Internet: It’s Complicated

There is a problem with the internet.  It has forgotten its roots.  It has forgotten HTML.  It has forgotten LaTeX. It has forgotten WordPerfect.  It has forgotten television.  It has forgotten radio.  It has forgotten film.  It has forgotten phonographs.  It has forgotten photographs.  It has forgotten the Gutenberg Press.  It has forgotten the Alphabet.  It has forgotten Arabic Numerals.  It has forgotten Hieroglyphics.  It has forgotten music.  It has forgotten speech.

The internet is fascinated with digital waveforms.  They don’t realize that digital waveforms are phenomenally primitive.  As a consequence the internet is phenomenally complicated.  We have a whole generation trying to use metaphors of analog media equipment represented on digital media equipment.  It is complete crap and it does not occur to anyone.  Word processors are crap.  Spreadsheets are crap.  Presentations are crap.  Vector Graphics are crap.  Audios are crap.  Videos are crap.  Their formats and editors are crap.  Complex useless crap that many people are making a good living making more complicated to guarantee their meal tickets and they don’t even know it.  They use words like “organic”, “innovative”, “2.0”, “web”, “village”, “technology”, “entertainment”, “design”, “thinking”, “visual”, “global”, “climate”, “change”, “open”, “source”, “search”, “apple”, “i”, “my”, “face”, “google”, “twit”, “social”, “network”, “pirate”.  They hire lots of “numerati”, “literati”, “vidirati”, “audirati”, “timerati”, “grapherati”.  The words are meaningless and the people don’t know their assholes from first base.  They measure their credibility by their credit rating.

You ask them a “Simple” question and you get the “Complex” answer.  They don’t hear the question and don’t speak the answer.

They are shotgun happy pretending to be rifle sad.

Simplicity eats when it is hungry, sleeps when it is tired, doesn’t work or play.  Simplicity never leaves and never arrives.  Simplicity neither asks nor tells the time.  Simplicity is the crooked path that is the shortest distance.  Simplicity is periodic and chaotic.  Simplicity folows but has no leaders; leads but has no followers.

Design: Business Design Dimensions

Click on image for full size view.

In my previous post I was thinking about the fundamental components of a business.  Now I want to think about the fundamental contexts and the four dimensions of each context.

Over the next few posts I will be exploring each of these contexts and dimensions.  Personally, I think current data warehouse design is a load of bullshit.  Relational business intelligence is an oxymoron.

Mental Order: A Right for this Century

You have the right to your own mental order.  You need not be ashamed of anything you think or any way you think.

Performing, advocating or threatening harm to others are the only crimes.

Harm is deliberate inequality.

In the last few days I became strongly concerned about a political issue.  I cared so strongly about that issue that I contacted the leaders of Canada’s federal political parties, including the Canadian Prime Minister and my provincial political parties, including the Premier of my province.  I cared so much about this issue I revealed personal information regarding something that is not understood by society, those entrusted with its care or the leaders I contacted.

There is a large community that does understand what I revealed.  I spoke out to protect them.  I spoke out for a group that was executed by the Nazis to no one’s protest.  No movies are made about their disappearance.  They were among the first to die.

I want the rights of these people protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms–the Canadian Constitution.  Nothing less.

I don’t think there is a leader among us up to it.

We have to help ourselves.

I take comfort in the words of Aristotle: “Evil destroys even itself” and “All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.”

Databases: Structured Associative Model

For years now I have been struggling with Relational DBMS technology and Associative DBMS technology attempting to get them to do what I want.  In my first efforts, Relational models were structurally restrictive, Dimensional models were unable to grow organically, EAV models are incompatible with relational architecture.  I came upon Simon Williams Associative Model of Data and although enthralled with its potential I found it too had limitations.  It was semi-structured and allowed for too much flexibility.  25 years in Information Technology had taught me that there was a single standard classification system for setting up databases not a plethora of ontologies.  I was determined to find the theoretical structure and was not concerned with hardware limitations, database architecture, abilties of current query languages or any other constraints.

