Organizational Reports in Neural Companies

    
Human thinking would not work the way it does without the existence of some reliably addressable informations ressources. Admittedly, each one of us may have completely different contents in his working space of consiousness when presented with the word „Channel“. The important thing is, that within one brain, the information addressed by such a word is constant enough to play a defined role in complex information processes. The animation below shows what happens:   Channel: Calais, Dover, TV, rain, ferry, irrigation, funnel, grooving, mainstream, Tirpitz, Brittany, King Arthur, Magellan Straits, oil fields, Dunkerque, Sandwich, P&O, Hovercraft

More about the correspondence of neural networks and symbolic thinking (German)

Consciousness as "mental reports"

 Animated gifs, sketches and drawings relating to the idea of synaptic communicationmore pictures, drawings and animated.gifs about neural companies
The animation shows
  1. how the nervous activity of a biological network (bottom) evokes some definite and unified content of consciousness (top left)
  2. how this content of consciousness is involved in some sort of information processing (top)
  3. and how the result is fed back to the underlying neural network (top right)
   The information reducing capacity of symbolsTor Norretranders on the function of symbols
The same applies to the standard working mode of a manager in a large enough company:
  1. gathering dissipated data from heterogeneous sources (E-Mail, reports, phone calls, letters, publications...) and unifying that data into a definite bunch of information
  2. processing this information (meetings, individual pondering) to produce some result
  3. writing back that result into the material reality of the company (E-Mail, notes, phone calls, intranet etc.)
    

A similar topic: do companies work according to some sort of evolutionary intellience (evolutionary economics)

A manager in a company doing knowledgework

  
So, to support this mode of knowledge work, it is firts of all important to help in the context-embedded gathering of dissipated data. Already, financial data is made available in a highly standardized form to meet the rigid demands of professional accountancy. Software systems offer specified „reports“. But controlling, monitoring and other technical data are also increasingly shaped and moulded into reliable reports. The driving forces behind this tendency are manifold. The wish to employ standardized software, the demands for transparency and clear definitions of processes as laid down in various norms such as ISO 9000, the growing need to provide electronic data in an interchangeable format and, last but not least, the growth of intra- and internet structures where the exploding amount of information can only be met with the creation of reliable methods of retrieval.    
In a number of years, the by far largest proportion of organizational knowledge will be stored in computer systems. Knowledge workers will rely heavily on standardized sources of information.    

Digression: a large mining company

    
Small companies are not large enough to be treated statistically in the sense we want to. Average nations, however, are too big to be treated as an individual with some sort of unifying groupware making any sense. So something inbetween like a large company with at least some few thousand employees will do better. A differentiated organizational structure, too, is needed. And the complexity of the whole thing should be well beyond the grasp of even the most intelligent human individual.    
So, for the sake of illustration, imagine a large mining company with many divisional branches spread across the globe.    
Open-pit copper mines on the southern hemisphere, newly developed underground coal mines in the former Soviet Union, the exploration and exploitation of off-shore gas and oil fields and the mining of complex polymetallic ore bodies at various locations are only some of the company’s key-engagements. Besides, the company runs two global selling organizations. It is doing active research into milling, coking, geophysics and metallurgy. And the company entertains a worldwide network of lobbyism, public relations and widely appreciated sponsoring. Through some of its products, its name is explicitly known to most consumers of even the most basic constituents of the western life-style.    
There is a headquarter somewhere in Europe, but many activities are managed on the spot without much interference from HQ. However, many issues need central coordination:
  • Should financial ressources be allocated to research & development activities concerning sustainable sources of energy? And if so, to what amount and how can this be best coordinated with public relations and lobbyisms with legislative bodies in Europe and America?
  • How will copper prices develop over the coming years and at what costs will the company be able to produce?
  • Which part of the overall budget should go into which field of research?
  • What is the right public announcement in answer to a public outcry against the company’s engagement in a politically controversial region?
  • What are the company`s chances to get engaged in mining activities in a region not yet covered?

By taking a closer look at the last example, we will try to identify some helpful mechanism to reduce the complexity of the issue in order to reach an optimum answer. These, of course, will correspond to some phenomena in the human brain, as will be shown.

    
Suppose it is your task to make well founded suggestions for future mining engagement anywhere on the globe. And let us further take it for granted that most of the information you may need is available electronically.    
Starting from scratch, you load a work-flow sheet (just another report) labelled „new mining engagements“ onto your screen and switch into the „internet mode“ of knowledge work. The work-flow is a very good guideline and offers many sources of information that you should consult to get a first impression of viable potentials for further elaboration:

Title Type Description
mineral markets of the world intranet site long term prognostications of mineral markets
mineral deposits internet site maps, geology, mineralogy and geography
world mining report internet site legal, financial and entrepeneurial issues worldwide
strategic finances intranet site the company`s long term financial planning
comany mining expertise intranet site mining techniques currently in use
company R & D potentials intranet site current, past and planned R & D activities
competitors’ review intranet site portal of the company`s „secret service“
sleeping tigers of the world internet site somewhat exotic futurology on politcs and economis
global miners company newsgroup discussion forum company issues of international relevance

Scanning over the titles and the short descriptions of the ressources can be compared to evaluating the first images and words that come to ones mind when working out the tomorrows shopping tour. The deeper contents of the ressources are yet vague and you have to opt for one of them. In the case of the mining company, you may chose to start with a general overview of the mineral deposits. You open the site and you are then confronted with maps to click on and with further links to follow up. Depending on your disposition and circumstances, you may then stick to your work-flow or you may plunge into the fascinating world of geology and mineralogy of the world...

    
A report in this sense need not be identical with a physically compact storage of information. It can better be described as some standardized access to more or less constant themes and topics. In practise, it is more like a personalized portal to some specific topic than a static list of facts.    
However, don`t forget that your time is limited. Your telephone may ring any time to call you to some meeting, or your boss may give you some other most urgent work, or you may get ill one of the coming days. So the order of working through the knowledge ressources is most important. Missing some hint on a competitor’s activities, for instance, may invalidate completely the the result of your work.    
So once again we are confronted with the importance of priorising links. This leads us back to the concept of synaptic weighing and it is left up to the reader to acknowledge the importance of this for any individual worker by analysing his own workaday office life.    
In consequence, the tendency towards structuring knowledge in organizations will be flanked by a growing focus on producing various forms of reports for various situations and various people. The techniques for this are already being developed, albeit against different backgrounds. And they will only have to be merged into what my fittingly be called „synaptic browsers“ to emulate the internet mode of thinking that takes place in our mental life.    

Some philosophical speculations on consciousness and its philosophical relevance

The gathering of dissipated data in a company

 <= Metaphysical speculations on the nature of consciousness
   
The Neural Intelligence of Economic Companies Will large companies turn into some sort of intelligent biological beings endowed with consciousness?
one level up top level
 

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