Thinking Out Loud (and Iteratively) Is Hard

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

On January 2, I wrote:

Last year, I only wrote five posts on this blog, my fewest ever. It wasn’t for lack of material, and it wasn’t even because I didn’t have enough time. I did lots of journaling and drawing, I just did most of it in private.

…

I want to re-adjust…. I want to think out loud a lot more, especially about my work, while also still sharing the occasional personal tidbits.

Today is February 14. This is my seventh blog post of the year, which means that after 45 days, I have already published more than I did all of last year. I’m doing great! (I’m not just saying this. I truly feel this way.)

And, I’m struggling.

On the personal side (i.e. this blog), I have a bunch of half-written posts and notes. As far as I’m concerned, many of them are almost good enough to share, but that last bit of effort is still work, and I just haven’t been able to get there. I either need to make a tiny bit more space, or I need to re-frame my standards.

I’m really struggling on the professional side. I have some drafts that I’ve been working on for many months (in one case, for multiple years). I also have some posts that are almost ready to go. I co-wrote one of them with another person, which helped a lot. But I’m also trying to shave too many yaks, which is creating a bottleneck. I managed to force myself to publish something last week, which was not only relatively painless, but also got a nice response. However, I find myself stuck again.

I don’t want to overthink this. I’m doing great right now, and I’m probably not too far from getting over the hump. (Writing this is helping me.) But I’m realizing (to my surprise) that I’m suffering from a bit of performance anxiety. It’s all mindset. I wouldn’t say my audience today is much bigger than it was, say, 10 years ago. In fact, you could make a pretty good, data-driven case that it’s smaller. It’s less about size, more about self-perception, I think — vanity if I’m being honest. Somehow, it all feels higher stakes to me.

This is all good. It will help me be more empathetic when I’m helping others work more transparently and iteratively. And it’s a good reminder that it’s all about practice. Once I get some more reps in, I’m sure it will all get easier again. Let’s see.

Spiel und Leik

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Two of my most excellent German-speaking associates (who also happen to be doing some of the best Wiki work in the world), Alex Schroeder and Christoph Sauer, responded to my recent question about German words for “play”:    (L9W)

MarkOehlert had a wonderful response to this. There are apparently two words for “play” in German. (I know one is “Spiel.” Can someone tell me the other?) One meaning of “play” describes the looseness that allows a wheel to turn. If there isn’t enough play, the wheel won’t turn. This latter meaning of play can be easier to rationalize in the workplace.  T    (L9X)

According to both Alex and Christoph, Spiel is used for both contexts of “play.” Christoph offered these examples:    (L9Y)

Das Rad hat zuwenig spiel. (“The wheel is not loose enough to turn” — spiel is used as a verb.)    (L9Z)

Das ist nur ein Spiel. (“It’s just a game.”)    (LA0)

However, my post also triggered this response from Rick Thomas:    (LA1)

I recognized the idea from the book Homo Ludens: a study of the play element in culture, by Johan Huizinga (1938). Amazing, recommended.    (LA2)

The other German root is leik or leikan, which connotes looseness, leaping, dancing. It has found its way into words related to erotic play: English lechery, German laich (spawn), Swedish leka (copulation).    (LA3)

By the way, this whole blogging thing is kinda cool. I think it might take off. I Think Out Loud, and I’m rewarded with instant responses from a few friends on the other side of the globe, plus I learn something new from someone totally new!    (LA4)

Leave A Trail: Stigmergy and Effective Large Group Collaboration

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

One of the challenges with large group collaboration is keeping track of what others are doing. With a small group, the project manager or group leader can take on the responsibility of keeping others informed. If it’s a single organization, you can theoretically mandate a communication strategy from above, although in reality, this doesn’t work effectively when the organization is large and diverse. For large-scale collaboration between different groups, neither of these are realistic options.    (KCB)

How can large groups communicate most effectively? The answer is stigmergy, a term Chris Dent first introduced to me about four years ago. Stigmergy is a form of indirect communication where organisms react to signs left by others. Ants communicate by stigmergy. They leave a trail of pheremones that other ants pick up and react to. Stigmergy — not centralized command-and-control — is responsible for those amazing anthills.    (KCC)

There is an equivalent pattern in effective large group collaboration: Leave A Trail. I’ve called this pattern Think Out Loud and Visible Pulse in the past, but I like “Leave A Trail” better, because of its association with stigmergy. (Obligatory karma reference: I first heard this name from Peter Kaminski, who in turn credits Chris Messina for explaining it as a principle of Bar Camp.) MGTaylor calls this pattern Ship Product and often describes it in the context of Stuart Kauffman‘s work and patch theory.    (KCD)

