GrowingPains

My music communities

Among my research interests are tool systems. I want to know how (communities of) users combine different tools to support complex workflows, often leading to usage patterns very different from those originally intended by the tool designers. Earlier, I gave an example of how we used a combination of tools to help us in the difficult collaborative process of writing a call for papers.

A very different example is how I am using three different tools to build a collection of my favourite songs on the Web. Already for quite a while I have been a subscriber to Last.Fm, the “social music revolution” site. This site allows you to enter an artist, tag or username. A music stream is then dynamically generated, often starting with a song from, for example, the artist you entered, to be followed by many other songs from related artists.

Last.Fm is a great way to learn about new music, so it builds my list of interesting artists. It does not help you to retrieve that one song you are craving to hear right at this moment, however. Other tools are better suited for this, one of them being Songza. This tool allows you, Google style, to just enter a string and then gives you all the versions of songs of which the artist name or song title match the string (It is also great for parties: last Saturday, I had some friends over to play a board game. We had my mini laptop next to us on the table, and in between making moves on the board, we took turns selecting our favourite songs, together acting as a kind of “distributed DJ”)!

One nice feature of Songza is that you can save a playlist (it would be much better to be able to save multiple playlists, but as the tool is still being developed, this may soon be realized). Unfortunately, I am one of those sorry souls who have a notoriously bad memory for song titles, so how am I to fill that playlist with the songs that have touched my heart?

Here, another tool has come to the rescue. Actually, it is a regular website, but I informally define any piece of functionality that serves an individual or community purpose as a tool (see also the article I wrote with Mark Aakhus: Argumentation Support - From Technologies to Tools). The website is the Dutch National Top 2000 site. It contains the top 2000 songs as voted by listeners from all over the country, and is broadcast at the end of every year. My recipe was to browse the songs, select the ones that triggered a remnant of a musical memory, then looked up the title on Songza, and added it to my playlist there.  The result, an (emerging) playlist of my golden oldie favourites.

Interesting from a community perspective is that, even though my playlist is about as personal as it gets (I don’t blame you if you never want to talk to me anymore having seen some of my favourites :-)), it could only have been generated by the efforts and intersection of three huge online music communities. They not only supply the content (Last.Fm and Songza), but also the relevance measures for that content through community members discussing and voting for their favourites.

It is fascinating to ponder how all these different individual and community levels paradoxically mix and mingle to provide me with my ultimate personal listening experience. If this isn't a telling example of how every person is shaped by his community (or rather, communities)...

Simple is beautiful

Since yesterday, I am the happy owner of an Asus Eee laptop. No, it's not yet another machine with more cycles, megabytes, and features. Rather, the philosophy is "less is more". My version is the 4G-SURF: it has only a 7" display, 512 Mb RAM, and 4 Gb (solid state) harddisk. However, the beauty is exactly in these limitations. It's ultra-portable because of its low weight and comes pre-installed with Linux and a whole range of open source Internet and office applications, including OpenOffice. Look here for some useful links. 

EEE stands for “Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play”. Interestingly, Asus seems to have learnt a lesson or two from the "One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)" project. The basic idea of that project is that as many children as possible in developing countries should get a cheap laptop, as this would be a crucial catalyst for improving their education and work prospects. There has been a lot of criticism of this project, see for example the recent discussion on the Community Informatics researchers mailing list. One main critique is that spending money on relatively still expensive equipment and the required supporting technical infrastructure would not necessarily be the best investment to help local communities bootstrap themselves.

The jury still being out on the value of OLPC, it is fascinating to see, however, the second-order effects  on major for-profit companies. These are starting to realize that real user needs are not necessarily satisfied by the usual "more complex software-requires more complex hardware-enables more complex software" cycle that has been promoted so heavily and for such a long time by the "Microsoft/Intel-ial complex". The feasibility of this philosophy has been proven by the fact that Asus has totally underestimated  the demand for its EEE subnotebooks.  Other vendors are now also starting to jump onto the bandwagon. Although they seem to be pushing Asus to go (somewhat) more complex again, overall, there is a pressure for vendors to take a "simple is beautiful" strategy much more seriously. As I already wrote years ago, we need less tools, more process, and this -healthy- back to the basics-development seems to fit right in.

