OCSI Meeting Synopsis

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

I was in Anaheim yesterday for the Open Collaborative Services Initiative (OCSI, pronounced “oxy”) workshop, which was part of the OMG Technical Meeting. Johannes Ernst, one of the OCSI organizers, invited me to present my manifesto on collaborative tools (which will be published in Dr. Dobb’s Journal and on the Blue Oxen Associates web site).    (WI)

OCSI is an attempt to get collaborative tool vendors to make their tools more interoperable. One of its early goals is to develop a shared architectural blueprint for describing collaborative tools, perhaps initially in the form of a white paper. This has been a refrain of mine for quite some time, and so I was very glad to participate in the group’s second meeting.    (WJ)

As it turned out, there was a tremendous amount of conceptual synergy in the room. I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised. At the beginning of my talk, I explained that one of our beliefs (also known as the The Blue Oxen Way) is that Shared Ontology (which results in Shared Language) is a prerequisite to effective collaboration. OMG is a very strong proponent of Model Driven Architecture, which is essentially an instantiation of Shared Ontology. Not surprisingly, there was universal consensus in the room about developing a shared model of collaboration — both on the human-level (e.g. Blue Oxen‘s work with Pattern Languages) and the system-level (the topic of my manifesto).    (WK)

In his introductory remarks, Johannes made several interesting points:    (WL)

  • The word “collaboration” means many different things to different people. This simply underscores the need for a common vocabulary.    (WM)
  • Collaboration seems to be an “it” topic among CEOs and CIOs. However, as often as they mention collaboration and as important as they claim it is, the collaborative tools market has been flat the past few years. At first, this seems to be a contradiction. However, the number of corporate downloads of free IM clients over the past few years indicates that the need for collaboration is real. One of the problems is that tools are not interoperable enough.    (WN)
  • There is no horizontal industry initiative for improving interoperability of collaborative tools. However, several vertical industries have expressed interest. One of the challenges is to get the different industries to realize that they share common needs so as not to duplicate efforts.    (WO)
  • Johannes chatted with a few tool vendors about this problem. Their response: “That sounds great, but I have a product to get out.” The way to get vendors more serious about interoperability is probably bottoms-up — via the user community.    (WP)
  • In this regard, the Open Source community could play an important role. The prequisite for standards is Shared Language and free implementations. We have the latter, but we don’t have the former. If we created Shared Language and if Open Source tool-builders adopted it, we could build a compelling case for standardization. Johannes feels that it is vital to involve both the proprietary and Open Source communities in the OCSI effort.    (WQ)
  • Collaborative interfaces should be as transparent as telephone numbers. When we see a telephone number, we know what to do, regardless of the underlying service provider, protocol (POTS versus VOIP), type of telephone, etc.    (WR)
  • Cut-and-paste is a type of interoperability between collaborative tools. (A poor one, as I and others noted later in the workshop, but also a relatively effective one — a good example of loose-coupling.)    (WS)

Other talks of note:    (WT)

  • David Hartzband, VP of collaboration technology at , provided a four axes view of collaborative tools: synchronous, asynchronous, inline, and contextual. He also observed two trends in the collaborative tools space: business communications convergence (e.g. telephone integrated with email integrated with your documents, etc.) and enterprise application functional convergence.    (WU)
  • Carol Burt, CEO of 2AB, shared her vision for model-driven access management. Not only could such a model have ramifications for those developing secure applications and those selling security software, it could also potentially plug in to an OCSI model for collaborative tools.    (WV)

At the end of the workshop, Joaquin Miller (the other OCSI co-organizer) led a discussion about the next steps within the OMG umbrella. The consensus seemed to be to propose the formation of an OMG SIG, which could potentially evolve into an OMG Task Force. Not being an OMG member myself, the conversation both baffled and fascinated me at the same time. Nevertheless, the folks there seemed to know what they were talking about, which is always an excellent sign.    (WW)

The next meeting will be at the next OMG Technical Meeting in St. Louis next April. We’ll continue to collaborate via an eRoom set up by David and via the OCSI web site. Our action item for now is to share our individual high-level models of collaborative tools in order to identify commonalities and to serve as straw men for additional discussion.    (WX)

Culture Clash, Shared Language, and Story Telling

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Speaking of names, a recent Newsday article on Viggo Mortensen, who plays Aragorn in the Lord of the Ring trilogy, notes that Danish people find his name:    (KK)

