"Aha!" I quipped as the new word 'infoGuardian' popped to my conscious left brain hemisphere. I had been pondering what seemed to be a complex situation in bureaucracies: Someone sits in a cubical, holding expert knowledge and views of data someone might need. A knowledge worker. But a cost in large corporations and governments at all levels. IBM's WATSON #ibmwatson computer won a few rounds of TV's Jeopardy! and one of the contestants mentioned after the game he was the first knowledge worker whose job just became obsolete. So how could WATSON-like computers help in making bureaucracies more efficient I pondered? One idea: as a central hub -or node- and then refactor / reorganize staff so that there are two kinds of employees: those that are training WATSON on new knowledge, and those that are using WATSON in their everyday jobs. That would elliminate a kind of knowledge worker - the infoGuardian.
The last paragraph may seem rambling, confusing and complex. Let me simplify it by introducing a new concept:
The Hidden or Missing Node
Lets say you have 6 people named A,B,C,D,E and F who must communicate among themselves. A communicates with B,C,D,E and F. B communicates with A (already mentioned as A communicating with B), C,D,E,F. C communicates with (besides A, and B already mentioned) D, E and F. A few more lines like this and you get the idea there are 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 15 paths of communication in what I'll call a complex network of communication channels. There's a math formula for it: (N-1)! (that's N-1 factorial). As the number of partcipants grow, (N-1)! gets exponentially bigger, and the communications more complex.
Now lets say I introduce one more person G and give G a new role: communication hub. And I say to the others to communicate only with G. Now A talks to G. B talks to G, as does C,D,E and F. A total of 6 communication channels. Math formula: N-1. No factorial, and no exponential growth in complexity.
What I just did was add a communications node. From my perspective the node should have been there and was missing. I call that a missing node. This is the role WATSON would play in my bureaucracy cure: a new node that simplifies communications and triggers a reworking of roles and relationships.
The concept of a Hidden or Missing Node helps me. I can look for them. If something seems complex, I can sniff for a hidden or missing node. Concepts in general help simplify our knowledge. If you're facing what appears to you to be a complex topic of knowledge, the complexity usually comes from what appears to be several concepts that are all related to each other. Like the communications network, it seems (N-1)! exponentially complex. So a good strategy is to learn more concepts in the topic. Each concept is like a node in a network of concepts. Experts have gone before you and sorted out the complexity, usually by introducing new concepts that help simply the relationships between the concepts. If it's a new topic, and it's your job to sort it out, a good strategy is to identify Hidden Nodes in the knowledge network, and give them an name. Like I did with InfoGuardian. Or borrow a name or concept - like I did by using WATSON as a placeholder for the more general concept of a knowledge hub. (KnowledgeHub - I just made that up).
So we've seen a bit of the use for identifying hidden nodes or creating new nodes to simplify communications and knowledge concept networks. But do they have any other practical use?
Business / commercial supply chains often organize themselves as network-simplifying nodes. If you're incubating some business ideas, and wondering what are some good filters or tests of the ideas, you may have heard terms like "differentiate or die" or "disruptive technology." Introducing the hidden or missing node concept here, if your idea causes the supply chain to reorganize around new relationships that are simpler, that would indicate you've identified a missing node. Or if you're wondering where to look for a new idea, you can look for complex supply chain relationships, and try to design a simplifying node business model.
Or if you're an author / blogger, you can look for missing-node topics that would simplify and illuminate human life, and write about them. Like I just did here.
