Seb's Open Research
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Saturday, October 26, 2002
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A little plea for advice. Last month I wrote about coordinating a weblogging deployment effort in the quantum information processing research community. The idea is still in the air. We were thinking about inviting participants to set up accounts at blog*spot. Quick and dirty, free, and with low barriers to entry. Now, the advertising is an issue that we need to deal with. We could get rid of it by providing FTP accounts on our Computer Science department's network to participants where they could host their weblog. Does this sound like a risky, tricky or otherwise silly thing to do?
 9:02:23 PM
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Information systems research: towards irrelevance?
Here's an interesting paper on the severe state of disconnect between IS academics and practitioners (pdf). Pretty much the same diagnostic as Phil Windley posed a few weeks ago. Here are a few quotes.
A central argument of this paper is that the traditional mechanisms whereby IS researchers disseminate their work are prone to numerous communication breakdowns, and that much work which could potentially make valuable contributions to practice is haplessly lost within the vaults of academia. [...]
The use of terse and complex idioms, perhaps in an attempt to sound clever (as is the wont of academics), serves only to obfuscate the message and lessens the likelihood that it shall be understood. It is not just practitioners who are having difficulty digesting academic papers, but also many within the academic community find it a painful experience (Alter, 2001). [...]
Thus Glass (1997) is led to comment that "the academic picture of the industrial world (and vice versa) is both skewed and disdainful", while Pike(2000) remarks that "we see a thriving software industry that largely ignores research, and a research community that writes papers rather than software". [...]
Not surprisingly, academics face a credibility gap within the business community, few academics are sought out as being leading thinkers on IT in business, and IT executives feel that in the majority of cases the "academic IS community doesn’t have a clue" [...]
For many academics, the primary motivation to conduct research is survival, and the education of practitioners is only a secondary auxiliary objective (Moody, 2000).
The paper makes recommendations to alleviate the problem, but I honestly don't think researchers will heed them. The inertia of the reward structure is simply too strong. So where will usable innovation come from? I think we had better keep an eye on the growing networks of passionate hobbyists. After all, didn't science itself get started as a hobby?
3:39:32 PM
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Friday, October 25, 2002
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The trouble with categories
on links and chunks.
[...] I believe that this approach is not sustainable over time. As the number of categories I’m using increases, it becomes more difficult to scan the possible array of possibilities when I’m making a post. I also find myself reluctant to create new categories and often attempt to “squish” the post into an existing category. The result of this activity is a huge array of topical HTML and RSS repositories that (so far) nobody looks at. [...]
[Stand Up Eight]
I agree: categories don't scale well, yet fine-grained indexing would be useful. There's a tension there that needs to be resolved. Many good additional points in that post.
11:00:08 AM
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Will Work For Humanity
Who Owns Ideas? The War Over Global Intellectual Property. Good discussion of the arguments over copyright that I link to even though I disagree with it (I'm so noble). This is in general a very well written discussion. But the opinion expressed in the article turns on the same old tired argument: "Preventing the distribution of copycat drugs because of adherence to patent laws invariably means that some desperately ill patients will not have access to medicines they need. Yet the act of ignoring patents in the name of helping sick people curbs the incentive to develop new, lifesaving drugs in the future." That's so not true. Some people would work for the good of humanity. Others would work for government research labs, set up for the good of humanity (at least a part of my work is of the former variety, part of the latter variety). The assumption is that people won't conduct research unless they can hold the rest of society at ransom for it. It's just not true, we know it's not true, and yet this argument continues to circulate. By David S. Evans, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2002 [OLDaily]
10:46:49 AM
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Exposing the Ivory Tower's dirty laundry
This website is "dedicated to unmasking the corruption that plagues academia in America", and it pulls no punches.
Sadly, academia in America is rife with petty politics, infighting and backstabbing among our intellectual leaders. Instead of eternal truths, politically correct and trendy fads are force-fed to our students. Instead of being led by the "best and brightest," those who ascend to the top of the ivory tower are generally those of the weakest mind and pettiest of agendas.