“Corny?” he says. “Yeah, I know. It would be like being called Oscar. Or Otto. It’s an old name. A really, really old name. And a little bit corny. Like Oswald or something …”    (KL)

Elmer?    (KM)

“Yeah! Elmer. Yeah,” Mortensen says. “I think there’s a comic strip in Denmark, a Dennis the Menace character, and his name is Viggo. He’s all over the place.”    (KN)

Names are a great example of how our different cultural backgrounds can make Shared Language challenging. There are many great examples of brand names gone wrong because they mean something obscene in other languages.    (KO)

When we first started discussing patterns of collaboration at Blue Oxen Associates, I identified casual social interaction as an important pattern, and I called it Water Cooler. Shinya Yamada, a collaboratory member based in Japan, had no idea why I chose that name. Shinya had worked in the U.S. before, so he understood my explanation. He also noted that he had never seen a water cooler in a Japanese office before, and that — unlike in the States — casual social interaction with strangers in the office was unusual.    (KP)

Another great example of the challenges of Shared Language cropped up at the GivingSpace workshop in San Francisco last Thursday. Six of us were discussing small, concrete steps that lead to transformation, and Heather Newbold described how Matt Gonzalez for Mayor campaign buttons had galvanized the progressive community in San Francisco. Four of us knew exactly what Heather was describing, because we lived in the Bay Area and followed local politics. All she had to do was mention the buttons, and we understood what she meant. The other two people at our table, however, had no idea what we were talking about. One was from San Diego, and the other simply didn’t follow politics.    (KQ)

Language itself is not enough. Telling stories is what makes language shared.    (KR)

George Lakoff on Shared Language and the Rockridge Institute

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George Lakoff, professor of linguistics and cognitive sciences at U.C. Berkeley, is an intellectual whose work I have admired for several years now. He is the author of many books, including Philosophy in the Flesh and Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think.    (AD)

My friend Alex brought an interview with Lakoff to my attention. Lakoff, along with seven other professors from Berkeley and U.C. Davis, recently founded the Rockridge Institute, a progressive think tank.    (AE)

One of Rockridge’s goal is to develop a shared “moral language,” and to unify progressives around that language. In the interview, Lakoff explains how conservatives invested heavily in infrastructure beginning in the 1970s, creating a network of think tanks, scholars, and media outlets devoted to pushing a conservative ideology and agenda. The result was a shared language that framed public issues from a conservative perspective.    (AF)

Lakoff wants to do the same for progressives. He says:    (AG)

The background for Rockridge is that conservatives, especially conservative think tanks, have framed virtually every issue from their perspective. They have put a huge amount of money into creating the language for their worldview and getting it out there. Progressives have done virtually nothing. Even the new Center for American Progress, the think tank that John Podesta [former chief of staff for the Clinton administration] is setting up, is not dedicated to this at all. I asked Podesta who was going to do the Center’s framing. He got a blank look, thought for a second and then said, “You!” Which meant they haven’t thought about it at all. And that’s the problem. Liberals don’t get it. They don’t understand what it is they have to be doing.    (AH)

Rockridge’s job is to reframe public debate, to create balance from a progressive perspective. It’s one thing to analyze language and thought, it’s another thing to create it. That’s what we’re about. It’s a matter of asking ‘What are the central ideas of progressive thought from a moral perspective?’    (AI)

Lakoff cites several examples of how conservatives have framed language to subvert public opinion. For example, “tax relief” implies that taxation is an affliction from which we should be relieved. However, taxes could also be viewed as the enabler for what makes this country great. They enable our infrastructure, they fund research that leads to innovations, they cover law enforcement and defense, they preserve our national parks. We ought to be patriotic about paying taxes! The problem is that the conservatives have taken the initiative in framing the language for public issues, and progressives are playing into their hands by using their language.    (AJ)

A Shared Language for Collaboration and Communities    (AK)

Developing Shared Language is a fundamental prerequisite for effective collaboration, and it is one of Blue Oxen Associates‘ primary goals. The Lakoff interview does a beautiful job of explaining why language is so important for framing ideas and unifying a community.    (AL)

