Jeff Conklin

Jeff Conklin is a facilitator, consultant, and teacher. Over the past 15 years he has developed a dialogue mapping facilitation approach (previously called Visual Issue Mapping System, or VIMS) that is based on Horst Rittel's Issue Based Information System (IBIS). The technique uses graphical hypertext software (Compendium) to interactively map the meeting dialog of project teams working on "wicked" technical problems. In addition to using Dialog Mapping as a consultant with various clients, he teaches the technique in a 2-day workshop (see http://cognexus.org). He is passionate about getting the knowledge of IBIS and Dialog Mapping out to a wider audience, and has just published his first book on the subject, Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems. Jeff wrote an early survey paper on hypertext that was published in IEEE Computer (1987), developed the gIBIS software at MCC in Austin, Texas, and launched a software company, Corporate Memory Systems, that created the predecessor to the Compendium software, QuestMap. That experience, and the company's financial demise, taught him a lot about the practical side of collaborative technology. He is also very interested in knowledge management and organizational memory, and is collaborating with the Compendium Institute on other collaborative technology extensions of Compendium. Jeff and I sort of sizzled on the same wavelength, without however getting to meet, in the discussion following Jack Park's presentation at Knowledge Technologies 2001 in March 2001.

Michel Biezunski is an inventor, and works now in the field of information and knowledge management. He has created the Topic Maps paradigm which has become an international standard and is used to create topic-based navigation systems for online information. Since 2006 he is working on the Data Projection Model, a model that enables information systems to become auditable, and is based on the idea that no information item lives in isolation. By describing all information as transactions, information systems become auditable, in a similar way that accounting is based on the idea that money flows are described as transactions between accounts. The Data Projection Model also enables to decompose information into its most elementary components, therefore enabling multiple views to be applied on the same information items. Michel's background is in history and philosophy of modern physics. He is the author of two books (in French), one about the reception of the theory of relativity, one is a history of modern physics. He also has edited and published letters of Albert Einstein addressed to various correspondents in France. He has translated several books from English into French. Michel has created a curriculum for engineers on electronic publishing in France in the early 1990s. He has moved to the United States in 2001 and is now working as an independent consultant in New York. More information about his activity is available at his web site: http://www.infoloom.com.

I was introduced to Michel in early 2000 via email by Dr. Claude Vogel (Founder and CTO of Semio Corp. specializing in data mining) when, as Director of  Research at InformIT (web portal for Pearson Technology Group) I was researching standards (Topic Maps, RDF, etc.) and software toolsets for building a collaborative taxonomy of the IT-space. I subsequently met Michel and his wife Isabelle in Paris while participating in the XML World Conference (June 2000), only to discover that we had several other interests in common, such as the philosophy of science and Judaic traditions, particularly Kabbalistic thought (Michel is a cousin of David Biale, author of Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History). Elizabeth and I subsequently introduced them both to Charles and Aline Mopsik, while they introduced us to Michel Grossman, who had made a French documentary on the (remnants of the) Dönmeh (Sabbatian) movement in Salonika (Greece) and Turkey, and that we all watched together at the home of the Mopsiks. Isabelle and Michel Grossman had also collaborated on a documentary entitled "Nemt: A language without a people for a people without a language" about Yiddish renaissance in Vilna. Michel was also instrumental encouraging Jean Delahousse, CEO for Mondeca, taking me on for consulting work in technical documentation and marketing. Michel and I have since met several times in Paris, Chicago and during XML conferences in the US.

Raju, C. K.

C. K. Raju holds an honors degree in physics, and a masters in mathematics from Mumbai. After a Ph.D. from the Indian  Statistical Institute, he taught in both  mathematics and statistics departments of the University of Poona for several years (1981–88, before playing a key role in building the first Indian supercomputer Param (1988–95). He has proposed a new type of (functional differential) equations for physics, using  a “tilt” in the arrow of time, in Time: Towards  a Consistent Theory  (Kluwer Academic: 1994,  Fundamental Theories of Physics, vol. 65). He  has articulated a radical new philosophy of  mathematics in Cultural Foundations of  Mathematics (PHISPC and Pearson, 2007), together with a new history of  the transmission of the “infinitesimal”  calculus from India to Europe, and the accompanying  epistemological difficulties. In The Eleven Pictures of Time (Sage, 2003) he explained how the science-religion relationship is mediated through time perceptions, how time perceptions were modified to suit the politics of  the “clash of civilizations”, and how a new perception of time leads also to a new ethic. He has been a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study (1991–93), the National Institute  for Science Technology and Development Studies  (1995–98), and an Affiliated Fellow of the Nehru  Memorial Museum and Library, where he  coordinated a project of the Indian National  Science Academy (1998–2001). He has been on the  editorial board of the Journal of Indian Council  of Philosophical Research and is an Editorial  Fellow of the Project of History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilizations (1999–). For the past several years (since 2000) he  worked as a Professor of Computer Science, has  taught computer courses on television, and has  authored software for educational and industrial  use. Three of his lecture notes on computer programming are to be published by  Universities Press. His current research interests include the time/logic interface in quantum computing. He is listed in Marquis Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, Who’s Who in Asia, etc. He is married to an economist, and has two  children—the elder one is currently pursuing a  Ph.D. in physics at Harvard. 

Time travel and the reality of spontaneity (Aug 2005)

This essay was also subsequently published online in Foundations of Physics (SpringerLink), 0015-9018 (Print) 1572-9516, Volume 36, Number 7 / July, 2006 (pages 1099-1113), Saturday, April 22, 2006. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at a Seminar on ‘Reality in Physics and Philosophy,’ S. N. Bose National Centre for the Basic Sciences, Calcutta, 24-25, Feb 1996.

Eleven Pictures of Time: The physics, philosophy, & politics of time beliefs (2003)

See the reviews and endorsements at ÇK Raju's homepage and Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty's report in The Hindu (18 Sep 2003)

Stuart Sovatsky

Stuart Sovatsky (AB Religion, Princeton; PhD; Psychology, CIIS) received the only US Federal grant (1976) to bring yoga and Sanskrit chanting to incarcerated youth, was first in the US to introduce yoga (1978) to the homeless mentally-ill; convened the first International Prison Yoga Conference and is co-convener of the twenty-country www.WorldCongressPS2008.org in Delhi, inaugurated by Samdhong Rinpoche, Prime Minister of Tibet in exile. He has presented on tantra yoga at some forty conferences. His books include Words From the Soul, (SUNY) Eros, Consciousness & Kundalinî (US, India, Russia) and the poetic work on pariyanga, Your Perfect Lips: Journal and chapter topics include "The History of Euro-Hinduism" (Robert Thurman, editor), suicidal linguistics, awe and terror in infant crying, grihasthya (sacred family life), impermanence and psychopathology, spiritual psychology of eros and gender, Greco-Christian forgiveness psychology and Meher Baba and clinical admiration. A 35 year kundalinî yoga anâhata-nâda chant-master, he has three CDs with Axis Mundi (www.soundclick.com) and has performed in the US, Europe and India. A marriage therapist, he directs the first spiritual emergence service in the world, Kundalini Clinic, since 1983, is a trustee at Calif Inst Integral Studies, and is co-president of the US Association for Transpersonal Psychology.