The Knowledge Organization

A single generic hierarchical network is capable of holding all the knowledge of an organization. So why aren’t these networks common?

Is there a way to combine structured and unstructured knowledge, vertical and horizontal connections?

💩 Querying data is hard. All pages have either the same or unpredictable attributes. Getting all high-priority features or all customers due to renew the next month is nearly impossible.

💎 Structured and unstructured knowledge is mixed. You set feature priority, but you also write specs. You advance deals through a pipeline, but also take meeting notes. Hopefully, digital whiteboards and interactive embeds will also be welcome — one day 🤞.

In a flat network we are free to form arbitrary connections between nodes (pages).

💎 The structure is flexible. The knowledge architect is free to create as many or as few tables as needed and connect them in the way it makes sense to the particular organization. As organization evolves, she creates more tables and adds more relations.

Most single-purpose work management tools are, basically, hierarchical networks. Tool vendors understand they need the best of all worlds to foster collaboration.

So we need both horizontal and vertical connections as well as the ability to handle structured data. Sounds pretty much like…

The most ubiquitous structure is a strict vertical hierarchy.