One of my aha moments while working with Doug Engelbart on Bootstrap Alliance was that there were many, many people out there working on essentially the same thing. Most of these folks were blissfully unaware of others, but when they learned of each other’s existence, nothing would happen. They couldn’t figure out how to work with each other. The problems were that there was no Shared Language to begin with, and that there was no motivation to develop that Shared Language. Lakoff touches upon the reason for the latter: People simply don’t appreciate the importance of Shared Language.    (AM)

I’ve mentioned MGTaylor many times in this blog. Blue Oxen Associates has partnered with Tomorrow Makers, an MGTaylor spinoff, on one of its initiatives. MGTaylor’s facilitation process begins with a series of exercises designed to develop shared language among the group. The process often frustrates participants, because they feel like they’re not “doing anything,” or they’re not being productive. The reality is, without going through that stage, it is impossible for groups to accomplish anything or to be productive. Most participants realize this in the end. Shared Language is what makes collaboration possible.    (AN)

Hillside Group Annual Meeting

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

I attended lots of great meetings and talks over the past two weeks. I’m going to start posting some notes and observations in reverse chronological order.    (9I)

Last Thursday and Friday, I attended the Hillside Group‘s annual post-OOPSLA meeting, held at the Anaheim Sheraton in Southern California. Richard Gabriel, president of the Hillside Group and one of our advisory board members, and Dirk Riehle, Hillside Group‘s treasurer, invited me to attend.    (9J)

The Hillside Community    (9K)

My parents recently moved to Irvine, which is about 20 minutes south of Anaheim, so I’m always looking for opportunites to go down south and visit. But that’s not why I wanted to attend this meeting. Regular readers of this blog know that Pattern Languages are central to Blue Oxen Associates‘ strategy for understanding and improving collaboration and communities. This is why I asked Richard Gabriel to join our advisory board in the first place, and is ultimately why I wanted to attend this meeting.    (9L)

Hillside Group was founded a decade ago by a bunch of software engineers (including Gabriel, the Gang of Four, and several other gurus in the field) in order to figure out how to write pattern languages for software design. The group hosts several Pattern Languages of Programs (PLoP) conferences every year, which are loosely modeled on writers’ workshops.    (9M)

When a bunch of engineers model their conferences on writers’ workshops, you know that they’re not your run-of-the-mill geeks. When these same engineers are intimately familiar with the works of architect Christopher Alexander, you know that they’re definitely not your run-of-the-mill geeks.    (9N)

All of this was evident throughout the meeting. Those in attendance (about 40 people) were thoughtful and highly self-reflective. Many of them had written books, and many more are writing books. More than anything, I was delighted to see the quality of meta-thinking within the group and a general inclination for action. These are folks who have recognized that Pattern Languages are a wonderful tool that can be applied to many other things besides software design, and have done exactly that. For example, the Hillside Group has a pattern language for shepherding (mentoring new writers), patterns for Pattern Mining, etc.    (9O)

I was struck by the group’s overall camraderie and openness. The interaction was light, easy-going, and usually accompanied by laughter. Shared Language was strongly evident. When meetings were about to begin, self-described group “den mother” Linda Rising would shout, “Group sneeze!” Everyone would stop in their tracks, shout “Hishi,” “Hashi,” or “Hoshi,” and then there would be silence.    (9P)

Hillside Group felt like a community with QWAN. This was not totally unexpected, given that Hillside Group is one of the few communities that are familiar with the term “QWAN.” In addition to being a valuable repository of knowledge about pattern languages in general, Hillside Group is a community worth studying.    (9Q)

Odds and Ends    (9R)

A topic that came up throughout the meeting was how to better leverage asynchronous tools for collaboration. The consensus was that the face-to-face meetings were extremely important and valuable, but that they could be made more efficient with the right tools. One of the key problems raised was that face-to-face meetings often generated a great amount of energy that promptly dissipated once the meetings adjourned and people went back to their busy lives. I think about this problem constantly. I’ve touched on it briefly in a previous blog entry, and hope to discuss it more soon.    (9S)

A tool idea that came out of this discussion was “Cyber Shepherd.” Inspired by Cyber Chair, a tool for managing the conference submissions and review process, Cyber Shepherd would be a tool for managing the pattern language submission and shepherding process.    (9T)

Husband and wife team Tracy Bialik and Russ Rufer introduced the Silicon Valley Patterns Group, which meets twice (!) a week to discuss software patterns. The group has been going on strong for five (!) years. I plan on attending one of their meetings when I return to the Bay Area, but it already seems to be a very good candidate for studying sustainable grassroots communities.    (9U)

