SteveJ-restore-test

This is a pitch for something new: the " Researchers' Workbench ". Australia has the wealth and inventiveness to do it, but most probably, not the political will. Chalk that up to "the Cultural Cringe". Pitch . I.T./Computers are "Cognitive Amplifiers". They aren't just a 'good' fit to Research, but a Perfect 'fit': Researchers are the definitive "Knowledge Workers". This idea isn't new or exclusive, here's what's gone before. Theme 1: Augmenting Human Intellect. In 1968, Doug Englebart of Stanford/SRI and his Augmenting Human Intellect Research Centre did a demo (available on-line) of their work in the area. 40 years on, this initial work has languished. Could the ANU or CSIRO repeat the demo, even given some time? I doubt it... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmentation_Research_Center Theme 2: Bush's Meme...

Is 'Science', as practiced by Academic Researchers, executed poorly? More specifically: Is the practice of Research as undertaken by Academics, as effective as it could be? This posits that an aspect of "Professional Research" is intentionally increasing your capability and effectiveness. Computing/Information Technology is a Cognitive Amplifier - exactly suited to central parts of "Professional Research" - e.g. learning, recalling and searching published papers and books. If an individual researcher can increase their "knowledge uptake" just 7% in a year, after a decade they know twice as much, given uptake builds on existing knowledge. What is Research about if not Knowledge: Gathering, Analysis, Representation, Taxonomy/Ontology, Management and Communication? This field began in 1995 and is broadly known as "Knowledge Management". An observation: Electronic recalling & searching are orders of magnitude faster than pure paper s...

In a previous post, Research Outline, 3 sets of metrics were proposed that, if applied consistently across large organisations, would change the face of our industry (IT&T), perhaps even support the transition to a Profession. "IT is done for a Business Benefit" After 50+ years of doing it, we are looking at the end of the Silicon Revolution by 2010. Already we've passed the end of Moore's Law for CPU speed [Q1-2003]. But more than that - Business & Government are getting hard-nosed about IT&T delivering 'value'. The IT recession we're just coming out of was a direct reaction against the perceived needless waste of Y2K. The other in 1991 was the marker that all the 'easy wins' in IT had been achieved and IT itself could be cut. Big Business and Government account for over 60% of the Australian GDP. Around 45% of GDP is influenced directly by IT&T - with an investment rate of around 10% - $45Bn/year for 'the majors'. Globally...

My last post took me most of a day to produce. Not a great words/minute rate. I'd expected to spend no more than an hour - it's work that I first did around 2000, so I'm familiar with it. A friend jibed that "You should've used your I.T. project management methodology". I do have stong views on managing I.T. projects, especially large one, and they are backed up by the solid research data from Standish Group. They do apply to exactly this task of writing. Unfortunately they offer no useful guidance. All new programs are research projects If you haven't got working code, you don't know how long it can take. If it's a complex task, then beforehand you cannot know where the 'beartraps' are. At any point in a project, you can only see in detail a couple of weeks ahead. 'Scale' is everthing [Alan Kay's argument]. Don't take on any project more than 30% larger than one you've completed successfully. Everyone is an efficient,...