eekim.com: EEK Speaks

Thu, Sep 29, 2005

Katrina PeopleFinder Volunteers at Planetwork Tonight #

I'm hosting tonight's Planetwork Forum from 7-10pm at Pheedo's offices in Emeryville. I'll start by giving an interactive presentation on patterns of high-performance collaboration. (JU2)

I'll then be moderating a panel on the KatrinaPeopleFinder project with KieranLal and KaPingYee. I'm thrilled to have Kieran and Ping on my panel, and I think folks will find their experiences fascinating and informative. (JU3)

How do collaborative patterns tie in with KatrinaPeopleFinder? For starters, read my essay, "Everything Is Known: Discovering Patterns of Emergent Collaboration," which will also appear as a chapter in the upcoming second edition of Open Sources (O'Reilly 2005). (JU4)

/blueoxen | Posted at 2:00pm

Wed, Sep 21, 2005

The Brilliant Essence of Wikis #

Over the past few weeks, I've had an unusually large number of discussions about the essence of Wikis -- why they are so beautiful and important as CollaborativeTools. I realized I've never posted my thoughts on the topic, so I'm correcting that here. (JTE)

Wikis have this brilliant feature, a feature that's so simple and obvious, it's often overlooked, yet it's largely responsible for the success of Wikis. Incidentally, it's also an intentional feature, which is yet another reflection of WardCunningham's design genius. (JTF)

In a nutshell, that feature is the ability to LinkAsYouThink by writing the name of the page, even if the page you want to link to doesn't currently exist. (JTG)

While you're letting that sink in, let's look at a measurable way this feature is valuable. A lot of folks view Wikis as a crude CMS. I don't dispute this perspective -- you can certainly use Wikis that way -- but it's not what makes Wikis interesting. Nevertheless, I see queries all the time on various nonprofit technology lists asking to compare Wikis to other CMSes, so here goes. It takes at least three steps to link to a new page with most CMSes (create new page, go to old page, create link), whereas it only takes only one with Wikis (write page name). That's significant. (JTH)

What really makes the Wiki's LinkAsYouThink feature special is that it facilitates the creation of SharedLanguage among the community that uses it. As I've said so often here, SharedLanguage is an absolute prerequisite for collaboration. The lack of SharedLanguage is the most common roadblock to effective collaboration, be it a small work team or a community of thousands. (JTI)

Look at the page index of any Wiki, and you'll see the vocabulary of that community. Thanks to the other affordances of the tool, that vocabulary accomodates multiple definitions while encouraging convergence where appropriate. Most importantly, that vocabulary is SharedLanguage that has emerged from the community itself and that continues to evolve. (JTJ)

Here's a real example. At the AdvocacyDev Wiki, which BlueOxenAssociates hosts, the top six most linked-to pages (out of 363 total) are: (JTK)

VoIP (31) (JTL)
VoIPSprint (18) (JTM)
AsterixPBX (18) (JTN)
IndyVoter (13) (JTO)
CarlCoryellMartin (13) (JTP)
CivicSpace (13) (JTQ)

From this very small sample, we can see that VoIP (and Asterisk in particular), IndyVoter, and CivicSpace are all much discussed tools among folks working on online advocacy tools. We can also see that CarlCoryellMartin is an active member of this community (or at least one of the more diligent members when it comes to documenting). (JTR)

The Wiki's ability to facilitate SharedLanguage -- a direct consequence of LinkAsYouThink -- is what makes it so important as a CollaborativeTool. In the future, when enough developers recognize this, we'll see widespread integration of Wiki functionality in other CollaborativeTools, such as blogs, online forums, and more. It's already started. Blog-Wiki integration (such as what I use) is not uncommon, and software like TWiki and JotSpot are showing the benefits of custom applications that use Wikis as the fundamental data structure. (JTS)

/tech/wiki | Posted at 6:52pm

Tue, Sep 20, 2005

Katrina Benefit Tonight at The Canvas #

There will be a Katrina Benefit tonight at TheCanvas in SanFrancisco, 7pm to midnight. My sister's friend, JenWalsh, will be performing, among many others. Cost is a suggest $5 (or more) at the door, and all proceeds go to the RedCross and HabitatForHumanity. (JT6)

/events | Posted at 2:10pm

Tue, Sep 13, 2005

eBay, Skype, and Out-of-band Community Building #

RossMayfield makes a really good point about eBay's acquisition of Skype: (JSU)

Pierre Omidyar once explained to me that one of the smartest things he did when starting eBay was to not constrain communication around his market -- by publishing email addresses. He was suggesting to me that we open the Socialtext Customer Exchange, but the core insight is more valuable. Back when I was running a B2B exchange, this was considered a contrarian move. After all, it let buyers and sellers circumvent your transaction fees in some cases. But letting go of control fosters liquidity. Especially when you couldn't possibly structure communications to fit all transactions. Today I would venture that most of the communication on eBay's transactions are out-of-band. Other communities with emergent liquidity such as Craigslist succeed by enabling even further out-of-band communication. (JSV)

