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Conduit TecKnowledgy
In 1945, Vannevar Bush wrote
"As We May Think"
in the Atlantic Monthly. It is a visionary article and worth reading.
In that article, he observed the following:
"Professionally, our methods of transmitting and
reviewing the results of research are generations
old and by now are totally inadequate for their
purpose. Mendel's concept of the laws of genetics
was lost to the world for a generation because his
publication did not reach the few who were capable
of grasping and extending it; and this sort of
catastrophe is undoubtedly being repeated all
about us, as truly significant attainments become
lost in the mass of the inconsequential….
The summation of human experience is being
expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we
use for threading through the consequent maze to
the momentarily important item is the same as was
used in the days of square-rigged ships….
A record, if it is to be useful to science, must
be continuously extended, it must be stored, and
above all it must be consulted….
Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely
caused by the artificiality of systems of
indexing…. The human mind does not work that
way. It operates by association. With one item in
its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is
suggested by the association of thoughts, in
accordance with some intricate web of trails
carried by the cells of the brain.
Man cannot hope fully to duplicate this mental
process artificially, but he certainly ought to be
able to learn from it. In minor ways, he may even
improve, for his records have relative permanency.
The first idea, however, to be drawn from the
analogy concerns selection. Selection by
association, rather than by indexing, may yet be
mechanized."
As you know, the need expressed by Bush is even
greater today. The following is from another
visionary, Paul Strassman's April 2000 article:
The Knowledge Devouring Web.
"The information that is migrating to the Internet
is too valuable to become inaccessible and not
easily retrievable in whatever language or format
it presents itself. We need retrieval tools that
analyze more than indexes that have been
abstracted to maximize portal revenues. For
hundreds of billions of pages, pictures, videos
and audio tracks, we need search engines that
individuals can customize to their own
preferences, rather than inquiry formats that have
been precooked by a standard software package."
If Vannevar Bush were around today, I think he
would be impressed with AnswerWorks' search
technology (see the
TOOLS
article). It addresses some of the most significant challenges
associated with finding content. I'm impressed
with the analytical ability and the ability to
search across not only text, but audio and video
content.
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