Goodbye Breakfast Flock

Richard Bach’s story Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a very insightful work about innovators and innovation.  I’m not going to give a lengthy review of it except that I recommend reading it.  Leave the breakfast flock and learn how to truly fly.

The Brain: Intelligence, Innovation, Creativity

I have just finished reading a Cutter Consortium white paper entitled The Psychology and Motivation of Creativity and Innovation by Paul Robertson. I found it quite interesting and it gave me some insight into the Six Hats model.

Paul describes a three ring model as illustrated below:

The Substantial World is the external world of your senses. The Structural World is the Substantial World you have accepted as rational. The Conceptual World is the Structural world you think within habitually. It should be noted that the Substantial World is a subset of the Real World, the Structural World is a subset of the Substantial World and the Conceptual World is a subset of the Structural World.

When we are thinking habitually we are using intelligence:

When we cross the boundary between habitual and rational thought we are using innovation:

When we cross the boundary between rational and external thought we are using creativity:

The Creative world is the world of values that do not fall within the domain of the Innovative world and the Innovative world is the world of values that do not fall within the context of the Intelligent world.

Here is the same concept represented as the Six Focuses of Database Design:

From the above illustration you can see that creativity involves incorporating data manipulation and data definition into the domains and attributes; innovation involves incorporating data domains and data attributes into the relationships and entities; and intelligence involves utilizing existing relationships and entities.

I want to point out that I do not necessarily agree with this concept because I believe the six hats can be top down as well as bottom up. What I mean to say is creativity can come from the front lines as well as from senior positions.

Systema: The Six Hats, Six Coats Hypercube

Later in this post we will discuss this man:

The following table represents my interepretation of the Zachman Framework:

I have taken this framework and applied the following de Bono metaphor:

I also incorporated my own metaphor to differentiate the axes:

These two modifications produced the following table:

This is where I had an “aha” moment. I asked myself what the entities would be:

I also recognized that in each column these entities were related hierarchically allowing the creation of a six dimensional hypercube. In creating the hypercube it was possible to look at a variety of “slices”. For example:

The table above combines Motive with Person. We can see that Motive is verbal while Person is a noun.

Next we will combine Function and Data to create another slice:

Again, Function is a verb and Data is a noun.

Let’s look at one final slice:

Here we see that nodes and time have many possible states.

But, why am I doing this exhaustive analysis of the possible combinations in the Six Hats, Six Coats hypercube?

Let’s go back in time for a moment and look at this table:

When Dmitri Mendeleev created this table to describe periodic behaviour of the elements, many of the elements had not been discovered. However, the table projected what the properties of those elements would be making the search much easier.

The Six Hats, Six Coats hypercube is also a form of periodic table. Its entire collection of possible cells are called the framework space. Many of the cells in the hypercube do not yet exist, however their properties can be predicted. This makes their search and discovery of system components systematic instead of random or organic.

Related Posts:

Systema: Seven Hats, Seven Links

STL: Structured Thinking Language R0.1

The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.
– Arthur Koestler

Since I posted STL: Structured Thinking Language and STL: Structured Thinking Language (remix), I have made quite a bit of progress in my thinking regarding the syntax of Structured Thinking Language.

The Six Hats are no longer verbs. There are only two verbs in STL, INDUCE and DEDUCE. INDUCE is a bottom up process of learning the structure of a system. DEDUCE is a top down process of teaching the structure of a system. INDUCE observes and orients. DEDUCE decides and acts. All STL statements begin with the INDUCE or DEDUCE verb to determine whether you are referring to an existing or a new system.

Each of the verbs can also be IMPLICIT or EXPLICIT according to the definitions found in Implicity and Explicity.

The Six Hats are now six adjectives:

1. CONCEPTUAL refers to the creation of entities. Revise. Creativity. Meaning.
2. CONTEXTUAL refers to the creation of relationships. Relate. Relativity. Uniqueness.
3. LOGICAL refers to the creation of attributes. Report. Optimicity. Benefit.
4. PHYSICAL refers to the creation of constraints. Record. Pessimicity. Cost.
5. MECHANICAL refers to the creation of affordances. Intuit. Anthropicity. Usability.
6. OPERATIONAL refers to the creation of manipulations. Engage. Synchronicity. Convenience.

