Archive for November, 2009
by Rob Paterson
November 27, 2009 at 11:04 am · Filed under
Science
Many of the great discoveries in science have involved “seeing” patterns when no one else can.
This map is one of the most important of these “seeing” moments. The time is 1854 and the place is London. There is a cholera outbreak. At the time Germ Theory did not exist. No one knew how Cholera was transmitted. We don’t actually know today how Flu is transmitted either.
Dr John Snow took an extraordinary step – he mapped the deaths. He had no idea what would appear.
If you look at the map, you will see that the dots representing the deaths have a pattern. They concentrate around one well.
When the well was dug up, it was found that a sewer had contaminated the water. No one knew about germs yet. But the link between fecal matter and water had been made. The result – a massive public health response – the building of the London Sewers.
I bring this up in the context of a new way of “seeing” that is now THE coming thing in Science. Data Intensive Science. Until now, this field was restricted to those with access to huge and expensive data bases.
For much of DIS today is based on the power of computers to take on vast amounts of data and then offer back patterns.
But just as blogging and the 2.0 Tool set is changing media, this approach is being applied to DIS. The new easy to use and inexpensive tools that will allow this type of inquiry to take place in the hands of you and I are being built right now (I am involved in such a project) These tools use Open Source and a 2.0 interface but with exceptionally robust data collection, storage and presentation engines.
What this is going to do is to open up research on complex issues that can only be explored by the use of patterns
For traditional science can only deal with the simple and the complicated. We can only make our way through the complex and chaotic by the use of pattern. Just as Dr Snow did back in the day. He and no one else knew what caused cholera. Only a pattern could show the way.
Dr Snow was not a Scientist either. Of course neither were Galileo or Newton. Even Einstein was a lowly patent clerk. You can now see where I am going.
This process is in turn driving the same kind of revolution in science that we are seeing in Media – the rebirth of Citizen Science.
The tools that can be used for Data Intensive Science are the same that are used in media. The same empowerment of the individual is beginning in science as we have seen in media.
All the same questions about who is a real scientist/journalist are on the table.
At the heart of the revolution is a tool set that enables the small to do the work that only the large could have done before. So issues of credentials, trust, value etc will all come to the surface in science as they are in media today.
As I get my feet wet in the new field for me, I will be able to tell you more about the new 2.0 world of Science.
Here is Steven Johnson the author of the Ghost Map talking about the big lessons of amateurism and citizen involvement
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“Amateurism, Cross-Disciplinary Thinking, Local Knowledge, and the Future of Cities” | Steven Johnson Discusses THE GHOST MAP (# from Book Videos on Vimeo.
by Joe McKendrick
November 25, 2009 at 2:02 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Networking, User Revolution, Web 2.0
The Apollo moon-landing program took something more than technological prowess, as do the current NASA engagements with its long-running Shuttle program and the International Space Station. And it’s going to take more than technology to get humans back to the moon and beyond.
That “something” is political will, which ultimately pays the bills and forges the sense of mission to support human and exploratory spaceflight. And to keep the will going, NASA needs to be a highly effective organization at communicating and networking.
Michael Gray recently explored NASA’s social media efforts,noting how the agency has developed a fairly comprehensive strategy for reaching out to constitutents. Gray points to NASA’s social media hub, which includes links to all the social media areas in which NASA participates. At least 100 NASA employees participate in Twitter.
Gray also points to the fact that NASA “has chosen to divide content into different channels, by mission. For example, there is a Facebook channel for the Ares I-X program, a Flickr channel, a Twitter channel, and a YouTube channel. “What this does is give them the flexibility to cross-post the best content,” Gray observes. “The best photos from Flickr and videos from YouTube were cross-posted into the Facebook account. But the Facebook account has other pictures that aren’t in the Flickr account. There’s overlap, but each channel has unique content or value add.”
The general NASA Twitter account is twitter.com/nasa, which began in January 2009. In a compelling first-hand story, Neal Wiser describes how he got the chance to join the NASA team at its headquarters for a TweetUp. NASA’s goals for Twitter, he relates, are “to connect and communicate with people interested in what NASA does… Services like Twitter give us an opportunity to speak directly to audiences who might otherwise not hear about what we do.”
