Space travel from your local library

During my first visit to SRI International in 1980, scientists were excitedly showing off pictures radioed back from the Voyager spacecraft as it passed Jupiter. On my next visit, it was showing pictures of Saturn's rings. Getting such close ups of these other worlds was a stunning achievement for the scientists and their powerful computers which were able to translate the incoming signals into such beautiful images.

It would be great, of course, to be a passenger on the spacecraft but, with a journey time to Saturn of over three years, and no prospect of return, this was clearly impossible. Until now.

Microsoft, amazingly, was allowed to pimp its upcoming WorldWide Telescope product at the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference this week. The conference is supposed to comprise 'Inspired talks by the world's greatest thinkers and doers' so I cannot be alone in thinking that this was a rather tacky coup by Microsoft.

Still, the program allows its (XP or Vista) users to immerse themselves into the visible universe, panning and zooming to whatever nooks and crannies take their fancy. Never mind waiting three years to get a close up of Saturn, it's a matter of seconds now. Or it will be in the 'spring' when it officially launches. The software changes the way we view and absorb the nature of the universe.

The pictures, which are taken from a variety of earth- and space-based telescopes, are stitched together into a totally convincing three-dimensional space using Microsoft's Visual Experience Engine. Different light wavelengths can be selected and a mouse click brings up contextual information about the current view.

Microsoft says that the WorldWide Telescope will be available as 'a free resource to the astronomy and education communities', which is an interesting way of phrasing things. But, presuming that public libraries are part of the 'education communities' bit and presuming they have pretty large screens, they could make the experience far more realistic than the average PC display. Indeed, this sort of thing could act as the hub for space events with astronomers as guest participants.

Fly the flag and fly it high

Earlier this week I ventured over to Westminster to attend the 2008 Network of Government Library and Information Specialists (NGLIS) conference. The theme was, “Changing to survive, breaking professional boundaries”. It was a war-cry to the government information managers to adapt or die.

Essentially the busy event was about equipping government information professionals with the necessary skills to promote themselves and their profession a little better.

The language and advice followed a common sense if obvious approach, such as “make yourself heard”, or “engage”, “talk the language of business” “learn to network better”.

An evangelical Natalie Ceeney, (National Archives boss) was the keynote speaker, she talked about opportunities for information management being at their greatest in the last decade. So were the challenges and threats.

The talk was of a real shift in how government perceives the importance of its information. There is greater ministerial interest in data and information than ever. In part this was down to new technological initiatives being developed as well as the obvious data-loss crisis that continues to beleaguer Whitehall. The bigwigs in government realise what you knew all along and that there is so much more that could be done with the information it held, both as a way of engaging the public and doing its job better.

Ceeney’s Keynote asked for governmental info pros to consider the following points and how that reflects in their role:

 Knowledge Management (KM) is strategic and important, Knowledge Information Management must be owned at a senior level.
 Departments must ensure Information Management features prominently as risk registers at a senior level.
 All departments should have a coherent information strategy.
 That an information or KM department is considered just as important as Finance and HR etc to an organisation

It was these changing roles and relationships in government that were the biggest threat to information management Ceeney said. Info professionals must stand up and not let IT take over their turf. The fear now is that a lack of self-promotion for info departments may be to their detriment.

Given that NGLIS spent a large part of the day examining this, there must be cause for concern. It’s almost as if there is an endemic lack of confidence among information workers in the organisation.

If Ceeney and NGLIS have anything to do with it, then government information professionals will need to change. Either that or the tireless efforts and pool of knowledge belonging to info managers could well turn to vapour in the glare of the IT-centric, business talking profession.   

Ceeney rounded off the keynote saying, “We need to see ourselves as part of a bigger whole, or it will end up in IT’s hands”. That would be a shame, information professionals, whatever sector they operate in, are a varied, highly informed and dedicated bunch of professionals, let everyone else know that too.

Counting the cost of data loss

Data loss has become a running story over the last few months. Not so much is the question “Has there been a data breach?” more a case of “Who now?” Writes Peter Williams

You wouldn’t accept the catalogue of stolen laptops, mislaid CDs, unopened disks and general lack of care and attention from Kevin the teenager, never mind responsible organisations. One of the inevitable follow up questions is how much does all of this “now what have I done with that?” misplaced data actually cost?

