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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Horn's work in Information Mapping® and visual language honored by International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI)
Seattle-March 9, 2004- Robert E. Horn will receive the prestigious The Thomas F. Gilbert Distinguished Professional Achievement Award by the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), the Society announced this week.
In giving the award, the association pointed out that Horn's "Information Mapping methodology provided a systematic approach for producing measurably more effective written communication via 'structured writing.' It represents the synthesis of principles from research in numerous fields plus original work by Horn in development of formats and processes for applying these principles. This method has now been applied internationally by tens of thousands of users, from entry-level employees and training/documentation specialists to senior managers and executives writing reports and memos. There have been multiple Master's and Doctoral theses conducted on the method showing its positive effects on productivity and quality of both writers and users."
"It is difficult to find a major corporation where Horn's structured writing method has not had an impact," the ISPI awards committee said. "His work in hypertext design (based on the Information Mapping method) as well as in visual language have similarly had an impact on the work of performance improvement specialists and researchers. Among the more recent areas of application of Horn's work is in the design of online systems and web sites that support efficient use and application."
The ISPI is the premier industrial training organization especially known for its emphasis on measuring performance and basing methodology on research.
Horn's Current Positions
Horn is a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Program on People, Computers, and Design at The Center for the Study of Language and Information and a Distinguished Consulting Faculty member of San Francisco's Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center. Originally trained as a political scientist, his current interests are in applying visual language to public policy and strategy issues. Last year, he was project manager on a project for NASA to envision and design a new information system for all the science that is being done on the International Space Station. And recently he has pioneered the development and use of "knowledge maps for social messes," a methodology to aid public task forces to get their minds around very ill-structured problems and form common mental models of them.
Award to be presented at ISPI Conference
The award will be presented at the annual ISPI conference in Tampa, Florida, on April 21, 2004. Information Mapping, Inc. a worldwide consulting firm that Horn founded will host an event at the conference honoring Horn. "Anyone who is interested in Horn's work is encouraged to attend the Conference and meet Bob," said Doug Gorman, CEO of Information Mapping, Inc. Upwards of one thousand specialists in performance improvement, training, and consulting are expected to attend the Tampa conference.
Horn's Presentation at the Conference
Horn will give a talk on his work entitled, "The Human Cognome Project, Information Mapping® and Visual Language." The Human Cognome Project is a visionary century-long project that Horn suggested to the National Science Foundation a year and a half ago to investigate the human mind with the kind of resources devoted to sequencing the genome.
Previous Award from the Largest Computer Society
Two years ago Horn was awarded his first lifetime achievement award from the Association of Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Documentation (ACM SIGDOC). The award letter states that the award given to Horn is for creating "an institution or organization that has made an outstanding life-time contribution to the field of user documentation."
The association pointed out that Information Mapping® Inc., the company that Horn founded and was CEO of for 15 years, "represents one of the few entrepreneurial extensions of basic research that has thriving practical implications for the field and, most recently, your research on visual design has established itself as an intrinsic part of the lore and practice of professional documentation developers today."
ACM is the world's oldest and largest educational and scientific computing society. Since 1947, ACM has provided a vital forum for the exchange of information, ideas, and discoveries. Today, ACM serves a membership of more than 80,000 computing professionals in more than 100 countries in all areas of industry, academia, and government.
Background on Horn's Recent Work
Among Horn's more recent work, published by MacroVU, Inc., is Mapping Great Debates: Can Computers Think? a set of seven large, colorful diagrams, measuring 3 x 4 feet each with text and graphics showing both the topical and chronological organization of the debate. Visually, the 'knowledge maps" are groundbreaking. Several hundred icons and illustrations and nearly 60 photographs help the reader navigate and provide easy landmarks and crystal-clear visual representation of the arguments.
"One of the things I'm proudest of is that Can Computers Think? received a full-page review in Nature, the top science journal in the world; were exhibited in an art museum in the Hague and at the Coventry School of Art and Design as examples of fine art in information design; and were nominated for an innovation and excellence award at the American Philosophical Association all in the same year," said Horn.
The knowledge maps are a splendid example of the new international auxiliary language described in Horn's most recent book, Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century, also published by MacroVU, Inc. It is a pathfinding work that shows how this new language is emerging in business and academia. Horn is previously the editor-in-chief of the standard reference book in the field of simulations and games. (Editor's Note: These publications are published by MacroVU,®, Inc.: www.macrovu.com) Horn is a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science and a Woodrow Wilson Fellow.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
Stanford University: http://hci.stanford.edu
Stanford University Center for the Study of language and Information
http://www-csli.stanford.edu
Saybrook Graduate School: http://www.saybrook.edu
ISPI: www.ispi.org
Human Cognome Project: http://www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/a/topic/cognom/tocCncptlzHumnCognome.html
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Horn is available for interviews at 415-775-7377 or via hornbob@earthlink.net)
(Information Mapping is a Registered Trademark of Information
Mapping, Inc., MacroVU is a Registered Trademark of MacroVU, Inc.)