The Six Coats remain the unchanged nouns:

1. MOTIVE refers to the rules of the system.
2. LOCALE refers to to the nodes of the system.
3. OBJECT refers to the data of the system.
4. METHOD refers to the functions of the system.
5. PERSON refers to the people of the system.
6. MOMENT refers to the events of the system.

Giving us the following:

Now that we have the verbs, adjectives and nouns of STL we can work on the syntax:

INDUCE|DEDUCE IMPLICIT|EXPLICIT
CONCEPTUAL NOUN.nounname;    

INDUCE|DEDUCE IMPLICIT|EXPLICIT
CONTEXTUAL NOUN.nounname
                (   MOTIVE.motivename,
                    LOCALE.localename,
                    OBJECT.objectname,
                    METHOD.methodname,
                    PERSON.personname,
                    MOMENT.momentname
                );    

INDUCE|DEDUCE IMPLICIT|EXPLICIT
LOGICAL     NOUN.nounname.attributename;    

INDUCE|DEDUCE IMPLICIT|EXPLICIT
PHYSICAL    NOUN.nounname.attributename.constraintname;    

INDUCE|DEDUCE IMPLICIT|EXPLICIT
MECHANICAL      NOUN.nounname
		(	select,
			insert,
			update,
			delete
		);    

INDUCE|DEDUCE IMPLICIT|EXPLICIT
OPERATIONAL    NOUN.nounname.attributename.value;

NOUN can be any one of the Six Coats nouns. Noun name can be any name unique for that specific noun. Cardinality of context is always one to many be the relationship associative, relative or recursive. A noun has multiple attributes each with a constraint, affordances and ultimately a value.  Note I do not call mechanical access “privileges”.  I prefer “affordances”.

• Structured Thinking Language R0.2
• Implicity and Explicity
• Listening is Inductive; Speaking is Deductive
• The Six Hats, Six Coats Framework

• Systema: Seven Hats, Seven Links

Trouble? Change Hats

I’ve just finished reading “Why Wait for Trouble?” by Kenneth W. Freeman in Strategy and Business. Kenneth described a five stage condition model of a company.

1. Bleeding
2. Stability
3. Gradual Improvement
4. Rapid Improvement
5. Arrogance

The danger Kenneth described was remaining in any of these stages too long. I agree, but you probably guessed that I disagree that there are five stages. I believe there are six stages and there are symptoms of remaining in them too long. Again I am referring to my Six Hats, Six Coats metaphor.

1. Blue Hat: Synchronization Failure. You are not performing transactions at the optimal rate. Bleeding.
2. Red Hat: Personalization Failure. You are not addressing employee/customer needs. Over Stability.
3. Black Hat: Physicalization Failure. You are not minimizing cost. Overly Gradual Improvement.
4. White Hat: Logicalization Failure. You are not maximizing value. Overly Rapid Improvement.
5. Yellow Hat: Contextual Failure. You are not maintaining uniqueness. Arrogance.
6. Green Hat: Conceptual Failure. You are not revising your vision. Dictating.

These are the symptoms of wearing any of the Six Hats too long. You can also wear any of the Six Coats too long, but that remains for another post.

Objects, Objects, Objects

I’ve had a bit of an epiphany today as I was thinking about the Structured Thinking Language. It has to do with the process of creating databases, but is transferable to each of the focuses of the model.

The steps to designing a database are:

1. Conceptual Design
2. Contextual Design
3. Logical Design
4. Physical Design
5. Personal Design
6. Synchronal Design

First is the conceptual design of a object. This is the object motive or primary key attribution.

Second is the contextual design. This is the object location or foreign key attribution.

Third is the logical design. This is the object formation or non-key attribution.

Fourth is the physical design. This is the object function or domain attribution.

Fifth is the personal design. This is the object personation or ownership attribution.

Sixth is the synchronal design. This is the object momentation or datetime attribution.

A table is a collection objects with the same motive. A row is a collection of objects with the same location. A column is a collection of objects with the same formation. A domain is a collection of objects with the same function. A privilege is a collection of objects with the same personation. A schedule is a collection of objects with the same momentation.

A table is an object. A row is an object. A column is an object. A domain is an object. A privilege is an object. A schedule is an object. And they are all attributes of a datum object.