The Associative Model of Data had made the difference in liberating me from Relational and Dimensional thinking.  A traditional ERD of the Associative Model of Data I at first thought would look like the following:

Basically what you have is a Schema composed of Nodes with Node Associations through Verbs and Associations with Nodes Attributions through Verbs. The range of Node Entities, Verb Entities, Association Entities and Attribution Entities are endless.  As well the population of the Schema has an unlimited dataset of natural key values.  I have been challenged by Relational database specialists and SQL experts regarding the viability of this model within current limitations, however their arguments are irrelevant.  What is important is the logical validity of the model, not the physical validity.

After receiving the criticism I decided to revisit the model in order to simplify it.  I went over Simon William’s explanations of his model and its application and found I could reduce it to the following:

This was profoundly simpler and better reflected the Associative Model of Data’s Architecture.  But even with this simpler architecture I was not satisfied.  I felt that the Associatve Model although giving the benefit of explicitly defining the associations was a tabula rasa.  Research has shown that tabula rasa’s are contrary to the behavior of the finite physical universe.  There is an intermediate level of nature and nuture.  And this is what I sought to model.

When I first encountered the Zachman Framework, something about it struck me in a very profound way.  I could see there was something fundamental in its description of systems, however I felt that the metaphors that John Zachman used were wrong because they themselves lacked a fundamental simplicity.  The consequences of this were that those who studied under Zachman ultimately could not agree on what he was talking about.  Also the “disciplines” that Zachman’s Framework generated were continually reinventing the wheel.  Zachman had created a world of vertical and horizontal stovepipes.  To further the confusion Zachman refused to conceive of a methodology based upon his framework.  Consequently, there was no way to determine what the priorities were in creating a system.  I call this the Zachman Clusterfuck.

Zachman’s work spawned years of work for me.  I could see that systems had a fundamental structure, but I could not agree with Zachman.  Focuses and Perspectives were useless terms.  The construction metaphor was useless.  I read anything I could get my hands on dealing with systems, methodologies, modeling, networks and a broad range of other literature across the disciplines.  Out of this came a set of conclusions:

1. There were a fundamental set of Noun Entities
2. There were a fundamental set of Verb Entities
3. There were a fundamental set of Association Entities
4. There was a clear order in which the Nouns were addressed
5. There was a clear order in which the Verbs were executed
6. The structure was fractal
7. The content was a scale-free network

I made some attempts at creating the vocabulary and experimented with this new Structured Thinking Language.  However, the real break came when I worked with John Boyd’s OODA Loop:

The OODA Loop revealed a governing structure for the methodology and guided my way into the following hybrid relational/dimensional/associational model I call the Structured Associative Model of Data:

One of the key things this model demonstrates is the sequence followed by the OODA Loop.  Starting from the top, each dimension set spawns the next.  Choices are created from the dimensions.  There is no centrism to this model which is an inherent flaw in Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Event based architecture, Data centric architecture, Goal-Directed Design, Rule based systems among others.  The stove pipes of Focuses and Pespectives disappear by reasserting a clear order of priorities and dependencies for achieving success.  The model also supports bottom up inductive as well as top down deductive sequencing.  This will make the system able to reconfigure to handle exceptions.

Some of the things I have learned in designing this model include the realization that unit defines datatype and that all measures are variable character string text.  This is because any displayed value is only a symbolic representation of the actual quantity.  If operations are to be performed on measures they are converted to the correct type as part of the operation.  I also recognized that Unit was necessary to define the scale and scalability of the system.  Further, it became apparent that analog calculations should not be practiced.  Every value should be treated as discrete and aggregated.

Another aspect of this system is the inclusion of currency and amount.  I have been critical of Zachman and academics for their hypocrisy regarding the economics of systems.  All systems have a cost and a benefit and they are measurable in currency.  Contrary to the reasoning of the majority, every decision is ultimately economic.

Tim Brown of IDEO has coined the term “Design Thinking” and has been toying with the concept for some time.  Many designers dwell on the two dimensional concept of divergence and convergence as modes of thought.  If we look at my model, divergence is the creation of choice while convergence is selection of choice.  There is no alteration or deletion of choice in my model as history is preserved.

