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CAMELOT at dock
The new Transom is nearly finished

March 8 to April 1, 2000

Where: Palo Alto to Ft. Meyers to Hampton Roads to Charlottesville, VA, to Reston to New York to Chicago to Kalamazoo to Chicago to Detroit for a DesignShop event then home to Palo Alto.

At: CAMELOT, NASA LARC, Charlottesville, Fairfax City, Continuum NavCenter, CHI Center, Borgess NavCenter, Steelcase Home Offices, FLlw Oak Park houses, Detroit Edison NavCenter (The Learning Zone), Palo Alto KnOwhere Store.

Mission: The mission is to remember the mission and to help others do the same. The business environment is becoming increasingly reactive - full of interesting distractions to go chase - at the end of which - the entire reason for being in business is forgotten. Enormous energy expended that has nothing to do with the work.

The work of this period is developing “The Manual” of the Taylor System and Method, facilitate the expansion of an existing NavCenter, look at spaces for two new potential environments in Virginia, conduct two Sponsor Sessions, in New York, for upcoming DesignShop events, co-facilitate a 7 Domains Work Shop for active NavCenter KnowledgeWorkers and meet some new potential design and writing collaborators.

A DesignShop event in Detroit and back to Palo Alto for another one fills out the menue.

Syntopical: Sarah Susanka “The Not So Big House;”

Images:

Images of a CAMELOT week
The new USAir Charlotte Club
FLlw in Oak Park

A week on CAMELOT - too short but productive.

My CAMELOT Work Station

This is the work station that Bob Kraska described in his e-mail documenting his CAMELOT time. Why should our “office” spaces be different?

Sunshine “practicing” his carpet

January 28, to March 7, 2000

Where: Palo Alto

At: Palo Alto KnOwhere Store.

Mission: Getting many “starting” opportunities closed and on the implementation track as possible.

Preparing the second floor of the Palo Alto KnOwhere Store for supporting the startup incubation process at a new scale.

Designing the 2000 Group Genius event with Foresight.

Moving to closure with the first iteration of my SFIA Architectural Practice Course. Taking my own Bay Area Studio project to schematics.

Preparing for a new client DesignShop event - a European company comes to Silicon Valley and KnOwhere.

Watching with awe as a Team of KnOwhere and ValueWeb KnowledgeWorkers design, write, animate, shoot and produce a half hour video production from the last DesignShop happening. Full digital in-house multimedia and web-based production - how many years have we worked for this?

Continuing the MG Taylor reorganization and starting the financial restructuring process.

Getting enough done so I can enjoy a week of Patent development and Manual writing on CAMELOT!

Bay Area Studio Sketch - Februrary 22, 2000

Finishing my first rendering of a Studio-Residence in nearly 25 years. Projects are due at my Architectural Practice class including mine.

Syntopical Loren Eiseley “The Unexpected Universe;” Roger D. Masters “Fortune Is A River - Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavell’s Magnificent Dream to Change the Course of Florentine History;” David Easton “The Rammed Earth House;” David Pearson “The New Natural House Book - Creating a healthy, Harmonious, and ecologically Sound Home;” David Rousseau and James Wasley “Healthy by design - Building and Remodeling Solutions for Creating Healthy Homes;” Steven J. Strong with William G. Scheller “The Solar Electric House - Energy for the Environmentally Responsive, Energy-Independent Home;”

Images:

Culinary Institute of America Greystone Restaurant
CAMELOT Transom replacement progress
Details of the Bay Area Studio Project
Shots of Marty Mazner’s site in the wine country
Moving the Sea Loft into the Eichler

In the mean time, back in Detroit, the DTE NavCenter - called “The Leaning Zone” - opens it doors. Teams were immediately engaged. The Learning Zone joins the Borgess NavCenter, The Gossick Leadership Center at AEDC, the LARC NavCenter at NASA, the Continuum NavCenter as active, networked places of workplace transformation. Each unique, each employing the MG Taylor system and method.

DTE NavCenter: The Learning Zone Opens for Business

MT Notebook page of Studio Project

January 4, to January 28, 2000

Where: Palo Alto, Boulder, Palo Alto

At: Palo Alto KnOwhere Store, the AI Boulder Tech Center...