Instead of inspiring generations of young people to think outside the box; and to think for themselves - academia emphasizes mimicry, training the young to dance like the organ grinder's monkey, to echo the stale and hollow theory of the master. Innovation is routinely punished. Original thought is considered heresy. Tenure most often goes to those who work to suppress the creative instincts of future generations - protecting those who conspire to dilute America's ingenuity.
True, there are heroic individuals within academia who stand up for truths that are eternal and who inspire the younger generation to liberate their thoughts as they ascend to higher levels of understanding. But they are the exception and more often than not are punished for their popularity, blacklisted for their bravery, and exiled for their independent spirits. [...]
We believe that academia can be liberated - but only if its corruption is exposed. We ask you to share with us your experiences of academia's corruption by e-mailing your tales of terror from the academy.
This account is caricatural, and the name and logo may be a wee bit distasteful, but the underlying intent is noble. The site tracks news stories in line with the theme. However, the navigation links are bogus, which make me think this might be a hoax. Brian Martin's accounts of power in academia are easier to take seriously.
(via Jay's Scrapbook)
8:20:44 AM
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Thursday, October 24, 2002
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Doug Engelbart on improving collective IQ
I don't think I have read as eloquent an explanation of what collaborative intelligence augmentation is and why it matters as Douglas Engelbart's World Library Summit keynote speech Improving our ability to improve: A call for investment in a new future. Here are just a few quotes - but I think it's well worth attentively reading every word of the text. And taking time to think about it.
...the investment in C activities is typically pre-competitive. It is investment that can be shared even among competitors in an industry because it is, essentially, investment in creating a better playing field. [...]
At the C level we are trying to understand how improvement really happens, so that we can improve our ability to improve. This means having different groups exploring different paths to the same goal. As they explore, they constantly exchange information about what they are learning. The goal is to maximize overall progress by exchanging important information as the different groups proceed. What this means, in practice, is that the dialog between the people working toward pursuit of the goal is often just as important as the end result of the research. Often, it is what the team learns in the course of the exploration that ultimately opens up breakthrough results. [...]
One of the most important things that we need is a place to keep and share the information that we collect - the dialog, the external information, the things that we learn. I call this the "Dynamic Knowledge Repository," or DKR. It is more than a database, and more than a simple collection of Internet web sites. It doesn't have to be all in one place - it can certainly be distributed across the different people and organizations that are collaborating on improving improvement - but it does need to be accessible to everyone - for reading, for writing, and for making new connections. [...]
Another key, early investment is in the development of tools to provide access to the knowledge in the DKR for all classes of users, from beginners to professional knowledge workers expecting high performance. This "hyperscope" - that is my term for it - allows everyone to contribute and use the information in the DKR according to his or her ability. [...]
The feature of humans that makes us most human - that most clearly differentiates us from every other life form on Earth - is not our opposable thumb, and not even our use of tools. It is our ability to create and use symbols. The ability to look at the world, turn what we see into abstractions, and to then operate on those abstractions, rather than on the physical world itself, is an utterly astounding, beautiful thing, just taken all by itself. We manifest this ability to work with symbols in wonderful, beautiful ways, through music, through art, through our buildings and through our language - but the fundamental act of symbol making and symbol using is beautiful in itself. [...]
I come to this conference representing my own small organization, the Bootstrap Alliance. We don't sell a product or anything else. But we do offer an opportunity for you to be actively engaged with other people and other institutions that are interested in understanding how to use this new fire that has been brought down from the heavens.
More specifically, the Bootstrap Alliance is an improvement community that is made up of other improvement communities - we are focused on improving the ability to improve, and on helping other groups that share those interests do a better job of it. We exist to help C-level organizations do a better job of being C-level organizations. Our approach to this, not surprisingly, is based on concurrent development, integration, and application of knowledge across those different pioneering communities.