Portals as Community Hubs

The main project I have been working on since last September is as the leader of the implementation of the student web portal of Tilburg University. It is interesting to be back here, this time in a very different role. Whereas as a student and scientist I was always thinking analytically about information systems development, I am now in the trenches trying to make these systems actually work, a very different ball game!

The original project assignment was quite a different one from the current mission. The initial idea was to build and deliver a portal consisting of a number of predefined portlets (channels to applications). These included portlets like My Week Schedule, My Exam Schedule, University News, Webmail, and so on. Through the portal, these applications are to be accessed from a single location, with a single sign on. The list was compiled by a committee in a preceding project, based on student surveys and a thorough analysis of goals and available resources.

Although such a well thought-through list is a prerequisite for a successful portal, it is not a sufficient condition. Rather than being a frozen technical system, a portal is a living socio-technical system.  It is a catalyst for the building of relations between people, applications, and business processes. Much more than a static, hierarchical model, a lateral, evolutionary model should guide the development of a portal. A portal is never finished, but needs to continuously grow in requirements and functionalities, driven by the real needs of the end users, in this case, students, while being constrained by technical and organizational realities.

Having been fully immersed in this process for half a year now, and still to go on for half a year more, it is surprising how much time and effort is needed not only in building technology, but in identifying stakeholders and aligning their needs, preferences, and interests. Not only students, but also the technologists and the owners of the applications and information resources to which the portal links need to have their say. Legitimacy is therefore all-important, as every decision can affect the ways of working of so many in the organization. In fact, the portal project is all about building for a community with a community. More about how we approach this from a community perspective in a later post.

Back in business

Since last August, this blog has been silent. This does not mean that I have been out of action, far from it. Since the fall, I have been very busy with two contracts, both at Tilburg University. My main contract is as a project manager for the implementation of a student portal, the other one concerns assisting in the development of a blended learning videoconferencing system for law students doing their internships at different law firms in the Netherlands (see picture).

It's been a very busy half year, in which I have learned a tremendous amount. All of these years in academia have provided me with many high-level ideas and contacts, which I can put to surprisingly good use in my current work in the trenches. It is fascinating to see how trying to design and build real, useful systems, instead of just esoteric lab prototypes, helps in galvanizing thought, and, I am convinced, ultimately also in producing better theory. My scientific background helps me in capturing wicked (design) problems as socio-technical system puzzles. The complexity and pressure of real-world implementation, on the other hand, forces me to see much more clearly the intricate relations between relevant theoretical concepts, which often remain hidden in academic thought exercises.

One reason I left academia was that I strongly believe that community informatics requires a design science, in which theory gets injected into the design and implementation of actual systems, covering the full range from initial prototypes to large-scale systems-in-use, to be tested, refined, and reimplemented continuously. Unfortunately, the insane publication pressure in universities increasingly does not provide researchers with enough time and resources to go beyond the scantiest of implementations, and thus the adequate testing of their (design) theories. This is a very worrisome development, as it creates an ever widening gap between theory and practice, whereas they should be regarded as two sides of the same coin.

As I have stated before, my mission with CommunitySense is to be a linking pin between academia and practice , a conviction which has only grown stronger now that I have been in business for a while. To be continued...

The Summer of '93: The Struggle for Clayoquot Sound

In 1993, the 'Clayoquot Land Use Decision' was made by the British Columbia provincial government to permit the logging of the majority of the remaining old growth forest in Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island. Protestors engaged in a massive campaign of peaceful civil disobedience, including blocking access to logging sites, which resulted in over 850 arrests. Most of these people were sentenced for criminal contempt of court, a serious charge which meant that they got a criminal record. Many claim this was one of the blackest periods in modern Canadian justice.