At the time of the interview, nine NASA astronauts had Twitter accounts. NASA astronaut Mike Massimino was the first to tweet from space, on May 12, 2009. NASA also holds TweetUps — NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory held the first NASA TweetUp on January
21, 2009, and NASA Headquarters held its first Tweetup on July 21. A TweetUp involving the STS-129 Shuttle crew took place on November 15-16. More are planned.
Wider’s observations from his live and in-person TweetUp experience:
“For me, [the meet-and-greet] was the best part; not just because you get to hob-nob with astronauts, who are always cool, but because you get to see that they are real people who are just as curious (and sometimes as confused) about social media as some of us. And while I can’t guarantee that they put their pants on one leg at a time (they are astronauts after all) all the astronauts I’ve had the pleasure of meeting over the years have been friendly, cordial and even funny.”
(Pictured above: The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which bombed the moon in October and uncovered the presence of water.)
by Joe McKendrick
November 25, 2009 at 1:12 pm · Filed under
Cloud Computing, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Software, SOA, Web 2.0
I recently was talking with David Linthicum, author of a recently published work entitled Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in Your Enterprise: A Step-by-Step Guide, which discusses the business case for considering cloud. In talking about cloud computing, our chat moved to Web 2.0, to which Dave made the observation that many in Web 2.0 circles do not see cloud computing as part of that paradigm. Why not? Dave says to some degree there are political/turf reasons, as some Web 2.0 proponents see cloud as a threat to their established order.
Add to that the fact that cloud and Enterprise2.0/Web 2.0 (I’ll address them as one in the same for this post) address problems at different levels. Namely, cloud addresses access to IT-centric services, such as storage capacity on demand, processing capacity on demand, and infrastructure on demand. For example, one of the key business values seen with cloud is the ability to scale up applications by adding off-site processors. The “private clouds” that are now being discussed arise out of virtualization solutions deployed on top of IT systems.
In the Enterprise/Web 2.0 view of the world, this is all behind-the-scenes stuff that the IT guys worry about. Enterprise/Web 2.0 proponents talk about building communities, collaboration, and moving information more openly and efficiently across networks.
What is happening, unfortunately, is that Enterprise/Web 2.0 and cloud are becoming two separate initiatives within enterprises, when they should be very closely linked. Because the essential value that Enterprise/Web 2.0 is bringing into organizations is the ability to conduct business, connect all essential parties in transactions, and open up formerly clogged information channels is through technology services that may be once, twice, or three times removed. In other words, delivered from the cloud. Facebook and Twitter are clouds, clear and simple.
As companies move to increase social networking and collaboration across their enterprises with internal and external tools and applications, the success of Enterprise 2.0 rests on their simplicity, accessibility and usability. In other words, complexity and technology issues are abstracted away from end-users. This is also the goal of cloud computing. Perhaps, on some level, cloud computing is actually “Enterprise 2.0″ for IT managers?
by Rob Paterson
November 25, 2009 at 10:33 am · Filed under
Adoption, Facebook
Source CNET
by Rob Paterson
November 25, 2009 at 8:51 am · Filed under
Adoption
Graphic Source Earl Mardle
Thinking about Rupert Murdoch – Google Fuss, the shrinking of the Washington Post to only DC, The fudging of news paper circulation numbers, the collapse of the consumer economy are all signs of the conflict and the stress of the old system. Concurrently we are way beyond a few early adopters in the new. I see the growth of web based platforms for accessing media of all types, the explosion of devices to add content, the early sucess of new models such as Huffington, iTunes, Politico, Hulu, YouTube – this feels even beyond Supporters mobilize as much of the new – while not fully formed is already mainstream in usage.
Where are we along this line?
Above the line we appear to be in the Conflict Zone. Murdoch and the vitriol from the established media folks is the signal that tells me that we are here.
On the consumer/user/formerly audience front – a decisive shift to the web has taken place.
As Clay Shirky suggests, the new business model is not here yet. But one thing is for sure, old media is going broke. In Canada Canwest cannot even give a TV station away!
Maybe the new needs the utter collapse of the old in its market to get a hold financially?
What if in your town, there was no Newspaper or TV station at all? Then the new would get a foothold I think.
With the old growth cleared, what happens? New growth that was blocked by the old grows in its place.
We have been waiting maybe for the wrong thing to happen. We have hoped for the new model. But so long as the old canopy is blocking the light, the new and tender cannot grow.
So long as the Dinosaurs were about, the mammals were going no where.
So with the new nearly ready and the people ready – we wait for the fire and the then open space. 2011 is my bet.
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