Hanyuda Eiiti, a leading Japanese advocate of software patterns, entertained the group with his “Pattern Dance,” a live enactment of the MVC pattern.    (9V)

I got a chance to chat for a bit with Ralph Johnson, one of the Gang of Four, who explained how the Design Patterns book came about, and how Christopher Alexander‘s ideas began seeping into this community. I’ll post tidbits of that story here when the opportunity arises, and I hope to write a full-length article about this at some point.    (9W)

Mailing List Etiquette and Experimentation

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

I’ve been an e-mail user for over 10 years, and a mailing list and USENET user for just about as long, so I have strong beliefs about proper mailing list etiquette. That puts me in an interesting position as a participant in the Blue Oxen Collaboratories. On the one hand, these collaboratories are supposed to be shining examples of high-performance collaboration. On the other hand, they’re also supposed to be testbeds for experimentation and coevolution.    (8K)

Sometimes, people use the lists in ways that conflict with my inner sense of etiquette. However, etiquette is a form of social constraint, and if we forget why we find these constraints valuable, our sense of etiquette can impede collaboration.    (8L)

The collaboratories are a perfect place to have metadiscussions about this sort of behavior as it happens, but unfortunately, it’s hard for me to participate or initiate those discussions. Because of my position at Blue Oxen Associates, my commentary can be perceived as law rather than opinion, and I don’t want that to be the case.    (8M)

That, of course, is the reason for this blog — for me to WhineInPrivate in public. Which leads me to today’s topic.    (8N)

Cross-Posting    (8O)

The impetus for this entry was a discussion this morning with Andrius Kulikauskas, who called me all the way from Lithuania. Andrius founded the Minciu Sodas laboratory, which is similar in spirit to Blue Oxen Associates, and he actively participates in our collaboratories.    (8P)

One thing that Andrius does often is cross-post across different forums and mailing lists. I’m not a big fan of cross-posting, but I think there are times when it’s appropriate. The problems are:    (8Q)

  • List participation is often restricted to participants, largely as a way to avoid spam. As a result, people will not necessarily see responses to cross-posts, and it can result in stilted and confusing discussion.    (8R)
  • There is a force at work within effective communities: Know Your Audience. People behave differently depending on their audience, as well they should. You may know the audiences of the lists to which you are cross-posting, but the different members of each list may not, and that will affect how or whether they respond.    (8S)

Andrius and I discussed this a bit over the phone. One of his rationales for cross-posting is that it builds awareness of other communities, and that it encourages interconnectedness. I definitely believe in the former, but I’m not so sure about the latter. Simply knowing that a community exists certainly enables interconnectedness at some level, but cross-posting could also discourage interconnectedness. If there is no Shared Language on the different lists, cross-posts can unintentionally lead to further balkanization of communities.    (8T)

I’m not a big fan of cross-posting, but I tolerate it, and for good reason. When Andrius did it, it forced me to think very hard about why I disliked it. That helped me understand the reason for my feelings, and it also helped me think through some half-baked ideas. For example, when you consider the benefits of cross-posting, it’s clear that the technical balkanization of mailing lists caused by restricting participation to subscribers can be a very bad thing. One advantage with USENET newsgroups or web-based forums is that you don’t have this balkanization. On the other hand, these forums are susceptible to spam. I’m certain there is a technical solution to this problem, although I don’t know what it is yet.    (8U)

Off-Topic Postings    (8V)

A great example of where etiquette can be overly enforced is off-topic postings. I’ve noticed that on some lists, moderators are tyrannical about keeping discussion on-topic. While I understand the reasoning, being too extreme about this can do more harm than good. The nature of online spaces is different from face-to-face spaces, and the former is a more tolerant space for divergent ramblings than the latter. I wrote some thoughts on this in an earlier entry.    (8W)

Another reason for tolerating some off-topic discussions is the Water Cooler pattern. Communities are more effective when people have shared experiences, and informal socializing is a great way for identifying or creating these experiences. Several months ago, there was a discussion about local restaurants on the San Francisco Perl User Group mailing list. This clearly had no relevance to Perl, but it was very interesting, and no one complained. In fact, the original poster asked for recommendations off-list, and several people e-mailed him asking to post the responses on-list instead.    (8X)