I was there during this memorable "Summer of '93". It has been a formative experience in my life, seeing a grassroots community emerge of people from all walks of life, professions, and political views, together effectively fighting an unjust decision despite all the differences and strong opposition. The incredible "sense of community" I experienced then has inspired me ever since and has made me go into the field of community informatics.

While there, I took photos of what was happening. They paint a dramatic picture of community activism in the making, which may inspire other communities struggling to - peacefully - change policies they think ought to be changed. So far, these pictures have been gathering dust in a photo album. However, I finally found the time to digitize them and put them on the Web, in the following categories:

1. Forests
2. Logging Practices
3. Blockade (logging road)
4. Demonstrations (Victoria, provincial capital)

You can access the pictures in the following locations:

- As a Wikimedia Commons Gallery:

http://tinyurl.com/29qb2k

- As a Slide.Com slideshow

http://tinyurl.com/ypxj5k

Besides being a source of inspiration, I consider these pictures a tribute to the people who had the courage to be arrested because of a societal cause they strongly believed in. Please distribute the links and pictures widely to whomever might benefit.

References

Clayoquot Sound (Wikipedia)
Friends of Clayoquot Sound
Clayoquot and Dissent, Ronsdale Press, Vancouver, 1994. ISBN 0-921870-29-9
MacIsaac, R. and Champagne, A. (eds.), Clayoquot Mass Trials - Defending the Rainforest, New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, B.C., 1994. ISBN 0-86571-321-9

 

Communities & Technologies 2007

I am about to leave Lansing, Michigan, where I have attended the 3rd International Conference on Communities & Technologies. I also attended the first edition in Amsterdam in 2003, and the second conference in Milan in 2005. C & T 2007 was a very successful event, with up to 200 people attending, about two thirds from the US, the rest mainly from Europe. Unfortunately, not many people from the South, as far as that is concerned the CIRN conferences in Prato and Cape Town have been much more balanced.

It kind of comes with the nature of both conferences, I guess: C & T is much more about the (academic/industry view on) community technologies, CIRN more about the "soft" socio/political/process side of community development. In that sense, both conferences nicely complement one another. It would be advisable for both communities to have stronger links, though, as they could really learn from and feed into one another. For example, people are thinking of starting an e-journal on communities & technologies. A great initiative, but I think it should be aligned with the existing Journal of Community Informatics to make sure both journals complement, rather than compete. Only a few people attending the Prato conferences were here, that number should go up in the future (and vice versa, of course)! To get an idea of what you missed, check out the conference program. Also, the full proceedings of the 2003 and 2005 conferences are available online, to be followed by the 2007 proceedings.

It is impossible for me to summarize the content of the papers presented, rich and diverse as they were. However, a running theme was that Web 2.0 technologies are finally breaking through in the mainstream: Facebook, Last.Fm, avatars, social accounting, visualizations, implicit online communities, communication, collective action through Web 2.0 technologies, and so on. Refreshing of this conference was that the contributions and discussion went beyond the surface-level Web 2.0 hype, instead focusing on the deep questions, issues, and technologies, and methods for mixing and matching all of these. We even used a, still rather quirky, but quite effective Web 2.0 tool by IntroNetworks to get to know each other before the conference.

One particular intriguing idea was proposed by Marc Smith from Microsoft Research, who proposed the concept of the "thread-o-sphere", in analogy with the "blogosphere". Marc claims that this overall conversational web on the Internet is orders of magnitude bigger than the blogosphere, but has so far been understudied. I tend to agree.

There seems to an intriguing paradox developing in our field: although the number of tools, web services and so on seems to explode, at the same time the medium or tool itself seems to matter less and less: it's all about much more permanent processes, structures, and networks weaving themselves on top of the tools-of-the day. All the more reason to keep working on socio-technical systems research that goes beyond the technologies themselves, instead looking at the bigger picture of how systems of tools can be used in the context of their specific communities of use.