The idea is simple. When you work, leave an artifact somewhere where others can find it. An artifact doesn’t have to be comprehensive; in fact, it’s often better when it isn’t. A brief meeting summary is usually more useful than a full transcript. A brief summary with links to specific instances in the transcript is even more useful.    (KCE)

When you Leave A Trail, you’re communicating to whomever wants to listen, which may effect how you express yourself. This can be disconcerting to some. People often point to the lack of response as a sign that tools like online forums, blogs, or Wikis aren’t working. That’s not necessarily the case. There may be a whole slew of lurkers who are reacting to the signs that you are leaving. (That said, Immediate Feedback is also an important pattern in Online Communities.)    (KCF)

This can also be difficult when determining what kind of trail to leave. Because you don’t know who will be reacting to your signs, you can’t target them. The solution is to Scratch Your Own Itch.    (KCG)

Emergence can’t happen without Leave A Trail. However, Leave A Trail is just one of many conditions for emergence. You can’t dictate whether emergence will happen, and when it does, you can’t control what actually emerges. The best you can do is create conditions for emergence and hope that good things happen. This is disconcerting to many, and folks often react by trying to assert more control, which makes things worse.    (KCH)

Leave A Trail and other principles are helpful in designing community spaces. For example, if you are trying to integrate blogs or Wikis into a community’s practice, the best way to do that is to apply the tool in such a way that it scratches an individual’s itch while also leaving a trail. For example, many good project leaders are good at doing meeting summaries. Instead of having them email a small subset of individuals, have them email a public, archived mailing list. Better yet, have them blog their summaries and email links to the blog. You’re not significantly changing individual behavior in these situations, but you are significantly improving your chances for large-scale collaboration.    (KCI)

Kwiki::Purple, Wiki Deep Thoughts

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

My ex-partner-in-crime, Chris Dent, has been busy coding and expounding. Last month, he released Kwiki::Purple, a Purple Numbers plugin for Kwiki. You can play with it on his test site.    (IFZ)

This is fantastic news on a number of fronts. First, it’s further validation of our strategy to have the ideas take over the world, not the code. As I’ve said from the beginning, the purpose of PurpleWiki is to be a vehicle for ideas. Our goal was not for PurpleWiki to become the Wiki, but for other Wikis to steal our best ideas. There are now three Wikis with Purple Numbers — Kwiki, Zwiki, and PurpleWiki — with hopefully more to come.    (IG0)

Second, the fact that Chris was able to implement this as a Kwiki plugin makes Kwiki a more viable option for Blue Oxen Associates as its Wiki platform of the future. This is a good thing for many reasons.    (IG1)

Chris has also been doing some expounding on Wikis. His entry, “Why Wiki?”, is old hat for folks who know Chris, but it’s a nice, clean summary of his views for those who don’t. His framing of augmentation versus automation (discussed in much more detail in his paper, “The Computer As Tool: From Interaction to Augmentation”) is powerful, and I’ve borrowed it in my own thinking and writing. I also liked this line:    (IG2)

Architecting these sorts of tools may not solve poverty and hunger, or alleviate suffering in the aftermath of a disaster, but the tools can augment people actively doing that work. I happen to be good at making the tools go, so that’s where I look to fit myself into the puzzle.    (IG3)

Chris’s thoughts on Wikis as an external cache is another good piece. Two quick comments. First, viewing Wikis as an external cache reveals an important constraint. They are most valuable to folks who are already immersed in a conversation, because those folks already have some context that aids them in exploring the Wiki. For example, Wikis used for self-documenting events are not so good at involving those who did not participate, but they are extremely valuable for those who did. At the same time, they are better than nothing. If someone is motivated enough, they can use Wikis as a springboard for acquiring the context they need, and thus gain value that way. Think Out Loud is good.    (IG4)

Second, Chris writes:    (IG5)

I’ve found that in order for outboard processing to work there’s several design and process guidelines that have to be reached. Here are some: interaction must be highly responsive, noise in the interface must be minimized, structural mechanics and metaphors in content need to be consisent, names must have value, it must be there when you want it, when there is a shared brain its context is shared as well (e.g when some members of the company have a discussion about design it it is done in an archivable fashion).    (IG6)