The same goes for each of the focuses.

It looks like I will be reviewing the naming of my STL verbs and nouns again.

Blue Data, Red Data and Black Data

In my Six Hats, Six Coats and Six Ring metaphors I have been discussing this diagram:

It can also be presented as follows:

It has been a challenge to the traditional Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom hierarchy by introducing not one, but three forms of data.  I call them Blue Data, Red Data and Black Data.

Blue Data or Reflex Data is data that affects the system, but is not necessarily captured at all. It influences a transaction, but requires techniques external to regular data capture to record. Some of the most subtle aspects of design influence this level of a transaction.  This is when a customer leaves a website because the Flash presentation takes too long to load.

Red Data or Intuitive Data is registered by the system, but does not generate any exceptions or variances. Although the data affects the bottom line it does not register in the cognitive-physical or cognitive levels of the system.  This is “business as usual” data.

Black Data or Exception Data is registered by higher levels of the system.  This is data that calls for physical-cognitive response outside the domain of normal operation.  An example would be a customer having to make two orders of nine units and one order of seven units because the system cannot capture more than nine units in one transaction.

I believe that for the Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom model to be complete it has to recognize the significance of Blue Data, Red Data and Black Data. For business to truly be successful, it not only has to ascend the DIKW hierarchy, it has to descend the hierarchy below the traditional definition of data and recognize all of data’s facets.

And what is Information, Knowledge and Wisdom, but higher forms of data?

Six Hats, Six Coats: Red Hat

In an earlier post I created a variation on this ring diagram:

I came up with the two lower levels of the ring diagram, reflex and intuition, after having given considerable thought to the Six Hats metaphor:

And the Six Rings metaphor:

I could see that these hexads revealed two levels that were rarely discussed in the context of Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom. I began to wonder how to correctly define them. After reading Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats concept and John Zachman’s Framework which both contained six perspectives (Zachman considered Mechanical and Operational out of context, but made a point of including them) I began to look at the Red Hat and the Blue Hat in a new light.

Edward de Bono called the Red Hat the “intuitive” hat. Zachman referred to it as the implementation perspective. The Blue Hat de Bono called the “process” hat, Zachman called it the “operational” perspective. The Blue Hat I call the Operational or “reflex” hat. In this post I am going to discuss the Red Hat, which I call the Mechanical or “intuition” hat.

I find that intuition is not thoroughly discussed or well understood in most of the literature. However, Zachman’s framework gave me an alternative insight. In Zachman’s implementation perspective, design is translated into formally documented goals, network configurations, data definition language, program code, personnel roles, and system schedules. In otherwords, the mechanisms which the system enforceably observes. Any operations that fall outside of the implementation are treated as exceptions and flagged for handling at higher levels. The implementation defines intuitive behavior.

Intuitive behavior in us as persons is often called habit or subconscious behavior. When we train ourselves in any way we are implementing design. The literature says that it takes roughly twenty-one days to implement any habit. Habit has a motivational, spatial, formal, functional, personal and temporal component, what I describe as the Six Coats:

When we work within the boundaries of well developed habit we experience the phenomenon called flow. Flow is the handling of events without the occurrence of exceptions to our habits. One of the commonly used examples is a rally during tennis. The two well trained players play within their intuitive boundaries for a prolonged period of time. There is little cognition regarding the return of the ball. In fact, cognition may be focused elsewhere.

Walking is another example of intuition. It is possible to perform many cognitive-physical and cognitive actions while walking. And the flow of walking is rarely broken, even when negotiating a busy sidewalk or corridor.

One aspect of intuition that hasn’t been recognized and which de Bono and Zachman lead me to consider is that intuition observes a hierarchy:

There are high level intuitions and low level intuitions. We can have intuition about our sleeping habits, which is a temporal intuition focus. We can have intuition about walking, which is primarily a functional intuition focus. We can also have intuition about formal (data), spatial (networks) and motivational (goals) focuses. The higher the intuitive focus the more training it requires. This is also where the concept of “naturals” and the “refined” comes into play.

Naturals, are individuals who seem to have an intuitive focus mastered without training. Child prodigies are an example of naturals. However, there is nothing saying that any intuitive focus cannot be be trained to a level exceeding that of a natural. In this case we have the refined performer. Considering these two extremes, we can say that intuitive people can be born or made.

