Orchestrating Data for the NEW Experts

Consider this definition of expertise and by implication, an expert.

Information management and manipulation are replacing knowledge acquisition and inference. The exponential growth of information and the methods for acquiring it have transformed the meaning of expertise. In the past, an expert was the repository of facts. Experts "learned" how to become experts by acquiring those facts and by learning how to distinguish truth. But there are now too many facts, too much stored information, too many sources. Experts are now defined by their ability to recognize underlying patterns so that new facts can be acquired and integrated. Experts learn how to match these underlying patterns or heuristics to new data sources in order to advance composite knowledge.
from http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/96autumn/harig.htm (emphasis mine.)

[thinking out loud] ...in the context of trying to remap the user interface (and by implication the mental structural approach that one must take to use our software), trying to find a way to present data (within the database) to a user to COMPOSE new knowledge is no easy task,..... just trying to store that data is no small matter either.

[*deleted some content here*]

That's a pretty tall order.

A FUSION of ALL the information to form a single PICTURE. (and a picture, I think should be the final result.)

And if I understand it right, we're trying to build not only the databases to hold this information, but also the tools for the intelligence community to reconcile and FUSE this information together into that picture. We're not trying to make the picture ourselves. We're trying to provide the tools to make it easy to create that picture. Or as the quote from above says, for these experts to "match these underlining patterns."

Patterns are hard things to grasp. It's possibly the highest level of abstract thinking. Patterns themselves are abstract entities, and matching one pattern to another to form new knowledge (aka 'Intelligence') is that much more abstract and therefore difficult. Making tools to capture these abstracts is that much more of a meta-thinking predicament to try and get around. Making software, i.e. computer logic with GUIs, has got to be that much more difficult.

I propose we step back a bit from our present products package and try and view the overall complete purpose of what we are trying to accomplish with our software and what computational tools we want to present to the our customers and to the Intelligence Community in general. With a recapturing of our primary focus, I think we can create now the tools of the future. It will take some creative thinking and a willingness to step up our overall vision of what it means to make a fusion system that allows for the intelligent hybridization of new knowledge.

[Just thinking out loud with my keyboard... thanks for listening.]

mitch