The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) is well suited to supporting the human-centered approach to information management that Davenport advocates. SGML is a user-driven standard and the industry has evolved with a strong emphasis on usability and interchange. SGML was designed to support multiple representations, allowing interfaces to be customized for different sets of users. The standard is flexible enough to allow individual organizations to determine how stringent or forgiving the conformance testing should be and the formalized structures can not only act as interface specifications but provide a conceptual framework—speeding learning and focusing attention on content.
By making retrieval easier and more cost effective, rich metadata vocabularies can enhance the way that people interact with documents to improve collaboration, learning, decision-making, innovation, and the acquisition and development of knowledge. Perhaps even more important, however, are the conventions that have evolved for the modeling of information (document analysis) and their formalization as Document Type Definitions (DTDs). Davenport places particular emphasis on having individuals design their own information environments, because that participation directly influences the willingness to use the resulting conventions.
The need for participation brings with it a whole new set of issues. First non-technologists must be kept engaged in the modeling process. As compared with the use of relational database technology, SGML makes it easier to construct and interact with complex hierarchical information models, like those found in dictionary entries.
Second, Davenport observed that "The more a company knows and cares about its core business area, the less likely employees will be to agree on a common definition of it." SGML makes it possible to "assume transience of solutions," "assume multiple meanings of terms," and "build point-specific structures." To support these additional requirements, "organic" DTDs are likely to differ from interchange DTDs in a number of ways:
Organic DTDs are built with the expectation that they will change as the organization learns and adapts to new environments.
Organic DTDs avoid the use of standardized generic identifiers. Different workgroups may need to retain their own vocabularies. The architectural forms construct, which was developed for the HyTime standard, allows interpretation and processing to be attached to attributes instead of element names. Using architectural forms, workgroup-specific vocabularies can be mapped back to corporate and indu stry standards, while retaining local flexibility.
Organic DTDs support a wide variety of compatible structures. Just as receptor sites accept a variety of compatible chemicals, organic DTDs contain a mixture of standard and non-standard structures. The standard structures are designed to "bond" with standard systems and non-standard structures are tuned to exploit localized systems. Such an approach is critical to "maximize the fringes" and promote experimentation.
Organic DTDs allow a wide variety of metadata models to be developed and applied. As the quality of the metadata largely determines the usefulness of the information, information objects effectively "compete" for attention based on the quality of their metadata. Metadata requirements are expected to change through time, and this evolutionary process, too, reflects organizational learning. High-quality metadata models support the shift from information management to knowledge management.
ganic DTDs rely on "self-organization." Instead of organizing information through the centralized design of complex structures, the decentralized interaction of information providers, consumers, and software systems create and maintain order. Hypermedia links are a primary mechanism for organizing and integrating large bodies of information, allowing DTDs to become smaller and easier to develop. Comparatively simple chunks of information are used as shells to hang HyTime links. Like metadata models, sets of links (webs) will compete for resources based on their utility.
SGML also allows—and perhaps encourages—local variations. DTDs can be customized within an individual instance. This has the potential of being very chaotic, and is much in keeping the organic models of decentralized autonomy. Together with the HyTime standard, however, SGML provides mechanisms to embrace the chaos. Because the variations need to be explicitly defined, receiving systems can more easily identify them and determine whether an individual instance contains enough of the required elements to be usable.
Copyright, The Sagebrush Group, 2000