A Hilbert Solution Space where the dimensions are Hilbert Solution Spaces

A Hilbert Solution Space where the dimensions are other Hilbert Solution Spaces? That seems a thought to fry the brain cells. Yet, it is really quite simple to understand. If somebody asks you to solve a particular e-commerce problem, it may be that you will not be able to provide a solution because you haven't sufficient knowledge. To come up with an answer you may have to ask somebody you know - one of your contacts - for information or advice.

In doing this, you have used one of the people in your current position in Hilbert Solution Space: one of the people dimensions. You can visualise this as you being in your Solution Space with lines radiating out from you - to all the people you are in contact with. Every one of your contacts, like you, will also in their own private Hilbert Solution Space. They can also be visualised as having lines of communication stretching out from them to all their contacts. These other contacts will also be in their Hilbert Solution Spaces connected to their contacts ad finitum.

A little thought soon tells you that when you ask somebody to solve a problem for you, it may involve many other people as one person asks another, who asks another etc. Out of the network of communication, that is initiated by a problem that you might ask, will emerge an answer that can be rapidly transmitted back to you.

To the person who asked you to supply an answer to their problem, all the network of others who were involved in providing that solution are invisible. It is you who get the credit because it comes from your solution space. You then, as a dimension in somebody else's Hilbert Solution Space, will seem to be a very valuable contact to have.

If we now see this in terms of my London doctor. He was a very valuable dimension of my Solution Space because if it came to any personal health problems I could go to him. He, with his extensive range of contacts of specialists and surgeons, was an important contact and once having found him I'd have no further need to go searching in other directions in the field of health.

This can also be related to the sociogram of chapter 5. Each of the doctors linked into the communication network that was established in the region would likely have access, directly or indirectly to the knowledge and experience of all the others. Any patient going to any one of the doctors in the region could, in theory, receive the combined expertise of all the doctors. Such a system is not really practical in the world of bricks and mortar but in the world of the Internet it is the norm.

Returning to the scenario painted by Randy, you can open out the dimensions of any consultant who sets up an e-commerce solution for a client, to reveal the people dimensions he or she represents. The consultant is only as good as the knowledge they can apply to the task at hand and this must include the knowledge of their contacts. Just like my London doctor, the consultant will have a range of specialists to draw upon. The consultant then will be as good as this combined expertise.

The probability is that a consultant that gets a company on the first rung of the e-commerce ladder is probably a specialist at just that: getting people onto the first rung. To the client the consultant may serve no other purpose than being the green frog. It is unlikely that the consultant will have sufficient range of speciality contacts to get a client much further, especially if the client is in a competitive situation. It will really then depend upon the company itself to find its own way around its own solution space. This requires not technical knowledge but expert communication strategies.

The game then becomes one of finding the best position in the Solution Space where the best range of contacts are to be found. This cannot be discovered by chance, it has to be discovered by employing a bottom up strategy that discovers the right combination of contacts gradually. From the green frog, you have to progressively move nearer and nearer to wherever the bottom up strategy takes you: towards finding the right combination of people who can provide the most appropriate advice and expertise.