Many times we take intuitive (and obvious) steps to learn about something or suss out understanding. But there’s a common practice I use when observing anything I haven’t fully grokked; I reverse the polarity of my compass and look at it in a completely different way. As such, this quote stopped me in my tracks:
“I ask you to look both ways. For the road to knowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars.” - Sir Arthur Eddington
You’ve seen my commentary on the atomization of content; this also seems relevant given the propensity for people to assume that content is better if bigger.
Examples…
Google is big - is there value in the opposite approach? Hint: Robert is already on that track as is SmartSpace(tm).
Search engines find stuff that already exists - is there any value in creating a search engine about the future (e.g., content that *will* [or should] exist)?
4 comments
4/5/2005 at 12:39 pm
Robert
Bill, thanks for this. I’ve just looked over and read the SmartSpace(tm) / Smart Tags pdf. This is amazing to me. I’m particularly impressed that it works with the most widely used office software. And that it will allow topic specific searches based upon defined feeds.
Does it (can it) work with the opensource Office platform, too?
For instance, I write a report for my boss on some proposed project. I predefine the feeds of competitors and news sources covering that industry area. I search what I’ve written in the rough draft to learn how our ideas compare to competitors/industry initiatives. What new things do I learn? What areas might I discover that I missed?
The pre-defined - narrowed - search is wonderful.
For academia, think of how this could be used as researchers are writing their papers. Reading the papers of others? Yikes! Powerful tool.
I’m going to have to read this one a few more times to even begin to grasp the possibilities. Very imaginative, ingenious. And, almost ‘Epic’ in potential proportion.
4/5/2005 at 2:26 pm
BillFrench
Does it (can it) work with the opensource Office platform, too?
No - the open-source community (by and large)
believes Smart Tags are evil. This is absurd of course because Smart Tags are purely a publish-subscribe model. This is like saying RSS is evil. Technologies aren’t evil; people are evil and they choose technologies to help create new kinds of evil-doing.
Products like StarOffice *should* support these concepts, but thus far we’ve seen no creative lunge by Sun or VAR’s.
For instance, I write a report for my boss on some proposed project. I predefine the feeds of competitors and news sources covering that industry area.
Yep - we have a project to test the idea that with every Office document there is a collection of important (supporting) RSS feeds. When you open this document, a feed-reader opens in the research pane to show all relevant information about that document.
Here’s a SmartSpace we built for Oracle
4/7/2005 at 8:54 pm
Helon
Thanks for the post! Robert spoke about this in class on Tuesday and explained it to us a little more. I think that Smart Tags will be a useful tool in finding information relevant to any topic one will write about. It sounds like it would be very helpful in writing a research paper and could beneficial to students and people in the business world. Technology just keeps growing; can wait to see what will be new next week.
4/7/2005 at 9:14 pm
BillFrench
I think that Smart Tags will be a useful tool in finding information relevant to any topic one will write about.
Yes - and more specific, Smart Tags represents a model where information finds *you* in your documents, slides, email, and spreadsheets.
Here’s a tutorial (with screenshots) of how we use it in our platform.
Imagine the benefits that this could bring to a PR team. You’re writing a press release and you use terms and phrases that are automatically calling out other relevant resources in your corporate blogging system - resources that your colleagues may have written but which you have not had the opportunity to discover. Hence the idea that your colleague’s knowledge is finding you in the context of your work and at the place and time where/when you most need it.
This is magic in my view.
A lot of folks have beaten up Microsoft for the introduction of Smart Tags citing it as an evil innovation. Pure foolishness from people that simply don’t understand the architecture and how to leverage it for great corporate benefit.