[Fleabyte, thinking with computers]
11:08:52 AM
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Wednesday, October 23, 2002
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PopTech a la Weinberger
Why I Conference Blog. More than a couple of people noticed me and Ernie the Attorney blogging next to each other from PopTech. "Why?" they asked. "Why are you so focused on blogging the conference?" [JOHO the Blog]
David is doing an amazing job at it. Run to his blog.
10:29:51 PM
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Examining our beliefs to effect change
Strengthening After Action Reviews through Double-Loop Learning. [...] Double-loop learning takes the inquiry one step further. It poses questions about our Beliefs, Assumptions and Values in order to determine and understand that how we see the world has a direct line to how we operate in it. The contention of Double-loop learning is that only by understanding our Beliefs, Assumptions and Values can we truly eliminate some of our negative repeating behaviours. [...] [thought?horizon :: non inferiora secutus]
A clear explanation of one way deep change occurs, with a couple neat diagrams thrown in. The rub here is that beliefs, assumptions and values are largely tacit, and that we're usually not trained to become aware of them.
10:12:12 PM
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Processes and products
You have to see the production.
Lilia has pointed me at Knowledge work as craft work an article from April 2002 by Jim McGee which is most pertinent given my new focus on visibility.
It's a good read. Of particular interest to me was where Jim talks about how, with the advent of purely digital methods of working, only the finished product survives. This implies that it is only the finished item, and not how it was derived, that has value. But we know that's wrong, our experience tells us that seeing the production is how we learn.
Another key aspect to visibility into a process is what you do when the finished item turns out to be wrong. If you need to backtrack and try a new direction, what are you working from?
[Curiouser and curiouser!]
I've rambled a bit on processes versus products a few weeks ago. A similar line of thought.
10:05:06 PM
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Weblogs 'R' Us
Blogs are our Avatars. I was mulling over the difference between posting in mailing lists and posting to your own blog. We can communicate equally well in both media; and both media provide for a public record. So what accounts for the growing preference of people to have their own blog? It's simple, the presentation of a person in a mailing list is fragmented, there is no coherance ... their personality is scatterd amoung their different posts. Not so with a blog, one's personality comes through loud and clear. Its like when we go to a party ... we dress up ... we try to present ourselves as we want to be seen, we can do that in our own blog, it's a lot harder in mail groups and in Usenet.
I think (hope) blogs will evolve rapidly ... they will become our public persona ... they will become our avatars !!. [Seth Russell's Blog]
When I'm physically present with someone, my body is my interface to them, and their interface to me. The weblog is truly performing a similar function on the net, but perhaps in an even more powerful manner. You can't read my mind by just seeing me, but you learn a lot about me just by reading this very webpage. I explain this a little bit more in my blog's introduction and in this post.
9:58:39 PM
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Forbidden books
This is a list of books that are available online, but not to US residents. The guy who manages the list asks for feedback from visitors because, being based in the US, he cannot check his links by himself.
8:53:40 PM
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Group-forming gets going
I'm happy to report that many interesting people have already showed up on the group-forming mailing list. One thing I find particularly exciting is that so far the crowd seems rather diverse, which was one of my hopes.
- Philip Pearson is the New Zealand hacker/hobbyist who got interested in my ridiculously easy group-forming scheme for weblogs. He's also the guy behind the cooler than cool blogging ecosystem.
- Jean-Michel is a French programmer who's interested in culture shocks and personal knowledge management
- Alex Havalais is "an academic, sort of," and is into collective creativity and scientific collaboration.
- Morbus Iff is "the droid we're looking for". He coded the Amphetadesk news aggregator.
- Dru Oja Jay is a New Brunswick-based socio-techno-philosopher who simultaneously works on many websites and is interested in "the Web for normal people" - a frustrating enterprise that has led him to reconsider the usefulness of print.
- Pierre-Emmanuel Muller is a French journalist who founded the international online collaborative newspaper Echo du Village.
- Eric Hanson is a hobbyist from Washington state with a fascination with "websites that prompt real-life action".