(This doesn't explain the valuation, but I'll leave that to the analysts to sort out.) (JSW)

This is a core component of BlueOxen's long-term strategy to build a learning community centered around the field of collaboration. Lock-in completely defeats the larger purpose of such a community, and it doesn't work anyway. The hard question is, what does it mean to be a "member" of such a community? With commerce-centered communities, the answer is easy: Transactions. For knowledge-centered communities, the answer is less clear cut. (JSX)

/business | Posted at 2:18pm

Mon, Sep 12, 2005

DataTao #

AndyDale and the good folks at ooTao have been quietly driving the development of data sharing technologies based on XDI. This is one of the candidate IdentityCommons technologies for permission-based sharing and synchronization of identity-related information. (JSF)

What does this mean? Most of us have personal information stored all over the Internet, with no control over who can access it and what they are allowed to do with it. The privacy implications are obvious, but issues of control go beyond privacy. I may want 15 different organizations to have access to my email address, but I don't want to have to contact each of those organizations separately every time my email address changes. (JSG)

The knee-jerk reaction to the latter problem has been to create centralized repositories of identity data, and to persuade people to store all their data there. That approach has no long-term future. (JSH)

We need a distributed system that gives individuals granular control over their digital identities. That's the long-term vision of IdentityCommons, and the technologies that will make this all possible are slowly coming into fruition. (JSI)

Andy recently announced plans for DataTao, an "interoperable data hub for user controlled data." As a service, I think DataTao will be tremendously compelling. A natural first application will be a distributed Plaxo-killer. You'll be able to keep your contact information wherever it already is -- even across multiple sites -- and to grant permission to people to synchronize with that data. In other words, Andy or anyone else will be able to get my latest contact information without having to subscribe to some centralized repository, assuming I've given them permission. More importantly, I can take that permission away. (JSJ)

On a technical level, what's interesting about ooTao's announcement is that the service is not wed to i-names. It will work with a variety of identity protocols, from OpenID to LID. On the other hand, the system will use XDI. I've expressed concerns, both privately and publically, over whether XDI is the best architecture for the kind of data sharing we need. The proof will be in the pudding; it will be great to see a real service built on top of XDI in action. (JSK)

/collaboration/idcommons | Posted at 2:24pm

Extreme Learning #

This "Extreme" business is getting a bit out of control, but JayCross has written a great piece for CLO (April 2005) entitled, "Extreme Learning: Decision Games." Jay describes to KnowledgeManagement companies based in Singapore -- StraitsKnowledge and PebbleRoad -- who were commissioned to help companies learn how to do business in China. (JS7)

Foreign businesspeople new to China have an extraordinarily difficult time learning to sense and respond to the culture's complexities. They don't need more information -- they need to be able to read what's going on so they will know how to use the information they've got. Until now, no one could figure out how to transfer the insight of experienced foreign entrepreneurs. (JS8)

These two companies attacked the problem by creating decision games, asking participants to work through scenarios, then having experts explain what would happen and why. (JS9)

These decision games repeatedly test a person's judgment and knowledge while allowing them to engage with business colleagues in a complex and ambiguous environment. While they are learning about a particular domain, participants also gain insight into the perspectives, styles and capabilities of their colleagues. (JSA)

Think about it: Exposing novices to multiple ways of seeing and sizing up situations is how expertise is built. Switching the focus from teaching content to challenging contexts intensifies learning. Participants become so involved, they don't even break for coffee. (JSB)

This is a fantastic, collaborative alternative to traditional top-down teaching. (JSC)

/collaboration | Posted at 1:51pm

Fri, Sep 09, 2005

BAR Camp 2005 Redux #

Thoughts on BAR Camp. Yeah, yeah, a little late, I know. Less late than the rest of my WikiMania notes, though. (JQX)

Many Hats (JQY)

The most bizarre experience for me at BAR Camp was the number of people I knew from different worlds. My brain was constantly context-switching. It made me painfully aware of the number of different hats I wear, all in the name of BlueOxenAssociates. (JQZ)

PurpleNumbers guy. (JR0)
Wiki geek. (JR1)
IdentityCommons contributor. (JR2)
DougEngelbart translator. (JR3)
Usability guy!!! Obviously because of the sprints I've organized, but awkward for me, since I have no actual background in usability. (JR4)
PatternLanguage hat. I've been doing the collaboration PatternLanguage dog-and-pony show the past few months, and some folks who've heard me speak on the subject were there. I'll be doing a lot more of it too, so stay tuned. Patterns are damn important, useful, and interesting. (JR5)
Facilitation / event organizer hat. (JR6)
Nonprofit hat. The lack of nonprofit contingent was disappointing, but I had a good conversation with HoJohnLee, who's done some great work in that space. (We were also both wearing our Korean hats, along with MinJungKim, a rarity at events like these.) I also met PhilKlein, a nonprofit guy who also participated in our usability sprint the following week. (JR7)
Ex-DDJ hat. Some fogies, young and old, remembered me from my magazine days. (JR8)

