The Principles of Organizing as First Principles for AI
Every organization building toward AI increasingly wants a knowledge graph, a semantic layer, a governed catalog and something that lets machines reason over the company’s resources. Most of them start by buying that solution. The platform arrives, the connectors get wired, and then the question invariably emerges, organized according to what?
I approve of the approach you describe with the necessary rigor and I support it all the more in the context of the development of AI that you rightly criticize.
But since the concept of « organization » is at the center of it, I cannot fail to think of my last post on LinkedIn in tribute to Edgar Morin, who, it seems to me, has also placed « organization » at the heart of his book « The Nature of Nature », of which I had tried to articulate some concepts. I cannot decently engage in a discussion or an explanation of a book that I read too long ago, so my remarks are approximate.
But it seems to me that his concept of « organization » also covered, and perhaps especially « The raw shape and form of the canyon », elements without conscious « intent », but possibly endowed with a purpose.
What seems especially interesting to me is that both the works you cite and those of Edgar Morin, and more broadly the systemic, have greatly inspired information systems designers, therefore with perhaps divergent principles, until giving birth in France to a design method called "Merise", before the triumph of UML, but which was perhaps not systemic enough.
In case I would be very inspired by systemic principles, it would be a kind of reversal from the perception I had when I listened to US consultants at the beginning of my career, who seemed to me more creative and innovative than the French, but also gave less importance to what made the French proud: « know how to make a plan », which you would then sustain better today :).
. . . & I really ❤️ our DEVeloping controlled vocabulary Ms Talisman. My dear Primary School Teacher Mum would just be so happy to see our .potterING together IN your ONTOLOGICAL PIPELINE (TM).
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FINALLY Next week we can start IN ON . . . introducing this simple brilliant global & immediate immersive idea To: the WESTERN AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT IN KALgoorlie: 1897: Herbert Hover & poor CY O’Connor + CY’s amazing H2O pipeline.
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I’m totally busting Ms Talisman (iPLAN: 9th to 11th June). John🤠🦋
This strongly resonates with my own work on lightweight semantic layers for AI in document-intensive organizations.
Many organizations probably do not need a full ontology or knowledge graph at the beginning. What they often lack is a prior interpretive layer: shared definitions, stabilized terminology, explicit distinctions between local and general meanings, and a few operational relations that make documents interpretable in context.
Before knowledge becomes machine-actionable, it has to become organizationally articulate. Only then can it become graphable.
The interpretive layer is what so many are missing. Very difficult to make sense of data and information without foundational principles. Those principles become the foundations for strategy. And you are correct: many orgs do not need a full ontology or knowledge graph at first. And some orgs may not ever need either.
Hello Jessica,
I approve of the approach you describe with the necessary rigor and I support it all the more in the context of the development of AI that you rightly criticize.
But since the concept of « organization » is at the center of it, I cannot fail to think of my last post on LinkedIn in tribute to Edgar Morin, who, it seems to me, has also placed « organization » at the heart of his book « The Nature of Nature », of which I had tried to articulate some concepts. I cannot decently engage in a discussion or an explanation of a book that I read too long ago, so my remarks are approximate.
But it seems to me that his concept of « organization » also covered, and perhaps especially « The raw shape and form of the canyon », elements without conscious « intent », but possibly endowed with a purpose.
What seems especially interesting to me is that both the works you cite and those of Edgar Morin, and more broadly the systemic, have greatly inspired information systems designers, therefore with perhaps divergent principles, until giving birth in France to a design method called "Merise", before the triumph of UML, but which was perhaps not systemic enough.
In case I would be very inspired by systemic principles, it would be a kind of reversal from the perception I had when I listened to US consultants at the beginning of my career, who seemed to me more creative and innovative than the French, but also gave less importance to what made the French proud: « know how to make a plan », which you would then sustain better today :).
Let’s get .organising Ms Talisman To: .SHOW Warren ON Approach? Why NOT!! . . . as Manish my amazing Afghani brother would say.
✅ (.manageIT) x Mary 💯 UPDATED
IN LondON - great music too!!
.
. . . & I really ❤️ our DEVeloping controlled vocabulary Ms Talisman. My dear Primary School Teacher Mum would just be so happy to see our .potterING together IN your ONTOLOGICAL PIPELINE (TM).
.
FINALLY Next week we can start IN ON . . . introducing this simple brilliant global & immediate immersive idea To: the WESTERN AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT IN KALgoorlie: 1897: Herbert Hover & poor CY O’Connor + CY’s amazing H2O pipeline.
.
I’m totally busting Ms Talisman (iPLAN: 9th to 11th June). John🤠🦋
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2nd June 2026
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This strongly resonates with my own work on lightweight semantic layers for AI in document-intensive organizations.
Many organizations probably do not need a full ontology or knowledge graph at the beginning. What they often lack is a prior interpretive layer: shared definitions, stabilized terminology, explicit distinctions between local and general meanings, and a few operational relations that make documents interpretable in context.
Before knowledge becomes machine-actionable, it has to become organizationally articulate. Only then can it become graphable.
The interpretive layer is what so many are missing. Very difficult to make sense of data and information without foundational principles. Those principles become the foundations for strategy. And you are correct: many orgs do not need a full ontology or knowledge graph at first. And some orgs may not ever need either.
Say 🤪 “Yes, please!” Ms Talisman. You deserve it. ❤️ G&J 2nd June 2026 (Remember us)
Larry, Bill & the others will be around & About NOW:
An International VIP has just arrived. 🤩.