 

 

 

      Information Management 
Nightmares 

 Do you deal with more than a cubic 
meter of paper? 

Organize it with a Xanadu Hypertext 
system.  Thanks to  a  unique linkage 
and  storage  system, Xanadu handles 
text, pictures, graphics and other 
data with equal ease. 

A Typical "Data Base Management 
System" stores information  in  a 
rigid  fashion.   In  contrast, 
Xanadu gives you the freedom to 
decide how your information is stored 
and recalled.  This is accomplished  
by the  usage  of  "links", which may 
be thought of as connectors between 
two pieces of information.  Using 
these "links", you  can  define  how 
the various pieces of information 
interact with each other. 

The management of information is no 
simple task in today's world. 
Information  should  be  a  resource, 
not  a  problem,  but few tools 
currently exist to manage it.  This 
affects everyone, from the  secretary 
who  loses  memos to the engineer who 
spends half his time shuffling 
paperwork. 

 Examples: 

The Engineering Nightmare -- 
designing an airplane 

Let's say that you decide to move the 
wings on your airplane to a slightly  
different  position  on the fuselage. 
Many design documents will be 
affected by this change, perhaps 
thousands of them.  To change the  
wing, you must first find all the 
components that will need to be 
modified.  The change must then be  
made,  but  only  after  searching 
through  the  blueprints  to  make 
sure that change will not adversely 
affect anything else.  Once this is 
done, all affected documents  must be 
updated to reflect the changes. 

For something as seemingly trivial as 
changing  the  position  of one bolt, 
you have to know what components may 
be affected.  For example, rewiring 
may be required if the bolt is moved 
into the path of  a cable.   Since  
you  probably don't have strings 
connecting your documents together, 
you must spend an appreciable amount 
of  time  chasing down all the 
documents which refer to that bolt 
and the things that it may affect.  
This is both distracting for the 
engineer who  is  trying to  think 
about the plane and not the paper, 
and expensive in terms of human 
costs. 

The Software Nightmare -- large 
system design 

Suppose you have a moderately complex 
software system, comprising some 7 to 
20 man-years of effort.  It is used 
in several non-identical 
installations.   The  documentation  
is  slightly  different  in  each 
installation, but the specifications 
are almost identical. 

     Assume there is a modification 
to the system.  Each  modification 
requires  changes in the 
documentation.  However, because each 
installation is unique, it requires 
slightly different  documentation.   
The program  maintenance  staff needs 
to know what revisions of what parts 
are at  each  installation.   After  
program  bugs  are  found,  which 
installation(s)  will  need  the  
fix, (some may refuse an upgrade but 
will accept a bug fix)  and  which  
parts  of  the  documentation  are 
affected? 

The Office Management Nightmare -- 
tons of UGH paperwork 

Every day brings telephone calls, 
memos and letters.  These may refer 
to other pieces of information or 
each other.  The problem is that 
important things tend to get lost in 
the shuffle. After a memo is filed in 
N different file drawers, a note is 
attached to one of the copies.  The 
note really should be on all of them 
because it is of general interest, 
but it isn't.  When someone reads 
copy #2 of the memo, the attached 
note isn't there, and can't be found. 

Many documents are of interest to 
several different departments of your 
organization.  At present these are 
stored in several different places.  
But then how can you either correct 
all of the copies of a particular 
document or insure that closely 
related information is stored with 
them all?  One way to combat this is 
to file all memos in a common place, 
but this severely limits the 
usefulness of the memos (nobody 
bothers to look them up). 

The Xanadu Hypertext System is the 
answer 

All of the above problems are caused 
by an overwhelming amount of 
information and the lack of a 
convenient way to keep track of it.  
Important items tend to be lost 
within the mass of the facts and 
figures that one accumulates. This 
makes finding and revising documents 
a much larger undertaking than it 
should be. 

     The Xanadu Hypertext System is a 
tool  specifically  designed  to cope 
with the nightmare of complex 
information management.  To use it, 
you feed all your data in with an 
interactive  frontend  program.   As 
you  feed  in  the  information  you  
establish  links to interconnect 
related pieces. These links stay with 
the information through editing, thus 
preserving relationships through 
modifications or versions. This means 
that you can link together all the 
documentation for a  specific 
project.  You  can  use links to 
precisely label parts of a blueprint, 
text or program so that you can refer 
to it later  without  having  to scan 
the  whole document.  Xanadu 
hypertext means never having to say 
"I can't find it." 

     Although all complex information 
management problems have  common 
roots, you oesn't see.  This means 
that the interactive "frontend" can 
be customized to meet your needs. 

     Xanadu Hypertext is easy!  Easy 
to use,  easy  to  understand  so 
your  people  don't  need rigorous 
training courses. This system frees 
them to concentrate on their work 
from day one. It saves them time and 
headaches which saves you money! 

     We'll be happy to discuss your 
systems needs with  you.   If  you 
would  like  further  information  or 
a system demonstration, contact Roger 
Gregory, President of XOC Inc. 
