Dynamic Knowledge Repository (2019)
(Intelligence Augmentation, Better Tools, Paradigm Shifting Methodology)
Diego E. Malpica Chauvet et al.
diego-malpica@openknowledge.mx
 
 
 
 
Proof of concept of using the "Paradigm Shifting Methodology"  for implementing  "Knowledge Management Applications"
(Dynamic Knowledge Repository, Multi User Actionable Mind Maps, Intelligence Augmentation, Paradigm Shifting Methodology)
 
 
 




1 Abstract
Prove of concept  of the  the implementation of  Knowledge Management Application using the "Paradigm Shifting Methodology"  


2 Introduction
As the rate of changes in our technology stacks continue to increase to check what elements are better for an specific solution has become a permanent necessity.
What would happen if we combine promising technologies of different knowledge areas into an holistic knowledge management solution?
 
This effort is a proof of concept of the  " Paradigm Shifting Methodology[" 34] that we used to put in practice a set promising technologies for following knowledge areas:
  1. Social Networks
  2. Project Management
  3. Gift Economy
  4. Knowledge Management
  5. Commitment Management
  6. Open Source
  7. Abstract Models
  8. Heuristics
  9. Business Process Modeling
  10. Marketing
  11. Massive Multi-user Games
with the following goals:
  • To provide an integral architecture solution for Knowledge,  Content and Commitment Management.
  • To support for at least 10000 users with high concurrency.
3 Promising Technologies
 
3.1 Social Networks
Technology changes affects all human activities: economics, social relationships, politics, science, etc. Mobile devices, computers and the Web are some examples of the most recent innovations that have altered the interactions between persons, changing our work patterns and merging with our daily activities. This evolution has given birth, among other things, to what we now know as Social Networking.
Social Networks are spaces physical or virtual where people can come together to share content (photos, videos, experiences, art, etc), interacting with each other using tools such as chats or forums. Some of the most popular examples regarding these networks are Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter and Circles [3][4][5][6].
Most on-line Social Networks provide tools for contact management, communication and content sharing. The use of tools to perform activities develops bonds among member and over time the use of this tools develops attachment to the network. Time is one of the most valuable resources for community members, it is therefore essential for a success Social Network to provide a full suite of tools that supports the members activities. A good set of tools will take care of its members time and will help them to focus on meeting their goals.
 
3.2 Project Management
In a broader sense "Social networks" are formed by a group of people who share physical or virtual spaces. A community is a social network whose members share common goals. When a social network needs to achieve its goals in a consistently way we enter in the realm of Project Management.
There are a lot of methodologies for Project Management. They all looks to define goals in a specific, measurable, realistic, feasible and bounded in time way [10]. A project is commonly divided in stages. In the next table we resume this stages in a generic way that can easily be applied to various areas of knowledge [7][8][9]:

Stage

Objectives

Inception

Definition of Goals

Elaboration

Definition of activities, their time of execution and their needs for resources.

Construction

Assignation of resources and execution fo activities.

Transition

Delivery of products according to plan.
A good methodology for community projects should ensure that all community members are involved, especially with the activities related to goals definition and resource assignations. The activities must be performed in an agile and transparent way, ensuring that the project represents a benefit to the community[19].
 
Project stages from different points of view.

Software

Business

Knowledge
Management

Science

Inception

Preparation

Invention

Observation

Elaboration

Negotiation

Planning

Hypothesis

Construction

Execution

Development

Experimentation

Transition

Acceptance

Innovation

Verification

3.3 Gift economy
The role of economics in Social Networks is of great significance since it gives a purpose to its creation, consolidation and growth. The mathematician John F. Nash stated that in a competitive environment it is possible to achieve a balance in which both parties do not have to change its position because all their needs have been completely satisfied [11]. Inspired by this work, we can say that in the social networking context, you can increase the benefits to the community and achieve a responsible self-sustaining business model by promoting the exchange of goods and services as gifts. In this context, gifts are products that represent a relatively low cost to the giver, but have a high value for the receiver.
A gift economy model applied to a social network has the following benefits:
  • It can help to transform projects into community projects.
  • It can help the social network to become self-sustaining by increasing its value.
  • It can increasing the bonds between its members and the attachment of members to the network.
  • It can improve the circulation and redistribution of values within the community [12][13].
  • It can help recruit and retain members by increasing the value of the social network.
  • It can help to obtain funds for community projects by involving community members.
The most difficult part of building a gift economy is to identify a high value gift for the receiver. There are two relevant quality characteristics that must be found in gifts: durability and transparency. Durability is important because time generates attachment. By transparency we mean the explicit statement of the giver's intentions which is essential to create bonds of trust.

