Seattle Method

A hypothesis is a testable explanation or guess about why something happens; a prediction. A hypothesis helps to think about and test an idea.   A theory is a well supported explanation of why something happens.  A theory is used to explain an idea or ideas.  A law describes (makes a statement about) a universal principle or phenomenon that consistently specifies what must happen under specific conditions and is based on empirical evidence from observations.  Laws describe what happens.  Another term for law is principle. And so, it seems that a hypothesis is a preliminary testable idea or notion , a theory is a t ested explanation of an idea or notion , and a law is a descriptive regularity of the nature of an idea or notion .  A metatheory is a higher‑order framework that defines the foundational principles, assumptions, and evaluation criteria for constructing and comparing theories. If a theory is a blueprint, a metatheory is the building code that...

In January 1999, I met with the partner in charge of the CPA firm I worked for; Knight, Vale & Greggory (KVG) which is now part of RSM ; and told him how well my meeting with the AICPA related to what became XBRL  went.  KVG which was a smaller regional CPA firm basically donated my time to create a working proof of concept of an XML-based digital financial report.  In that meeting the partner in charge told me that KVG obviously could not continue underwriting the cost of this endeavor to manifest digital financial reporting.  I told him that I completely understood but I was going to continue to pursue this; and I resigned from KVG to create " my garden ". In his article, What The Garden Is For , Matt Wood (ex-PWC now at AWS) provides an analogy between a system and a garden.  Here is my garden: Digital Information Organism Reference Reporting Frameworks Conformance Suite Example Financial Statement Holon Introducing the Global Open Industry Standard Digit...

While the terms classification and categorization are often used interchangeably in casual conversation, they represent two distinct approaches to organizing information.  The easiest way to distinguish classification and categorization is by their level of formality and structure: classification is formal, systematic, and rule-based, while categorization is informal, intuitive, and based on similarity. Classification is the process of assigning important  things in an area of knowledge to a set of pre-defined, mutually exclusive category or class based on strict rules or criteria. Classification relates to the inclusion of a thing in a set.  It is typically a top-down approach designed for objectivity and consistency. Things tend to be classified into three broad hierarchal categories to help make distinctions clear: Basic level category is the most salient things; the differences between categories is the most noticeable, prominent, and important Superordinate level ...

A knowledge graph is an approach to representing knowledge within some sort of knowledge organization system for some sort of knowledge framework. In his article, Embracing Complexity - Conclusion , Tony Seale explains how to built your organization's knowledge graph. In summary, Seale believes that an organizational knowledge graph should include: Networked data Networked cloud Networked artificial intelligence Unified network that pulls all three of the above together Then, there are three practical tools that make a knowledge graph go: The graph adapter The data service The graph neural network Using this approach, a knowledge graph can then give an organization the ability to connect all it's critical data in the entire organization together.  This gives both humans and artificial intelligence access to all that data. Seale is not specifying any specific technical implementation . He seems to be suggesting using a semantic network and network theory  which is part of gr...

A digital information organism is a new type of tool available to professional accountants which overcomes limitations encountered when trying to use electronic spreadsheets to automate certain mission critical processes. The Structural Advantage : By separating the information and the “ costume ” that information wears (i.e. the document); representing the information as a graph which a computer based process can reliably interpret (i.e. treating these graphs as semantics-oriented structures known as models); organizations eliminate the traditional "human bucket brigade"; the fragile (and costly) practice of humans manually moving text from one document to another document. Instead, the model is the "code" which enables reliable automation. To properly manage complexity, you need to understand complexity .  Complecting "intertwines" or "braids" or "tangles" things so they become harder to understand and reason about;. Composing assem...

XBRL is a global open industry standard for the exchange of business information.  XBRL itself is not a system.  However, things like the XBRL International's  Open Information Model  (OIM), Object Management Group's Standard Business Report Model (SBRM), and the framework, structure, and  process provided by my Seattle Method can take XBRL to the next level. The OIM, SBRM, and Seattle Method are very aligned in how they make use of XBRL. In this new age of artificial intelligence, XBRL will play a significant role. Beyond the Traditional Electronic Spreadsheet: How XBRL Can Help Industrialize Financial Information Processing In simple terms, XBRL introduces a global, open industry standard alternative to certain specific traditional electronic spreadsheet use cases. Think of it as a set of digital "information Legos." While traditional spreadsheets are incredibly flexible, that very flexibility makes them a liability for mission-critical tasks, especially w...