(Emphasis is mine.) It’s ironic that Chris cites highly responsive interaction as a requirement for collaboration on an asynchronous medium to work. I agree that this is an important pattern of effective collaboration, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a requirement. There is an alternative mode, one that emphasizes deep thinking augmented by infrequent, but deep interactions. A big void in the collaborative space are tools that augment this mode of interaction. See my design notes on Abelard for an example of what such a tool might look like.    (IG7)

Tim Bray on Purple Numbers

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

I’ve long been a fan of Tim Bray‘s work, and although we had never crossed paths before, I had always assumed it would be instigated by me making some comment about something he had done or written about. (A few months back, I emailed him about ballparks in the Bay Area, because we seem to share a love for the sport, but that doesn’t count.) So I was surprised and pleased to see that Tim had made first contact and had (temporarily, as it turned out) implemented Purple Numbers on his blog. Not surprisingly, this is starting to generate some talk in the blogosphere. In particular, see:    (1G9)

Chris has done an excellent job of quickly addressing many of these issues. I’ll just toss in a few thoughts and references here and will look forward to more feedback.    (1GE)

Stable, Immutable IDs    (1GF)

Several people have pointed out that the IDs need to be stable. In other words, as the paragraphs move around or as new ones are added or deleted, the IDs stick to their original paragraphs. This was a fundamental motivation for Engelbart’s statement identifiers (SIDs), which we have renamed node identifiers (NID).    (1GG)

Both Purple (which needs updating) and PurpleWiki handle this correctly. You’ll notice that the addresses are stable on my blog and on Chris’s, as well as on all of the PurpleWiki installations (e.g. Collab:HomePage, PurpleWiki:HomePage). It’s because we use plugins for our respective blog software that call PurpleWiki‘s parser, which manages NIDs for us.    (1GH)

By using PurpleWiki to handle the purpling, blog content has NIDs unique to both the blog and the Wiki, which allows us to do fun stuff like transclude between the two. We get a similar effect with perplog, the excellent IRC logger written by Paul Visscher and other members of The Canonical Hackers. For example, check out Planetwork:Main Page and the chat logs over there.    (1GI)

Mark Nottingham noted that even if the NIDs are stable in the sense that they are attached to certain paragraphs, the paragraphs themselves are not semantically stable. This is a point on which I’ve ruminated in the past, and we still don’t have a good solution to it.    (1GJ)

History and Other Worthy Projects    (1GK)

I’ve written up my own brief history of Purple Numbers, which fills in some holes in Chris’s account. In it, I mention Murray Altheim‘s plink. Plink is no longer available on the net, because it has been subsumed into his latest project, Ceryle. Everything that I’ve seen about Ceryle so far kicks butt, so if you’d like to see it too, please drop Murray an email and encourage him to hurry up and finish his thesis so that he can make Ceryle available! You can tell him I sent you, and you can forward him the link to this paragraph; he’ll understand.    (1GL)

Matt Schneider is the creator of the PurpleSlurple purple numbering proxy, which will add Purple Numbers to any (well, most) documents on the Web. PurpleSlurple deserves a lot of credit for spreading the meme.    (1GM)

Mike Mell implemented Purple Numbers in ZWiki for last year’s Planetwork Conference (see ZWiki:ZwikiAndPurpleNumbers), which in turn influenced the evolution of Purple Numbers in PurpleWiki. Mike and Matt have both experimented with JavaScript for making the numbers less intrusive.    (1GN)

The latest version of the Compendium Dialogue Mapping tool exports HTML maps with Purple Numbers.    (1GO)

In addition to Murray, Matt, and Mike, several other members of the Blue Oxen Associates Collaboration Collaboratory have contributed to the evolution of Purple Numbers, especially Peter Jones, Jack Park, and Bill Seitz. In addition to his contributions to the technical and philosophical discussions, Peter wrote the hilarious Hymn of the Church Of Purple and excerpts of the Book of the Church Of Purple.    (1GP)

Finally, many good folks in the blogosphere have helped spread the meme in many subtle ways, particularly those noted connectors Seb Paquet and Clay Shirky.    (1GQ)

Evangelism and The Big Picture    (1GR)

Okay, that last section was starting to sound like an award acceptance speech, and although none of us have won any awards, one thing is clear: The contributions of many have vastly improved this simple, but valuable tool. I’m hoping that momentum picks up even more with these recent perturbances. I’m especially heartened to see experiments for improving the look-and-feel.    (1GS)

I want to quibble with one thing that Chris Dent said in his most recent account. (When we have distributed Purple Numbers, I’ll be able to transclude it, but for now, you’ll just have to live with the cut-and-paste):    (1GT)