The answer is further embarrassment for those responsible and more exasperation for the shareholders and taxpayers who finally picks up the tab. According to research issued this week (25 February 2008) the average total cost was more than £1.4 million. Perhaps more interesting, the 2007 Annual Study: UK cost of a data breach also revealed that the most significant component of data breach costs was the financial impact of lost business due to reduced consumer trust. The study (the first despite its title), was carried out by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by PGP Corporation and Symantec Corp and focused on the cost of activities resulting from actual data loss incidents as well as identifying the most frequent causes. Breaches included in the survey ranged from 2,500 records to more than 125,000 records from 21 businesses spanning eight different industry sector. 

The average cost per record lost is £47 lost business leads to 46 per cent of the total cost of a data breach, as a loss of trust leads to higher churn and higher customer acquisition rates, the study found. The rest of the cost is made up from notification (£1 per record), detection (£15) and ex-post activities (£15), which are the costs after the event to help victims watch their credit or the reissuing of account cards, for example.

Lost laptops are the most frequent cause of data breaches (as no doubt as the NHS and MOD could confirm), accounting for 36%. The use of paper records account for 24%, while hackers, malicious insiders and malicious code combined are responsible for12% of such incidents.

The number of reported data lost incidents has risen sharply in the last few years. Perhaps that indicates that organisation are taking these fouls up more seriously but as this study shows more needs to be done to cut the cost and contain the damage.

Web 2.0: rubbish name, great idea

Web 2.0 is a crummy name -- patronising, cloying and irritating. It presupposes that there is a clear generation gap between the first set of web technologies and the second set, as if the latter had been distributed like manna from heaven. It attracts get-rich-quick jerks, gimmicky marketeers, serial startup merchants, venture capitalists, conference organisers, insta-pundits. Even, ahem, bloggers.

Whatever you might find to dislike about Web 2.0 though (and that capital ‘W’ as if it equated to God, the Queen or some such, is one of them) it is a very interesting concept indeed. Catch-all term that it is, it has become a useful shorthand for software that relies on the wisdom of crowds, peer review, user-generated content, hyper-interactivity, friendlier user interfaces. It has even transcended the web to become a familiar aspect of client-server software too. It’s like classical music: we might not all have the vocabulary to describe it, but we know it when it’s there and we know what we like.

Web 2.0 has changed the way we use the consumer web and even performed the miraculous job of reinvigorating somnolent software categories such as human resources systems. But its ultimate business home is in enterprise content management systems.

The dirty, dark secret of many ECMs is that they are woefully under-used and, when used, badly. Non-existent or generic tags, systems that wither on the vine, training sessions that failed to get users moving, new silos that replace the old silos... these are common problems and an indictment of the usability, or lack thereof, of many an ECM.

Web 2.0 (that cringe-worthy name again) gets around the problem with technology-light tricks that encourage the user to participate, vote and swap ideas, or at least not lose valuable documents. Little wonder that companies like Vignette, Documentum, Open Text and Alfresco are all sprinkling the fairy dust on their most recent programs.

It’s probably still a little early to know whether Web 2.0 (last time, I swear) is the elixir that fulfils ECM’s huge promise, but it is a phenomenon that fundamentally changes the usability and, to dig out an ancient term, user-friendliness of software. Some elements will pass by the wayside but supporters can already show that it is rewiritng the face of what were unwieldy, ugly programs. Now, if only we could think of a new name...

Exploit the gaps, not the silos

Toby Moores is a visiting professor at the Institute of Creative Technology and founder of videogame company Sleepydog. His company is best known for creating Buzz!, the hugely popular quiz for the Sony Playstation. He finds opportunities in the gaps between silos and traditional structures which are not good at communication and collaboration.

Of course, the barriers will fall over time and he will end up looking in new places for his opportunities but, as you might expect from a creative person, he has absolutely no shortage of ideas.

Loosely connected with this was the transcript of an interview with Tim Berners-Lee, done by Talis' Paul Miller. It's scheduled to go online next Wednesday (27th) and you might find it interesting. It gives a glimpse of how information can be liberated from its silos and encouraged to flow to where it's needed and to be aggregated and annotated in new ways.

And also connected, IBM is a company which has unleashed a swathe of communication and collaboration tools on its employees over the past ten years which, once again, can liberate information from its silos to the benefit of those who are able to re-use it.