- Lyn Headley is a hacker in the process of becoming a philosopher in Mexico. His influences: educational philosopher John Dewey, George Herbert Mead and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.
- Matt Mower is a UK-based knowledge management consultant interested in making social aggregation work for that vast majority of people who are not "in the loop" yet.
- Hugh Pyle works at Groove Networks and is interested in getting technology out of the way of people who want to get together.
- Elijah Wright researches information science at Indiana University. He wants to "push rhetorical and
linguistically-derived discourse analysis / computer-mediated communication a little bit closer together".
- Kevin Jones, a serial entrepreneur and writer, is interested in social purpose businesses.
8:47:10 PM
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Monday, October 21, 2002
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Announcement: group-forming group forming...
Here's an invitation to everyone interested in figuring out how best to enable people of different strands to pull together around a common interest or purpose. Basically, we're having a stab at reverse-engineering the process of social clustering and we'll try to invent dream tools to make it ridiculously easy (at least for passionate people, that is).
Here's the announcement for the list, which Eric Hanson and I wrote together. As I write this, a dozen people have already subscribed. I guess we're going to seriously start talking pretty soon. I think it's going to be an enjoyable ride.
"One thing that's exciting about the Internet environment is the ability to easily form new communities and connect with others who share common interests. In particular, it allows activists, thinkers, and other creative, change-oriented people to find one another, regroup, share information, collaborate and learn more easily.
Although we already see social clustering happening, we believe there is still room for improvement. It's difficult to create high-signal, lively groups around issues that are not (yet) very well known.
This mailing list will foster discussion about the process of net-based group forming. Some of the questions we'll explore are:
* How and why are communities born?
* What is the essence or ontology of a community? What variables vary from one community to another?
* How do communities grow? Why and how do people discover them and decide to participate in them?
* How does the size of the topic area a community centers around, and the way a community describes itself, affect the community and its dynamics?
* How might the Semantic Web affect net-based communities?
* What existing and future technologies can facilitate the process of social aggregation?
In the spirit of bootstrapping, we'd like to evolve this list itself into the tools we're going to experiment with. Especially interesting is the idea of the fragmentation of topic areas into multiple communities centered around highly specific focal points and ideas.
Eric started ShouldExist.org, an ideas bank collecting ideas about how to make the world a better place. He brainstorms about the future in his personal Wiki, http://www.aquameta.com/wiki/ and his personal homepage is at http://www.aquameta.com/~eric/.
Sébastien runs a weblog about the evolution of knowledge sharing and scholarly communication at http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/ and his personal homepage is at http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~paquetse/.
Though we have met only recently, we've found we share a lot of common interests and are looking forward to an active discussion of some tough questions about the future of community on the net. We hope you'll join us.
To subscribe, visit http://lists.aquameta.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/group-forming."
(You can find more background about the origins of this initiative on this page.)
11:19:02 AM
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Blogging and the city
Miladus has begun writing an intriguing piece called "blogging and the city" on the modalities of group formation within the weblogging community. His starting point is an essay by Émile Benveniste that "exploits an opposition between Latin and Greek, that is to say between the couple civis/civitas and polís/politès."
8:57:32 AM
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Electronic culture course: complexity, identity, and society
From Simon Fraser University comes this extremely interesting course on electronic culture, which I found via the equally compelling weblog of Laura Trippi who is designing the course. Well worth a few clicks.
Electronic Culture
Introduction
This 3-module sequence approaches electronic culture as a network of human agents, artifacts, and intelligent machines. It takes a cross-disciplinary perspective, emphasizing dynamics of emergence and complexity.
Theorizing about networked culture will be grounded in practice as we construct a "classroom" distributed within the culture of the web. Activities combine reading and research with writing, coding, and design.
We'll also pay attention to evolving social processes, highlighting transformations in identity, agency, economy, organization, and space & time.
8:41:07 AM
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Copyleft
2006
Sebastien Paquet.
Last update:
4/22/2006; 12:07:09 PM.
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