From Outcast to Webcast

On May 14, I gave a talk at the Knowledge Media Institute in Milton Keynes, UK. It was an extended version of the presentation of the paper "A Socio-Technical Approach for Topic Community Member Selection" which I wrote with Anjo Anjewierden and will present at the Communities & Technologies 2007 conference in Michigan late June. See Anjo's blog for some details on the content of the paper. I will write more about that after the feedback from the conference.

KMI is an impressive institute, very well equipped and with a vibrant team of about 60 researchers. Like the Telematica Instituut in the Netherlands, they seem to be very much on top of the latest ICTs, while having a keen eye for the importance of the social context in which these technologies are to operate.   

It was my first webcast talk. Cool technology, the archives of all these seminars are a most valuable resource for global collaboration and creating more egalitarian research starting conditions. I still remember when I was doing my master's project at the Agricultural University of Malaysia in 1991. There was only one e-mail connection to the outside world at the time, never mind that there was no serious Web, and the most recent accessible journals in the library were years old. It took me a long time to get up to speed after I returned to the Netherlands, since I had not been able to ground my practical findings in the latest insights. After all these years, my awe for what the Internet is achieving, literally bit-by-bit, in terms of truly, deeply transforming society, is still only growing.

True, the Digital Divide is there and needs to be taken seriously. However, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater and acknowledge that ever more people in the periphery are starting to get empowered, and are becoming able to make a difference. "From Outcast to Webcast" might be a nice motto for this "socio-technical undercurrent" that is starting to pull ever more strongly!

The Growth of the Pragmatic Web

In an earlier post, I explained the importance of the Pragmatic Web as a concept to model the effective use of numerous web resources by communities.

From 21-23 September, 2006, the First International Pragmatic Web Conference was held in Germany at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart. Being one of the chairs, it was an especially exciting event for me. The conference was superbly hosted by Mareike Schoop and her team. To give an indication of the warm hospitality extended: we were welcomed by the rector in the magnificent Balkonsaal of the 18th century pleasure palace Schloss Hohenheim, now in use by the university. A truly grand start of what hopefully is going to be a new paradigm which will put the usefulness of web resources first.

For three days, we had a stimulating meeting of minds, both professionally and after hours. When conceiving PragWeb as the new initiative of the Language/Action Perspective research community in 2005, we set ourselves the goal to break out of our theoretical LAP communication modeling confines. Mission accomplished, since we attracted submissions from a number of additional fields that should contribute to the formation of the new paradigm: the Semantic Web, conceptual structures, argumentation theory and support, software engineering, and CSCW, to name a few. For a first edition we were very happy with the quantity and quality of participants (around 30).

Most participants did their best to relate their own research topic to the unifying ideas of the Pragmatic Web. Both the concept and its translation into the various disciplines still needs a lot of work, but some contours were becoming visible. In short, PragWeb is about the context of use of web technologies in general and formal semantics in particular: how to make good use of such web technologies and representations in real-world human and (inter)organizational communities-of-use? Issues of modeling goals, communication processes, context, and applications and designing the socio-technical systems that best match these community and individual goals are at the heart of PragWeb research.

The next edition of the conference, PragWeb 2007 is on its way. A Pragmatic Web mailing list and a permanent community portal have been created. These are important necessary conditions for the emergence of a strong and lively PragWeb community. Given the enthusiasm of the participants in last year's conference, and the many excellent ideas brought forward during presentations and the discussions, I am confident that PragWeb has an excellent future.