As you know, everything digital can be easily copied and moved. Hoarding is more likely to diminish a person's reputation or, worse, make them completely invisible. Creativity is easier than ever before. Sure, the average person can't create a Harry Potter film, but they can create interesting YouTube movies, machinima animations or screencasts. And, of course, information mashups get easier by the day.

Abundance is the key here. And the more abundant information (in whatever form) becomes, the less value it has in its own right. What adds value is doing something new with it. The Berners-Lee semantic web stuff can ensure that information carries its provenance around with it. The stuff that Sleepydog produces indirectly promotes the films and singers whose clips are used. Oh and the IBMers who give are more likely to do themselves good than those who simply consume.

Potentially, everyone who originates useful, interesting or entertaining raw material can gain in some way from sharing rather than hoarding. But the real winners are those who are able to innovate through original blending of existing material.

And that's where you and I come in. Everyone of us is different. We each have our own take on the world and most of us are multidisciplinary to some degree. We speak one language at home and another at work, one when we're with the engineers another when we're talking to the chef. It's a natural human thing. If you find yourself able to talk the language of each of two different groups then you are surrounded by opportunity.

It strikes me that operating in the gap between IT and management is a fine starting point.

Undermining Gowers?

Should the UK law on copyright fall automatically in line with the European Union? One of the major advantages of the EU is the effort to create a single market for goods and services stretching across much of Europe. Of course it sounds a nice idea but the detail is the killer. Writes Peter Williams

As many readers of this blog will know (probably in some detail) the UK is in the middle of a hefty consultation on copyright as part of the long-standing review of intellectual property (IP). This is a serious business as it has become a familiar refrain that copyright underpins the success of a whole range of culturally and economically important sectors in the UK.

One of these sectors is music. In an earlier round of the copyright review in 2006 the British government commissioned review of IP decided that an extension to the 50-year term for performers’ copyright protection was not necessary. The decision at the time provoked understandable disappointment but the argument was effectively over. Well it was until this week when Charlie McCreevy, the European Commission’s internal market chief, said that he was minded to propose an extension to the protection enjoyed by performers by shifting the 50 year to 95. This move would bring Europe in line with the US.

Announcing the plan – which of course has numerous hurdles to negotiate before it would become law– the long-standing commissioner, put forward two reasons for the move: helping the poor artist with no pension and the simple idea that the current law isn’t fair.

Let’s forget the details of this particular issue of whether the British government decides to abandon the Gowers review and the 50-year limit in favour of falling into line with what may turn out to be the wider will of Europe on this particular issue of session musicians who were in a recording studio in the 1950s or 1960s. There is a wider principle at stake. Why is the information profession spending so much time and effort on responding to consultation to British law if IP needs to be sorted at a Europe-wide level? The McCreevy speech suggests it’s time for proper consultation on a thorough review of IP European law.

Microsoft wants it all in ECM

Open Text’s announcement this week that it will work with Microsoft to create services that sit on top of the latter’s SharePoint Server is a classic example of the realpolitik that currently characterises enterprise content management (ECM).

SharePoint has created a seismic shift in the category to the extent that ECM heavyweights realise that it makes more sense to make nice with the software giant than to try and stare it down. Open Text is not alone in realising this, and firms like Documentum, Interwoven, Vignette and others have done much the same. Fair enough, but the catch here is that Microsoft has a long history of turning the tables on its erstwhile partners.

The SharePoint strategy is straight out of the Microsoft playbook.

Step One: start out with a product that integrates with other Microsoft programs, and looks and feels just like them, even if it is a little rough around the edges.

Step Two: Create licensing that provides the illusion that the program is free or very low-cost.

Step Three: Get channel partners to work with the product in order to create traction.

Step Four: Adopt the marketing message that “this is [insert product cartegory name here] for the rest of us”.

Step Five: When traction has been gained, build up capabilities over subsequent versions to challenge, and usually beat, specialists.

Microsoft has pulled off this trick in server operating systems, systems management and many other areas. The likes of Open Text can argue for a while that SharePoint won’t scale, isn’t appropriate for certain verticals, doesn’t have top-end sophistication and so on. But when Microsoft enters a market it wants it all and software history is strewn with the names of companies that learned that the hard way.