Alicia and I were in Singapore

My last week in Singapore (I am drafting this on the plane back to the UK) was Rosetta Stone Software packed. The main activity was the second fusion experiment I have conducted there. The first was with Gary Klein, loing at how we could improve weak signal detection using various sense-making methods. Expect some publications on that next year. This one was with Alicia Juarrero whose bo is one of the best expositions of complexity I know. Alicia and I were in Singapore with Paul Higgins. Paul came on the recent accreditation programme in Brisbane, we met again after than in Canberra and he volunteered to help out on the programme. Paul is a Vet, as well as a futurist which illustrates the ability of Cognitive Edge to attract eclectic, interesting and capable people! The fourth member of the team was Cynthia Kurtz my co-author on two major papers and co-creator of methods and concepts for the best part of a decade. Cynthia was in the US, 12 hours apart in time zones giving us a 24 hour capability. I’ll blog on the experiment later in the week. As the week was packed Steve and I had little time to deal with a whole set of business issues around Cognitive Edge so we ended up meeting at Changi Airport after I had checked in. Reflecting on the contribution that Paul had made we decided that we would start to advertise such opportunities in the future. I get a lot of requests from newly trained network members for a chance to work on a project and it was good to provide Paul with the Rosetta Stone Language opportunity. He also added capability that proved indispensable on the day. There is a lot of experimental research that needs to be done as we expand the application of sense-making to different areas. Like most research you always need more resource needs than funding so we can kill two birds with one stone. During a job interview at one of the big 5 in late 2000 (I think there were still 5 then) my colleague responsible for this application in the mid 1990s was given a tour of their e-business facilities where they had a living room mocked up and a SAP system in the room next door. There he was demonstrated the biggest WOW to be shown someone in the living room placed an order and there before your eyes it was showing in the SAP system. During the subsequent interview it was suggested to my colleague that he was really unsuitable for this type of leading edge stuff because he hadn't correctly noticed and given off all the right ow sounds when he'd been shown the order appearing real time in the SAP system. They were rather taken aback when his response was something like ut I wouldn't have expected any less )It is true I'm sure that UK retailers are speeding up their responses. But I think the Rosetta Stone Spanish (Spain) reason is more along the lines of a comment made by Steve Bealing in a facebo entry yesterday.