The intuitive difference between genders is another issue. Women are regarded as having superior intuitive abilities. This is attributed to a greater “white matter” content in women’s brains which emphasizes associations as in languages, while men have a greater “grey matter” content which emphasizes entities as in mathematics. However, association intuition and entity intuition both have been exhibited. Also, as in naturals and the refined, intuitive talents can be both born or made across genders.

I have shown that intuition operates below the Data level where exceptions are not handled, but passed upward cognitively when outside of the intuitive flow. I have also explained how intuition observes a hierarchy giving it a dimensionality that is often overlooked. Finally, I have demonstrated that intuition is the product of both innate ability and trained habit.

All systems have an intuitive level where the day passes and few events actually register cognitively. At this time we wonder where the day went. We have come to refer to this state as “business as usual”, but it can be the time of high productivity. Continual interruption of our intuitive processes can actually be counterproductive as it takes time to restore flow, to refocus.

Intuition does have a place in the DIKW hierarchy. But it requires us to descend the hierarchy to place it rightfully at the foundation where we can perform without cognitive registration.

It’s like the dancer said, “I was a good dancer until I started to think about it.”

 

 

The Size of Your Hat and Coat

In the last post I discussed the Six Rings metaphor which revealed that both the Six Hats and the Six Coats metaphors were both cognitive hierarchies. In this post I will discuss leadership or emphasis within a project or system.

First, we have the Six Hats which we can express as a Venn diagram:

We can also express the Six Coats as a Venn diagram:

These diagrams illustrate an equal emphasis on all the Hats and all the Coats. However, no system is completely balanced. An actual system might have a Six Hats Venn diagram like the following:

In this example the emphasis is predominantly on the Blue Hat, Operational.

An actual system may also have a Six Coats Venn diagram as follows:

In this example it is the Black Coat, Functional that has emphasis.

Putting the Hat and Coat together we can say that the emphasis of the system or leadership of the project or business is Blue Hat, Black Coat or Operational/Functional. Here’s a Mix Thirty-Six diagram of the emphasis:

You can see that the Blue Hat row and the Black Coat column are larger.  If this were a computing project we could say that the operational perspective and functional focus are leading the effort. We are likely to get an effective transaction system at the expense of everything else. We hope that that is what the other systems that interact with ours will want.

This is a very simple example, but by analyzing the Mix Thirty-Six of external and internal systems we can realize beneficial systems. And everything is ultimately a system within its own right.

Six Rings

In my last post I revealed a ring metaphor that positioned Transaction, Intuition, Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom. Now that we have made the transition with a majority of the concepts from tetrads to hexads, we can now explore how the Six Hats, Six Coats metaphor can be shifted into the Six Rings metaphor. First, lets call up the Six Hats for review:

As I discussed earlier, Conceptual is the Creative perspective, Contextual is the Compatibility perspective, Logical is the Reliability perspective, Physical is the Economy perspective, Mechanical is the Intuitability perspective and Operational is the Convenience perspective.

And now let’s take this metaphor and shift it into the Six Rings metaphor:

As you can see I have given Creativity the highest order and Convenience the lowest.

With that done, let’s take another look at the Six Coats metaphor:

Motivational is the Goal focus.  Spatial is the Network focus.  Formal is the Data focus.  Functional is the Process focus.  Personal is the People focus.  Temporal is the Time focus.

Now let’s take the Six Coats metaphor and shift it to the Six Rings metaphor:

In the Six Rings metaphor I give Goals the highest order and Time the lowest order.

As you can see in these representations of the Six Hats and Six Coats as rings, there are other implications when we look at the Mix Thirty-Six:

When we look at the Mix Thirty-Six the Blue Hat, Blue Coat requires the least cognitive effort, while the Green Hat, Green Coat requires the greatest. However, the Mix Thirty-Six describes a team and a network. Leadership and communication can follow different emphases and paths between Green Hat, Green Coat and Blue Hat, Blue Coat. And the best Green Hat, Green Coat and the best Blue Hat, Blue Coat has worn the entire Mix Thirty-Six. We will explore this more in future posts by introducing additional metaphors.

Further reading: Six Hats, Six Coats , Mix Thirty-Six and TIDIKW