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The Significance of Memes for the Successful Formation of Autonomous Personal Knowledge Management Systems

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Knowledge, Information and Creativity Support Systems

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 416))

Abstract

Recent papers based on a prototype-in-progress focused on advancing Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) as the next generation of Knowledge Management Systems (KMS). Based on assumptions of autonomous capacities engaged in creative conversation, the personal devices are supposed to enable the emergence of the distributed processes of collective extelligence and intelligence, which in turn feed them. This shift from centralized organizational KMS to decentralized personalized KMS devices is expected to give more power and autonomy to individuals and self-organized groups. A second novel feature proposed is the substitution of document-centric repositories with meme-based knowledge bases. While a parallel conference paper has considered the significance of Nonaka’s concept of ‘Ba’ for the overarching meta-concept of the PKM system-in-progress, this contribution concentrates on the particular aspect of memes and introduces their relevant features and potential allowing for information-rich, multi-dimensional information structures and trails as well as for more elaborate dissemination concepts and citation systems.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In 1945, Vannevar Bush (then President Truman's Director of Scientific Research) imagined the ‘Memex’, a hypothetical sort of mechanized private file/desk/library-device. It is supposed to act as an enlarged intimate supplement to one’s memory, and enables an individual to store, recall, study, and share the “inherited knowledge of the ages”. The ‘Memex’ would have facilitated the addition of personal records, communications, annotations, and contributions, but, above all, the recording of non-fading trails of one’s individual interests through the maze of materials available—all easily accessible and sharable with the ‘Memexes’ of acquaintances. In the 70 years since Bush’s famous article [4], a ‘Memex’ has never been realized [6, 12, 18] but it is one of the inspirations for the PKM system proposed [24].

  2. 2.

    Simon already noted over 40 years ago, “the wealth of information is creating a poverty of attention and with it a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it” [34].

  3. 3.

    Fecundity asserts that the more copies of itself a meme can encode in vectors, the higher its fitness. Longevity refers to a meme’s replication rate which has to be appropriate to its environment and depends on cost-benefit ratios. Copying Fidelity rests on the accuracy with which a meme is copied resulting in either the integrity of information, sensible variations, or erroneous mutations [7].

  4. 4.

    A recent paper [20] identified forty-one established knowledge management constructs which form the ingredients for the ongoing integrating, adapting, broadening, deepening, repurposing, or innovating activities of the PKM concept and system design.

  5. 5.

    P.R.O.F.I.L.E.S. is an acronym for the relationships between hosts and vectors which define Professional Experiences, Research Activities, Outcomes and Results, Formal Education, Intellectual Capital, Literacies and Skills, Emotional Capital, and Social Networks. P.R.O.J.E.C.T.S. is an acronym for the internal logics and logistics activities: Projecting, Referencing, Originating, Justifying, Evidencing, Contexting, Topicing, and Scripting, while A.L.F.R.E.S.C.O. depicts external tasks to be monitored by the system: Administering, Locating, Feed-backing, Reflecting, Engaging, Sourcing, Crafting, and Observing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Stellenbosch Business School, PO Box 802, Bellville, 7535, South Africa

    Ulrich Schmitt

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  1. Ulrich Schmitt
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Correspondence to Ulrich Schmitt .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. and Technology, JAIST - Japan Advanced Institute for Sci, Kanazawa, Japan

    Susumu Kunifuji

  2. Dept of Computer Science, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

    George Angelos Papadopoulos

  3. Dept. of Automatic Control & Biom. Eng., AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland

    Andrzej M.J. Skulimowski

  4. Systems Res Inst, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland

    Janusz Kacprzyk  

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Schmitt, U. (2016). The Significance of Memes for the Successful Formation of Autonomous Personal Knowledge Management Systems. In: Kunifuji, S., Papadopoulos, G., Skulimowski, A., Kacprzyk  , J. (eds) Knowledge, Information and Creativity Support Systems. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 416. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27478-2_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27478-2_29

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