3.4 Knowledge Management
We call knowledge management to the set of practices and tools used to manage, store, consolidate, archive and retrieve knowledge for their use. Some of the most common tools for knowledge management are :
  • Papers(Scientific Articles): are public technical articles that explain technology and related ideas to both specialized and not technical audiences[24].
  • Patents: provide exclusive rights to its inventor for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of his invention[17][23]. The main idea behind patents is to encourage the development of an area of knowledge, but in practice has a strong tendency to work in opposite directions.
  • Copyright: gives the creator of an original work exclusive right for a certain period of time in relation to that work, including publication, distribution and adaptation. After that time the work is said to become public domain[25]. There are many emerging practices related to copyright that led to the birth of what we now know as Open Source [14].
  • Mind Maps: are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid to studying and organizing information, solving problems, making decisions, and writing[30].
  • Search Engines: Provides index and retrieval of data and documents from a variety of sources such as: file systems, intranets, document management systems, e-mail, and databases. Search engines integrate structured and unstructured data in their collections. Search systems also use access controls to enforce a security policy on their users[33].
  • Shared Content: Is considered a key factor for innovation and its the main driver of "Open Knowledge", "Open Source" and "Social Networks" philosophies [18][32]. According Charlene Li book "Open leadership" you may obtain a high return of investment in benefits (ROI) en the following activities:
  • Learning 94.00%
  • Support 300.00%
  • Dialog 1667.00%
  • Innovation 650.00%
  • Hyper Documents[41]: Technology has bring us a new kind of documents dynamic documents that are interlinked and are the base of what we know as the World Wide Web.
  • Open Hyperdocument System[42]: OHS presents a set of promising paradigms for knowledge and document management that may me more convenient considering the possibilities of the new technologies like hyper documentos.
  • Dynamic Knowledge Repository (DKR)[43] is an Intelligence Augmentation web tool for increasing individual and collective capabilities to understand and resolve problems.
3.5 Commitment Management
Commitment Management  is a specialized form of Knowledge Management. Each commitment takes care of defining a context for generating value. A chain of commitments can be see as an alternative way of representing a value chain a process. The "Commitment Management Protocol" resumes the best practices for establishing information contexts for honoring commitments[19][28].
The "Commitment Management Protocol" supports the following activities:
  1. Define a task
  2. Identify the client and the provider
  3. Prepare a request or offer
  4. Send the request or offer
  5. Check the conditions
  6. If necessary negotiate the conditions to reach an agreement
  7. Monitor the progress
  8. Wait for task completion
  9. Review the task and if applies notify the provider that the terms has been complied.
  10. Records the task as complete.
The benefits that can be obtained by using a commitment management protocol in terms of productivity according "Actiontech"[36] are:
  • Cycle time reductions of 40% to 70%
  • Cost reductions of 30% to 60%
  • Productivity gains of more than 30%
  • Quality improvements of 33%
  • ROI in excess of 300%
3.6 Open Source
Open Source technologies are those whose technical basis are exposed to the community. Companies in the software business are implementing business based on gift economy models. The gift economy for Open Source is based on Copyrights that allow community use and modify certain technology as needed. The software business main revenue lines are based on services instead of license fees[18]. Large multinational enterprises, with huge investment in research material and infrastructure, have transformed a considerable number of projects into open source, looking to minimize costs and maximize innovation. Open Source has proven to be one of the most successful knowledge management models based on copyright practices. These practices may be taken to other business domains[15].

3.7 Knowledge Representation (Abstract Models)
There are a lot of models in the software industry for knowledge representation one of the most successful models from our point of view is the Object Oriented Model. This model help us to deal with the proper level of abstractions and to keep us focused in the problem domain. Unfortunately "Object Oriented" has become a Buzzword for the software industry so we most precise that we are referring to Object Oriented Model with a strong adherence to the "Object Oriented Software Principles" [21][39][40].

3.8 Heuristics
A heuristic is a method used to rapidly come to a solution that is expected to be close to the best possible answer, or 'optimal solution'. Heuristics are educated guesses. In more precise terms, heuristics stand for strategies using readily accessible, though loosely applicable, information to control problem solving in human beings and machines[22].
We generally use heuristics based methods to formulate and test our models.
 
3.9 Business Process Modeling
Rules and roles are transcendental for all social organizations since they define the capacity of action of its members and the capacity of the organization as a whole, making mimic of what we can categorize as a collective intelligence. For governance we are using conceptual tools from the "Commitment management protocol" [28]. The more relevant part of this protocol is how it defines contexts, rules and roles for achieve an efficient commitment management.
 
3.10 Marketing
The success of a business depends of the loyalty that its clients have to the goods and services it provides.
Social Networks and Marketing can be merged into a "Social Marketing" approach. Solutions built from this can be considered an evolution of CRM (Costumer Relation Manager) into SRM (Social Relation Manager).
Social Networks are specially susceptible to public segmentation. The consensus of goals and the coordination of actives frequently needs an special strategy for each mayor segment. Social Networks represent non saturated channels that can be highly efficient. This happens specially if marketing strategies are related with community projects and gift economy models. Social Networks are specially susceptible of taking advantage of personal recommendations [29]. In this context, clients and providers form networks of recommendations for mutual benefits that increase the wealth of the whole network.
 