Now what you have is a unencumbered framework with a clear methodological sequence.

Welcome to the Cognitary Universe.

Universe: The Czerepak Framework

I just visited the archive of Tim Brown’s Design Thinking Blog and came across the following post:

Definitions of design thinking

In my HBR article I gave a ‘definition’ of design thinking. It was:

Design thinking can be described as a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity.

On reflection this is a narrow description that focuses on design thinking’s role within business. The next sentence that I wrote.“….design thinking converts need into demand” , which I borrowed from Peter Drucker, broadens things out a bit but still assumes an economic motivation.

I am grappling with two questions as I think about this.

1. Is there a general definition of design thinking?

2. Is it useful to have one?

I think Tim has something very good here and suggest that the following would be a further breakdown of his classification:

• Viable: Business
  • How Much: Quality
  • How Many: Quanitity
• Feasible: Technology
  • What: Material
  • How: Process
• Desirable: Human
  • Why: Goal
  • Who: People

Obviously, if you have been following my blog, you can see the same pattern appearing and reappearing as we explore other’s concepts.  The six interrogatives continue to reassert themselves.  However, I think I finally nailed one more aspect on the head.  I hate to say it, but it came to me in a dream about working on a programming project:

• Reliable:
  • Where: Location
  • When: Timing

Quantity and Quality are two aspects of design/system thinking that are continually overlooked by academics and specialists, but not business people.

Interestingly enough this perspective is not new.  Clayton M. Christensen in his book The Innovator’s Dilemma discusses a four part model that fits nicely with this:

1. Availability
2. Compatibility
3. Reliability
4. Cost

I consider, Clayton’s the most empirical ordering.  Consequently, I would like to mesh Tim’s, Clayton’s and my perspective into the following:

1. Feasibility: Technology
   1. How
   2. What
2. Compatibility: Personality
   1. Why
   2. Who
3. Availability: Market
   1. Where
   2. When
4. Viability:  Business
   1. How Much
   2. How Many

Now, looking at this I am reminded of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Tipping Point, and it adds the following character to the model:

1. Feasability: Mavin
   1. How: Processes
   2. What: Materials
2. Compatibility: Connector
   1. Why: Goals
   2. Who: People
3. Availability: Salesman
   1. Where: Locations
   2. When: Schedules
4. Viability: Customer
   1. How Much: Costs
   2. How Many: Units

Universe: A Multi-Dimensional Medium

Let’s do a thought experiment.  I want to take design thinking and abstract it to a system.

Imagine that there are no solids, liquids, gases or plasmas or particles.  That the Universe is a fluid medium swirling between equilibrium and non-equilibrium in multiple dimensions.  What we perceive to be solid, liquid, gas or plasma are not states, but intersections of dimensions that describe interdimensional vortices.  Energy is the intensity of a vortice.  Mass is a vortice of a set of dimensions.  Light is a vortice of a set of dimensions.  All of the particles are vortices of sets of dimensions.  Each influence the other based upon which dimensions they are composed of.

R. Buckminster Fuller clearly states in his work that we should perceive the systems as finite four dimensional spheres.

There are only four fundamental states:  vortice verge, vortice converge, vortice emerge, vortice diverge.

Everything we perceive are combinations of these vortice states.  The states are +/- vortice yaw, +/- vortice pitch, +/- vortice roll.

If any vortice is spiraling toward you it is positive, if any vortice is spiraling away from you it is negative.  By definition, no vortice can be stationary with respect to you.

There are only eight fundamental vortices: How, What, Why, Who, When, Where, How Much, How Many.

This gives us the following eight vortice, four state table:

Take the time to look at the terms defining each of the white cells in the table.  Each row is the addition of a dimensional vortice.  For example: Each additional “when” vortice is another separate clock.  Each additional “where” vortice is another separate radius.  All of them are factors in a system or a design.