All this was testament both to my ADD and to the job ChrisMessina, AndySmith, and the other organizers did in only one week. Three hundred people walked through the doors over the weekend. Amazing. (JR9)

Talks (JRA)

The best part of the event was strengthening familiar ties and building new ones. I met lots of great people, including folks I'd only known on the 'net. I wasn't blown away by the talks for the most part, but some stood out. (JRB)

KaPingYee did two talks, one on voting methods and another on phishing. Sadly, I only caught the tail end of the latter, but the Wiki page is fairly complete. I've never seen Ping do anything that I didn't find interesting or, in many cases, profound, and these talks were no exception. (I'll have more to say on Ping's latest work in a later blog post.) (JRC)
XiongChangnian presented some interesting quantitative analysis of the Wikipedia community. I didn't have as much of an opportunity to talk with Xiong as I'd like, but for those of you who have interacted with him, try not to be turned off by his bluster. He's doing some good work, and he seems to mean well. (JRD)
RashmiSinha and I did a roundtable on OpenSource usability on the first night. Afterwards, we both agreed that we didn't learn much new, but simply having the conversation and especially listening to a new audience was valuable. One unintended outcome: A participant (who shall remain nameless, but not unlinked!) complained about SocialText's usability, which I dutifully reported on the Wiki. AdinaLevin and RossMayfield quickly responded, saying they're looking to hire a usability person. If you're in the market, let them know. (JRE)

I was so busy chatting with people, I also ended up missing a bunch of good talks: Rashmi's tagging session, RowanNairn on structured data for the masses, and TomConrad's Pandora talk, which seemed to generate the most buzz at the camp. (JRF)

Throwing Great Events (JRG)

I toyed with the idea of doing a techie session, but in the end, the talk I should have done was one on patterns and throwing great events. BAR Camp was great, and as with all great collaborative events, there were some common patterns: (JRH)

[Food]?. One of the most critical and, amazingly, most overlooked element in an event. Lots of credit goes to KittHodsden, who made sure there were enough snacks to feed a small country, and the sponsors, who kept the beer flowing and underwrote the party on Saturday night. (JRI)
IntroduceYourself?. The organizers borrowed the FOO Camp tradition of saying your name and three words to describe yourself, and they did it each day. (JRJ)
SharedDisplay and ReportOut?. Folks did a great job of documenting on the Wiki and on their blogs and Flickr. BAR Camp owned the foobar Flickr fight. (JRK)
BackChannel. I'm not a big fan of IRC at face-to-face events, and there were definitely times when I thought it detracted from the face-to-face interactions. But, it was there, and it was useful. It wasn't logged, though. (JRL)
PermissionToParticipate. Lots of OpenSpace techniques were present -- again, borrowed from FOO Camp -- like the butcher paper for scheduling sessions. Lots of this was also cultural, though. I think this is the hardest thing for folks who do not live in the SiliconValley to get -- the spirit of sharing that comes so naturally to folks here. (JRM)

I'd do two things differently at the next event: (JRN)

Incorporate a ritual for new attendees to make them feel welcome and to avoid clique-formation. (JRO)
Add slightly more structure. Now that the organizers have done it once, they can use it as a template for the next event -- for example, publishing the time slots ahead of time, and actually enforcing them, at least as far as room usage is concerned. Also, I like scheduled ReportOut? sessions. (JRP)

In the postmortem, we talked a bit about what BAR Camp is supposed to be, and I really liked how Chris positioned it: As a model for organizing grassroots, free (or very cheap) alternatives to more expensive gatherings. I'm toying with the idea of incorporating BAR Camp-style alternatives to complement some non-free events I'm organizing. (JRQ)

/events | Posted at 2:21pm

Thu, Sep 08, 2005

Fun Facts #

The Chinese character for "crisis" represents both "danger" and "opportunity." (From DavidBatstone's WAG newsletter and confirmed by PeterYim.) (JQD)

And from GregAharonian's September 7 Internet Patent News Service: (JQE)

Weird statistic (Fortune, 5 Sept., page 42 article): The weight of a mattress will double every ten years because of dead mites inside that had fed on the skin cells you shed while sleeping. (JQF)

/personal | Posted at 11:22am

WikiSym 2005, October 16-18 #

Come to WikiSym 2005 on October 16-18 in SanDiego, California. Held in conjunction with OOPSLA, it's shaping up to be an excellent conference. Along with usual suspects (WardCunningham, JimmyWales), RobertHaas, the former U.S. poet laureate, is keynoting. I'll be moderating a panel on "Wikis in the Consumer Enterprise," with JoeKraus, PeterThoeny, and ThomasWeigert. If you plan on attending, let me know. (JQ3)