The Original Conference Paper
The idea was first presented in a paper at a conference celebrating the joint Centenary of the Institute of Electrical Engineers with the Society of Information Scientist and the Library Association at the IEEE London Headquarters, ( Library Association Record to a seminar run jointly by IEE and the LA on 'Biblionic man', held at the IEE on 26 November 1980, David Andrews) then of the Open University Energy Research Group. (Full reference presently unavailable)
The paper envisaged that due to the principal of six degrees of separation specific messages sent by a particular IRGist, IRGist 1 to some or all members of his local IRG could be routed to all relevant but unknown IRGists even though in IRG space they may be geographically and socially remote from the source IRGist, and who may need or appreciate the information (whether or not they are initially aware of the need - Relevance Paradox) by the process of lateral diffusion from IRGist 1 to IRGists abc, IRGists pqr, IRGists xyz etc., the number of copies multiplying at each transit, and mainly going to those IRGists likely to be interested.
The paper envisaged the widespread creation of a network of personal computers inter-linked by modem, which was at that time a relatively new concept, and wherein software automatically mediated the exchanges, ranking and rating the information's interest, reliability, relevance, the performance of each other IRG and IRGist, by noting how it was treated and used by the recipient IRGist who would also be able to append a personal rating on various dimensions. This meant the envisaged software in effect impersonated the individual and his preferences, and would do all the forwarding and selecting for him, apart from specific personal messages - much as a newspaper editor sifts and presents a daily quota in a newspaper – the user doesn’t of course have to read all the newspaper or IRG digest, but picks out the bits he is interested in depending on how much time he has on that particular day.
The paper foresaw that users would continuously change by means of key words and rankings which topic was of current interest and set a daily quota of info and the software would deliver up to that limit.
These ideas were subsequently developed and appeared in The IRG Solution - hierarchical incompetence and how to overcome it
Read more about this topic: Information Routing Group
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