And even this representation is inaccurate.  If we consider fractal geometry and chaos theory, there are no points, no straight lines, no arcs, no planes, no circles, no polygons, no polyhedrons, no spheres, only vortices that are above, within or below our range of perception.  Space cannot be filled with any geometric shape.  Everything is composed of vortices–spirals.

We have to abandon the flat world, flat space models we currently cling to.  The world and the universe are not infinite planes.  The world is a finite island of non-equilibrium in a predominantly equilibrium universe.

And that is it, the Czerepak (Chair-eh-pak) Framework.

Copyright (c) 2008 Grant Czerepak.  All rights reserved.

Links:

• Design: Judean Framework and Czerepak Framework
• Design: Christian Framework and Czerepak Framework
• Design: Buddhist Framework and Czerepak Framework

If You Don’t Like the Speed, Get Off the Ride

We have lived in “exponential times” since the big bang (if there was one)

VIDEO

Systema: People Structure

Clay Shirky reveals the implications of structured, semi-structured and unstructured people

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Systema: People Structure“, posted with vodpod

Link: Systema: Data Structure

Sociology: A Master Repackager

I have just finished reading the first four chapters of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point and I must say it is interesting to see so much of my social psychology education being proven and applied. However, is Malcolm covering new territory? Let’s look at my visual summary of these chapters as a Zachman Framework:

In the first chapter Malcolm presents us with his Three Rules of Epidemics:

1. The Law of the Few (Person)
2. The Stickiness Factor (Datum)
3. The Power of Context (Node)

In chapter two we look at The Law of the Few. Malcolm gives exotic names to his concept person (maven), context person (connector) and logic person (salesman). Nothing new here and I’ve added three of my own. In chapter three Malcolm describes his Stickiness Factor and advocates Blue’s Clues as the finest example of a “sticky” message. Nothing really new here either. In chapter four we are exposed to the astonishing change in the crime rate in New York City and the valiant efforts of David Gunn and William Bratton to clean up the New York Subway system. Malcolm discusses the Broken Window policy and makes a good case that “context” can reduce crime. Nothing really new when I include it in my diagram either.

One thing that did change for me is the positioning of Event and Node. If you have been following the evolution of the Six Hats, Six Coats Framework you can see Node and Event have switched places. This is because it occurred to me that Event, Function and Goal are logical while Node, Datum and Person are physical. The new order has a better fit. Which leads to changing the following:

All the above considered, I can say so far that Malcolm’s book is a good read but in the same way that Blink is the repackaging of Intuition, The Tipping Point is the repackaging of Person, Datum and Node.

Related Posts:

Systema: Seven Hats, Seven Links

Icons: Zachman SQL

I’ve been tinkering with improving the graphic presentation of the Zachman Framework. These icons are the first step in that process:

Rules: The Connecting Tissue

The nodes for the network graphics are Cause states, Observer states, Energy states, Mass states, Space states and Time states.  To make this more relevant to business we can use the terms Goals, People, Functions, Data, Locations and Events.  The edges that connect the nodes in all the networks are Cause rules, Observer rules, Energy rules, Mass rules, Space rules and Time rules.  Nodes give the system its concepts, while edges give the system context.  States provide extegrity (new term) while Rules provide integrity.

Each of the networks is composed of finite steps between the starting and terminal node called paths, the potential ways of following the rules to perform the steps are called the strategies, the actual strategy followed is called the tactics, the edges operations and the  nodes are states .

Whether you are negotiating Goals, People, Functions, Data, Locations or Events, you have to create and observe the rules to maintain the integrity of the networks.  Goals are connected by Rules, People are connected by Rules, Functions are connected by Rules, Data are connected by Rules, Locations are connected by Rules and Events are connected by Rules.  Even Events (Time) is a network, because we are continuously referring to different clocks in different frames of reference.

All rules have the same characteristics:

We’ll explore how we will model this for each of the Six Hats, Six Coats networks in a subsequent post.

Now we have the connecting tissue of our networks.  Knowing this, we can embark on a course to model all six networks separately.  Once that is complete we can work on integrating two, three, four, five and finally all six networks into a single set of conventions.

Related Posts:

Systema: Seven Hats, Seven Links