Towards the end of the conference, we had a plenary discussion  about where to go with the Pragmatic Web. Here are the notes I took on some of the key questions asked:

• What are the different research streams touching in PragWeb?
  •     LAP
  •     argumentation theory
  •     ontology/knowledge engineering, conceptual structures, SemWeb
  •     software engineering
  •     CSCW
  •       critiques of formal models
  •       contribute to pragmatics of formal models
  •     ...
•   Why focus so much on business interactions in PragWeb description?
  •     the meaning really is any collaboration of people in order to achieve something, not business in the commercial sense
  •     focus on organizational, cultural backgrounds
  •       e.g. student-professor interactions
•   Why Pragmatic Web?
  •     pragmatics is really an issue of context
  •       very slippery, hard to model
  •     two notions
  •       working in practice
  •       semiotic
  •         syntactic, semantic, pragmatic
  •     building on 'Semantic Web'?
  •       we are not just looking at pragmatics, the Web is a central focus
  •       application, intention, use, context of SemWeb
  •       does it build on SemWeb? Or does it build on the idea of the Web itself?
  •        maybe we should not so much just extend the SemWeb,  approach, but also develop other approaches, e.g. service-oriented computing?
  •         Web 2.0: how to get that community into PragWeb?
  •         should we embrace the whole Web,  isn't it better to be more focused (i.e. SemWeb)?
  •           we need to focus on intentions, shared background, norms, context, ontologies...
  •           still in favour of grounding on SemWeb
  •             We don't need to reinvent the wheel, when starting from SemWeb we can skip many problems. Of course, not exclusively, but at least start from there
  •             SemWeb is already moving into Web 2.0, e.g. 'social semantic desktop'.
  •               we could reinterpret state of the art of this research using our communication/context modeling theories and methods
  •             However, danger of jumping on that funding opportunity bandwagon
  •               there are also theoretical limitations of SemWeb
  •               We should provide a forum for people who understand power of formal semantics, but who are also interested in human aspects of collaboration, communication, etc.
  •               If (just) focusing on SemWeb, PragWeb could run out of steam because the issues are much bigger than (Sem)Web
  •                 We should grow other roots as well
•   Ontology, isn't that too restricting as a focus?
  •     we all use ontologies
  •     if you have too broad an interpretation, maybe the word ontology loses its meaning
  •     context is the real issue, ontology is a means, not an end
  •     ontology is fine, as long as you define your interpretation of it
•   How are we going to build the PragWeb community?
  •     branding, attracting business
  •     many people are aware of limitations of SemWeb
  •       PragWeb is going to solve part of those problems
  •       PragWeb plays with name of SemWeb
  •     size
  •       definitely, the community is expected to grow
  •       industry track can play an important role

The Making of CommunitySense

It's been long, way too long since my last post. The good news is that I am back, and with a vengeance! The past year has been a soul-searching time for me. Basically, all my working life I spent in academia. It has been a most valuable experience, allowing me to develop a rich set of ideas, and to meet many wonderful, committed, and creative people from all over the world through conferences and research visits.

However, academic life has also been frustrating. The, unfortunately ever increasing, obsessive publication and project acquisition pressure in universities made it increasingly difficult for me to balance work and life and to focus my efforts where my heart lies: the development of community applications that make a meaningful contribution to society.

I have therefore taken the bold step to leave academia, and start my own research consultancy company, CommunitySense. My mission is to be a linking pin between academic researchers and practitioners in the rapidly advancing field of community informatics, and to translate state-of-the-art research insights into practical solutions that work.

Right now, I am still on a sabbatical, recharging my batteries and laying the groundwork for my company. My plan is for CommunitySense to become fully operational in the fall. I am looking forward to this new step in my career, and to use the freedom of my new status to be even better able to work towards the realization of the dedication of my Ph.D. thesis, which I wrote in 1999:

To all the people
Working together
To make our only planet Earth
A better world

For more information on my experience and interests, see the CommunitySense website.

I Have a Dream...

Modern information and communication technologies have brought a lot of good to the world. However, one thing they definitely do not promote is the ability to concentrate oneself on thinking Deep Thoughts. Gone are the days that letters took forever to arrive, and one could, for lack of disturbance or perhaps  even out of sheer boredom, focus oneself on thinking things through, working on that One Idea for years on end. Increasingly,  the electronically-mediated rat race forces one to push paper, pardon me, forward e-mails, at ever increasing speeds. Dozens of projects, hundreds of meetings, what happened to the Time To Think?! Somehow, in myself, in many friends and colleagues, and in society at large, I sense the urgency to be able to get away from it all, to stop the madness, in order to get that book written, that theory clearly outlined, or simply being able to glue all the chaotic conceptual fragments whirling around in one's head into something that makes sense again. Somehow, we need to reclaim our space to reflect.

