Russ Ackoff shared that the best knowledge system he knew was to have an intelligent set of graduate students that knew him.  In 1985 when we were meeting regularly, he described the joy every morning of coming in and having 2-3 journal articles taped to his office door that his students thought were relevant for him in the moment.  He pointed out that the students knew his interests and his current projects and would look out for material they knew Russ would be interested in.  Russ chuckled and shared “graduate students are much better than any search engine could ever be.”

To Russ’s observations I would add that colleagues and professors who know me are also a great source of knowledge pointers, if I just remember to include them in what I am up to.

I mentioned to my colleagues at UW Bothell that are working on the future designs…