When he [Eugene] and I got together to do PurpleWiki, we were primarily shooting for granular addressability. Once we got that working, I started getting all jazzed about somehow, maybe, someday, being able to do Transclusion. Eugene was into the idea but I felt somehow that he didn’t quite get it. Since then we’ve implemented Transclusion and new people have come along with ideas of things to do that I’m sure I don’t quite get, but are probably a next step that will be great.    (1GU)

There are many things I don’t quite get, but Transclusions are not one of them, at least at the level we first implemented them. That’s okay, though. Ted Nelson felt the same way about my understanding of Transclusions as Chris did, although for different reasons. (And, I suspect that Ted would have had the same opinions of Chris.) I mention this here not so much because I want to correct the record, but because it gives me an excuse to tell some anecdotes and to reveal a bit about myself.    (1GV)

Anyone who knows Doug Engelbart knows that he complains a lot. The beauty of being an acknowledged pioneer and visionary is that people pay attention, even if they they don’t think much of those complaints. When I first began working with Doug in early 2000, I would occasionally write up small papers and put them on the Web. Doug would complain that they didn’t have Purple Numbers. At the time, I recognized the value of granular addresses, but didn’t think they were worth the trouble to add them to my documents. I also didn’t think they were the “right” solution. Nevertheless, because Doug was Doug, I decided to throw him a bone. So I spent a few hours writing Purple (most of which was spent learning XSLT), and started posting documents with Purple Numbers.    (1GW)

Then, a funny thing happened. I got used to them. I got so used to them, I wanted them everywhere.    (1GX)

A few people just get Purple Numbers right away. Murray was probably the first of those not originally in the Engelbart crowd to do so; Chris followed soon thereafter, as did Matt. The vast majority of folks get the concept, but don’t really find them important until they start using them. Then, like me, they want them everywhere. Getting people past that first step is crucial.    (1GY)

A few nights ago, I had a late night conversation with Gabe Wachob (chair of the OASIS XRI committee) on IRC. (This eventually led to a conversation between Chris and me, which led to Chris’s blog entry, which led to Tim discovering Purple Numbers, which led to this entry. Think Out Loud is an amazing thing.) Gabe knew what Purple Numbers were, but hadn’t thought twice about them. I had wanted to ask him some questions about using XRI addresses as identifiers, and in order to do so, I gave him a quick demonstration of Transclusions. The light bulb went off; all of a sudden, he really, truly got it.    (1GZ)

Richard Gabriel, one of our advisors, is well known for his Worse Is Better essays (among other things). I think Purple Numbers are an outstanding example of Worse Is Better. They fulfill an immediate need, and they cause us to think more deeply about some of the underlying issues. I’d like to see Purple Numbers all over the place, but I’d also like to see a group of deep thinkers and tinkerers consider and evolve the concept. It’s part of a larger philosophy that I like to call The Blue Oxen Way.    (1H0)

This last point is extremely important. Chris has thankfully been a much more enthusiastic evangelist of Purple Numbers than I have, and in the past he’s called me “ambivalent” about Purple Numbers. That’s not so far from the truth. It’s not that I’m any less enthusiastic about Purple Numbers themselves — I am a card-carrying member of the Church Of Purple, and the current attention and potential for wider usage thrill me. However, I’m cautious about evangelizing Purple Numbers, because I don’t want people to get too caught up in the tool itself and forget about the bigger picture. It’s the reason I didn’t mention Purple Numbers at all in my manifesto.    (1H1)

At the Planetwork forum two weeks ago, Fen Labalme, Victor Grey, and I gave the first public demo of a working Identity Commons Single Sign-On system. We were tickled pink by the demo, which to everyone else looked just like any other login system. The reason we were so excited was that we knew the system used an underlying infrastructure that would eventually enable much greater things. The demo itself, unfortunately, didn’t convey that to anyone who didn’t already understand this.    (1H2)

I’m probably a bit oversensitive about this sort of thing, and I’m constantly seeking better balance. But it’s always in the back of my mind. When I talk to people about Blue Oxen Associates, I usually spend more time talking about the sociological aspect of collaboration rather than the tools, even though I have plenty to say about the latter. Can Purple Numbers make the world a better place? I truly, honestly, believe that they can. (This is a topic for another day.) But when I see groups that excel in collaboration (or conversely, those that stink at it), Purple Numbers are usually the furthest thing from my mind. Much more important is the need to identify and understand these patterns of collaboration (of which tool usage is an important part).    (1H3)