ABSTRACT
Situation awareness and distributed decision making are terms conceived within the world of military and industrial support systems. They were born in neighborhoods whose boundaries overlapped but remained distant during their infancy. As they matured they were adopted by different caretakers who sent them into the world searching for applications in complex technological support systems. Occasionally, they were seen darting through the halls of academia, visiting schools of engineering, business, and medicine. Eventually, they started seeing one another at scientific conferences and were ultimately wed by interdisciplinary border travelers who saw their common heritage and potential. As they moved into the 1990s, their hybrid offspring were reintroduced within academic, military, and industrial settings under different names with multiple applications.