Easier said than done. At work, time to think deeply does not exist anymore. At home, there are too many distractions by family, friends, or colleagues from work who assume you're not really unavailable... Of course, holidays are an option, but mass-tourism destinations, with all the stress of multitudes of people, finding your way around, and building up some rudimentary form of social life, are not really suitable as well.

My best thinking, growing the roots for my current line of research, I have done while living the happy, simple life on remote islands off the Malaysian coast and in the mighty forests of Canada. Now, those semi/post-student days are definitely gone. I do not have the luxury anymore to wander around for weeks and months before discovering those magnificent places and getting established there. Still, I would love to get back into such a mentally-enriching context, but in a more efficient way than in those good old days.

My dream for many years has been to be able to spend a couple of months a year on such a remote location, doing my thinking and main writing there, then return to 'The World' to work out these ideas, and keep my projects and contacts going. Instead of losing this dream as I am growing older and wiser, it has only become stronger! There are really big thoughts inside of me, but I do need the mental peace to be able to formulate them that work and home do not provide. Recently, my sense of urgency got stronger, when I read about the very original TribeWanted project. The aim of this project is to get 5,000 people together who can spend part of the year on a Fijian island, creating a partially physical, partially online community. Although it conjures up romantic images of bounty islands, working in the mornings, lazing about in the afternoon, and partying at night, it does not quite work for my purpose. First of all: it is very expensive, both in getting to Fiji and in membership fees. Second, it is massive: there are too many people involved. Third, it requires one to commit oneself to one particular community in one geographical location. What we need to get the 'Freedom to Philosophize'-project going is something different, however.

Here are some ideas:

• What we need is a network of Thinking Locations all over the world with very flexible conditions. Thinkers need to be able to select a location that is closeby, far away, stay for only a couple of days, or for many months, come back to the same location over and over again, or select a different one each time, and so on.
• The locations should take away as much as possible the logistical burdens normally involved when travelling: transportation, utilities (including Internet), meals, and so on should all be taken care off as much as possible. No luxury needed, but basic necessities need to be covered.
• The locations should provide simple, but comfortable lodging, with enough privacy, quiet, and natural scenery to maximize the space for and quality of reflection. Internet should be available on site, but not necessarily in each room, so as to allow for the necessary information retrieval and e-mailing to be done, but to also legitimately be able to say that connectivity is limited, to keep bosses, friends, and family where they belong: far away.
• The locations could be provided by existing bed and breakfasts, people living out there in the middle of nowhere, or by individuals who like to meet creative people working on interesting, innovative projects. A precondition is that the lodging is affordable , easy to reach by public transport, or through some other affordable arrangement. The main goal is not to get pampered with luxury, but to be able to have longer-term stays in relative isolation, without having to worry too much about the financial expense.
• The social component is very important, and perhaps one of the unique aspect of such a Deep Thought-network: thinkers need on the one hand to be able to concentrate, focus, and withdraw from the world. On the other hand, they very much need to be able to talk with kindred spirits, preferably people working on their own creative projects. Still, there needs to be a mutual understanding that the main goal is to find concentration, so that, yes, there is ample opportunity for conversation and having a beer, but, no, it is not Club Med where partying is the main activity.

Could we build such a Thinking Community? I think it should be feasible. I have talked to many friends about it, and they are all very enthusiastic about starting such a network. All we would initially need is a simple set of principles that all members of this community agree upon, like the ones listed above; some initial requesters and suppliers of good thinking locations to test out and refine the principles; and some web portal where people offering and asking for locations can meet, discuss, and evolve the idea. 

Do you share my and many other desperately-seeking thinkers' dream? Join us in making it come true! The world could be a better place if all that creative power finally gets a chance to be unleashed...