The late Harold Lasswell was a pioneer in the development of what he
called "policy science". As far as I know, his views on the importance of
large graphics displays that meet critical communication standards, have
escaped notice throughout the LO community. In his book "A Pre-View of
the Policy Sciences", and in several papers, he kept discussing this
subject, both as it had to do with group activity in meetings, and with
corporate memory.
He developed the concept of "urban planetarium" as a basis for a kind of
museum-like building; where many displays would be available. The citizen
could walk through the building, interact with the displays and any
electronic infrastructure providing either audio or video enhancement and
interpretation, and thereby learn about the city in which he or she lived.
In our work with Interactive Management, we have carried his idea as far
as possible, but adapting it to corporate memory. Having used Interactive
Management to redesign the U. S. Defense Acquisition System (through Prof.
Henry Alberts of the Defense Systems Management College), and seeing it
enacted into law by Congress last year, we are now beginning research on
how the planetarium concept can be applied to the organization of a
building designed as a learning system, using all of Henry's extensive
research and graphics, to provide a building-wide learning opportunity for
congress and citizens at large.
Given that the incentives to pretend that this kind of stuff can be put on
small computer screens, and serve as educational material for very complex
systems, we anticipate both being ignored and/or being attacked, by the
insensitive vested interests that think ventures are more important than
understanding.
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Host's Note: I call attention to the fact that John has changed his email
address. If you keep his address in your computer-rolodex, you may want
to update it. Address below is the new one.
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-- JOHN WARFIELD Johnwfield@aol.com