3.11 Massive Multi-user Games
Massive Multi-user Games are well proved and mature business. They are relevant reference in various Knowledge areas including social networks, sociology, psychology, artificial intelligence, collective behavior, teamwork analysis and business modeling. We can use them as a test labs. Massive Multi-user Games are especially useful for studying Social and Economy models, given the complexity of its interactions among persons (dynamic contexts and roles) and the business models built around them. [27]
 
4. Results

4.1 Knowledge Management Model
We elaborated a "Knowledge Management Model" that  we used for building a Dynamic Knowledge Repository (DKR)",  a multiuser actionable mind map.
 
4.1 Dynamic Knowledge Repository (DKR)
 
5. Revision and Improvements
Our solution is under continuous revision and improvement. Here there are our undergoing efforts:
  1. Knowledge, Commitment and Content; Management tools for students, professionals and organizations.
  2. Innovation networks for the developing high value products and services.
  3. Enterprise Resource Management
 
6. References
[1] "Social Networks Analysis: Methods and Applications". Wasserman, Stanley, & Faust, Katherine. (1994). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[2] "The Development of Social Network Analysis". Freeman, Linton. 2006. Vancouver: Empirical Pres, 2006
[3] Facebook. 2013. http://www.facebook.com/
[4] Linked in. 2013. http://www.linkedin.com
[5] Twitter, 2013. http://twitter.com/
[6] Google Circles. 2013. http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/circles/
[7] A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. PMBOK Guide, Third Edition, Project Management Institute.
[8] "The Rational Unified Process Made Easy: A Practitioner's Guide to the RUP". Kroll, Per; Kruchten, Philippe (2003).
[9] "The Rational Unified Process: An Introduction (3rd Ed.)".Kruchten, Philippe (2004).
[10] "Make Sure Your Project Goals are SMART".Carr, David. http://www.pmhut.com/make-sure-your-project-goals-are-smart. 2004-2009
[11] "Money and Asymptotically Ideal Money" John F. Nash. 2004.
[12] "The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property". Lewis Hyde. New York: Vintage, 1983, 58-60; Fall 1982.
[13] "The Gift Economy". Cheal, David J (1988). New York: Routledge. pp. 1-19.
[14] "The open source definition | Open Source Initiative", 2013. http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd
[15] "Sourceforge". SourceForge, Inc. 2009. http://sourceforge.net
[16] "Structural Cohesion and Embeddedness: A Hierarchical Concept of Social Groups."
Moody, James, and Douglas R. White (2003). American Sociological Review 68(1):103-127.
[17] "WIPO | World Intellectual Property Organization". 2009. http://www.wipo.int/portal/index.html.en
[18] "Innovation happens elsewhere". Elsevier, 2005. Morgan Kaufmann publications, USA, , http://dreamsongs.com/IHE/IHE.html
[19] "Creando organizaciones para el futuro". Fernando Flores, 1997.
[21] "Object-oriented Software Construction". Bertrand Meyer. Prentice Hall International Series in Computer Science. 1988, Great Britain.
[22] "Heuristics". Wikipedia. 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic
[23] "Patent". Wikipedia. 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent
[24] "Papers". Wikipedia. 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_writing
[25] "Copyright". Wikipedia. 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
[26] "Stories". Extreme Programming. 2013 http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/userstories.html
[27] "Massive Multiplayer Games". Wikipedia. 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travian
[28] "Commitment Management Protocol". Fernando Flores. 2008.
[29] "Word of mouth marketing". Wikipedia.2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_mouth
[30] "Mind maps as active learning tools", by Willis, CL. Journal of computing sciences in colleges. ISSN: 1937-4771. 2006. Volume: 21 Issue: 4
[32] "Open Leadership", by Charlene Li, ISBN-13: 978-04705972623
[34] "Paradigm Shifting",
[35] "Knowledge Management Benefits",
[36] "Commitment Management Benefits",
[39] "Naked Object Principles Wikipedia", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_objects
[40] "Naked Object Principles Richard Pawson's PhD thesis ", http://downloads.nakedobjects.net/resources/Pawson%20thesis.pdf
[41] "Ted Nelson, Hypertex", "Possiplex", http://www.lulu.com/shop/ted-nelson/possiplex/paperback/product-14925222.html
[42] "Douglas Engelbart", "Open Hiperdocument Framework", http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/alliance-980.html
[43] "Douglas Engelbart", "Dynamic Knowledge Repository", http://www.dougengelbart.org/about/dkrs.html