History of Human Computer Interaction Technology, Brad Myers, ACM Interactions, March 1998, http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~amulet/papers/uihistory.tr.html ~> Indexing by Latent Semantic Analysis, Scott Deerwester etal, JASIS, 1990 http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/deerwester90indexing.html ~> Using collaborative filtering to weave an information tapestry, David Goldberg etal, CACM, 1992 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/138859.138867 ~> Diversity in the Use of Electronic Mail: A Preliminary Inquiry, Wendy Mackay, ACM TOIS, 1987 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/58566.58567 ~> Intelligent Information Sharing Systems, Thomas Malone etal, CACM, 1987 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/22899.22903 ~> Semistructured messages are surprisingly useful for computer-supported coordination, Thomas Malone etal, ACM TOIS, 1987 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/27636.27637 ~> Cyc: A MidTerm Report, R.V. Guha and Douglas Lenat, AI Magazine, 1990 http://www.cyc.com/doc/articles/midterm_report_1990.pdf ~> gIBIS: A hypertext tool for exploratory policy discussion, Jeff Conklin and Michael Begeman, ACM TOIS, 1988 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/62266.62278 ~> Design Knowledge and Design Rationale: A Framework for Representation, Capture, and Use, Daniel Russell and Thomas Gruber, 1991 http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/311833.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ramana Rao is Founder and CTO of Inxight Software, Inc. Copyright (c) 2003 Ramana Rao. All Rights Reserved. You may forward this issue in its entirety. See: http://www.ramanarao.com Send: [email protected] Archive: http://www.ramanarao.com/informationflow/archive/ Subscribe: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe: mailto:[email protected]