Mission: New year beginnings; picking up from last year. Architecture Course starts in earnest.

Start up of several new client projects.

Lots of business planning as the reorganization of MG Taylor unfolds.

A team from Silicon Valley and Europe creates of a new venture to facilitate the startup process that will employ MG Taylor IP and KnOwhere environments. The first prototype to be in operation in 120 days.

A final design round on the Foundation 2 WorkFurniture in Boulder.

Foundation 2 Kiosk

Syntopical Kenneth Powell “Architecture Reborn - Converting Old Buildings for New uses;” James Steele “R.M. Schindler;” Barbara-Ann Canpell-Lange “John Lautner;” Julius Shulman “Architecture and its Photography;” Robert E. Horn “Visual Language;” Malcolm Wells, “How to Build an Underground House;” An Architect’s Sketchbook of Underground Buildings;” The earth Sheltered House;” Joshua and Kaia Tickell “From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank;”

Images:

Matrix of pictures from our weekend:
Sea Ranch Chapel, Christian Science Church at Tiberon, Gail at Dawn on the road
our new West Coast Studio: a 50s Eichler house

Now that we are spending the majority of our time in Palo Alto and it is necessary to expand our social activities, Gail and I decided over the Holidays that we would seek a house to rent. We came across a wonderful Eichler within a mile and a half of the KnOwhere Store. We are hoping to get it. It is a matter if the owners can accept Sunshine who waits impatiently back in Hilton Head.

Monday January 17, 2000 note: We have the house and will be moving in this coming weekend!

Over the weekend (15th & 16th), Gail and I took a ride up to Mendocino - It was a wonderful, relaxing trip Alone the way we saw the Sea Ranch Chapel design by James T. Hubbell. We also stopped at the Real Goods Center on the way back to look at the latest in solar technology and the like. We also stopped at Tiberon to see the Warren Callester Church there - on of my favorites about ready to celebrate its 50th year.

Window detail of the Sea Ranch Chapel

Christen Science Church front looking at Kindergarten building

Both these building attract visitors from all over the world. They were not that expensive to build. Why do people building miles and miles of mundane architecture and then travel through that sprawl to see the few good pieces?

Camelot gets new transom planking

Meanwhile back in Florida, CAMELOT gets her new transom planking attached. The project was briefly interrupted for a short cruise in early January with Todd Johnston.

A Christmas Gift of the ScribeCaddy tool holder

December 24, 1999 to January 4, 2000

Where: Hilton head to Palo Alto

At: Our Hilton Head Sea Loft and the Hilton Head KnOwhere Store to the San Francisco Institute of Architecture and the Palo Alto KnOwhere Store...

Mission: Rest and write, dialog with Gail and “design” my year 2000. Catch up on these web pages. Design my SFIA Course. Meet with the MGT Board and Executive Team.

Syntopical John Carter “Sex and Rockets - the Occult Works of Jack Parsons”; Patric O’Brian “Blue at the Mizzen;” Eric Raymond “The Cathredral and the Bazaar;” Barry Clifford with Paul Perry “Expedition Whydah;” R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz “The Egyptian Miracle;” Robert Mondavi “Harvests of Joy - My Passion for Excellence;”

Images:

A matrix of Images:
High tide at the Sea Loft
My Palo Alto Pod
ScibeCaddy
In Ft. Meyers, Camelot getting her Transom rebuilt

Two years ago this time (December 1997), the Palo Alto KnOwhere Store (which opened its doors in October 1997) had its first Holiday season. The project was done on a shoe string (as much as any 20,000 square foot facility in palo Alto could be described this way!) and was supervised by Glen MacPherson. This was - and remains - the largest facility we have every built for ourselves and the “flagship” KnOwhere effort.

Built in the “Midtown Shopping” area of Palo Alto, it was the first major restoration project in this area designated by the city to become eventually like (on a smaller scale) the University Avenue downtown area. Since our building, several more projects are under way.

Eric Raymond at the 1999 Group Genius event
hosted by the Foresight Institute and KnOwhere

Three years ago this time (December 5, 1996 to January 6, 1997), we built the Cambridge KnOwhere Store from bare concrete to a working environment that hosted four DesignShop events in the first 30 days of 1997. Don Pendleton was the Project Manager.

The Cambridge facility was made to be a DesignShop “factory” and was very successful in this role. We sold the Cambridge facility to EY at the end of 1998 and they now operate it as an ASE.

At the left is a picture of Cambridge circa 1998. Many DesignShop sessions and work shops where done here in 1997 and 1998.

Cambridge was, perhaps, the best environment we have yet to build in support of large group process with the exception of Borgess as that reaches a level of maturity.

Four years ago this time (December 26, 1995 to January 5, 1996), we converted a Drug Store into the facility that is now the Hilton Head KnOwhere Store.

We were starting our EY relationship and transfer of the DesignShop process to their ASE program. Their first ASE environment (built in Chicago) was not scheduled to be ready until the April/May time frame. We needed a space to start the transfer process and to work with their account managers and clients.

A family-owned drug store at the Sea Pines shopping center was sold to a chain just before Christmas and the space became available. We secured it and at our just-before-the-holidays meeting with EY leaders we told them we would host their efforts at Hilton Head until the Chicago facility was complete. This made for an interesting “vacation.” We got it open on schedule and, with the exception of the facility being closed for a week later in the year to build new soffits and a new hung ceiling, it has been in operation every since.

John Gieschen worked with me on this project and took over as project manager for all the future upgrades. He also created and ran the AI Hilton Head shop until June 1998.

Retail area of the Hilton Head KnOwhere Store - 1997

Today, the KnOwhere Store enterprise is just a little smaller than the entire MG Taylor organization was in 1995. The root of the KnOwhere idea goes back to our beginning. It remained nascent until 1995 - and since then - has slowly sought to find its essence and voice in our ValueWeb.

KnOwhere leaves 1999 with focus, energy, work in hand, an active network and a growing team. I expect the KnOwhere enterprise to step fully into its own in 2000.

December always seems to be the time for us to launch or finish new building projects. In 1997, the New York facility for Continuum Health partners was started. In 1998, the Borgess NavCenter. This year, the Detroit Edison is well under way and designated for opening in February.

There is a difference this year, however. In 1995, I was directly involved in the work and supervision of the the Hilton Head Store. Now, the AI and KnOwhere organization - with a ValueWeb of partners - does it all. Borgess, finished early this year, is the first facility scince our inception that I was not involved with in any major way. Not in the sale of it, the design, construction or transfer management.

I have worked with the Borgess and DTE team but they are not my projects. This is what makes 1999 such a nice Holiday!

The transition from a founder-centric practice to a team focused business is well under way.

Morning dew on CAMELOT

November 23, to December 23, 1999

Where: Palo Alto, Ft. Meters, St. Petersburg, Detroit, Palo Alto, New York, Los Angles, Palo Alto, Hilton head

At: KnOwhere Store, CAMELOT, Career Connection Center, KnOwhere Store, CHP NavCenter...

Mission: Rest and write, create a new corporate relationship, finish old business, complete some Joint Venture agreements, launch the new NetWeb, do the last 1999 DesignShop event, design a new virtual product/service for going to scale.

Meetings and dialogs with several new potential clients. A short trip to San Diego

Rebuilding CAMELOT’s transom begins.

A Foresight Institutes Senior Associates meeting at Doug Engalbart’s house.

Syntopical Greg Bear “Darwin’s Radio;” Michael S. Schneider “A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe;”

Images:

Weaving a KnOwhere fabric, Waterway run, a CAMELOT morning
Gateway to St. Petersburg, Florida, On the waterway to St. Petersburg, Afternoon anchorage
Morning dew, Bridge detail, Modern Victorian Florida style on the waterway
Under sail, St. Petersburg anchorage, Modern engineering beauty

SolutionBox voice of this document:
USING • LOGISTICS • PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT

Posted: December 2, 1999

Revised: June 18, 2000
• 19991228.173023.mt • 19991230.75629.mt • 20000107.141325.mt • 20000121.173533.mt •
• 20000121.233711.mt • 20000219.84124.mt • 20000225.154320.mt • 20000315.00540.mt •
• 20000408.55738.mt • 20000519.100612.mt • 20000618.174624.mt •

IP Statement and Policy

update to Matt’s Notebook