yours, mine, ours: leadership through collaboration smithsonian institution, washington dc 21...

Yours, Mine, Ours: Leadership Through CollaborationSmithsonian Institution, Washington DC

21 September, 2010

How Do We Create and Maintain Standards?

Eric Millerem@zepheira.com

Common ThemesCommon Themes

•(a) Wrong place and the wrong time

•

Common ThemesCommon Themes

•(a) Wrong place and the wrong time

•(b) Horrible acronyms

Common ThemesCommon Themes

•(a) Wrong place and the wrong time

•(b) Horrible acronyms

•(c) Art of the Possible

SolutionsSolutions

•Group Solutions—Common Values

•“Things work at scale because the community subscribes to the same values.”

Creative TensionCreative Tension

Creative TensionCreative Tension

DiversityDiversity

Common Values?Common Values?

Value continuum Value continuum

Move beyond self interest for the greater good

What’s in it for me /my company?

Abstracted StrategiesAbstracted Strategies

•Define standards only to the point necessary

•under-specificity can be a good thing

Abstracted StrategiesAbstracted Strategies

•Provide as clear of scope as possible

•set expectations up front

•clear process for extending scope if needed

Abstracted StrategiesAbstracted Strategies

•Define process for governance and social engineering

•find the middle ground between yahoo groups to robert’s rules

•level the playing field - everyone gets (the option) to have a voice

•be clear about your participation model

Abstracted StrategiesAbstracted Strategies

•Define use cases up front

•use this to reflect scope

•use this to articulate (societal) benefit

Abstracted StrategiesAbstracted Strategies

•Reference implementation (if applicable)

•grounds utility of standards

•accelerates deployment

•use this to articulate (technical) benefit

Abstracted StrategiesAbstracted Strategies

•Establish a clear position on your IP up front

•e.g. royalty free vs RAND

•e.g. OSI approved Open Source License for code

•e.g. Creative Commons for document deliverables

Abstracted StrategiesAbstracted Strategies

•Record your decisions / preserve your discourse

•archive email discussion

•referenceable meeting minutes

•link resolutions to discourse

Abstracted StrategiesAbstracted Strategies

•Identify the intersection of common goals representative of participants

•complementary commercial and societal impact

•coopetition

•provide clear benefit for participants (institutions)

Abstracted StrategiesAbstracted Strategies

•Create an environment that empowers participants / acknowledges effort

•high-light work

•share the wealth / credit / spotlight

Abstracted StrategiesAbstracted Strategies

•Benevolent dictator / chair / leader

•model for escalation

•hope to never use

•defined process comes in handy here

Abstracted StrategiesAbstracted Strategies

•Maintain a clear Feedback loop

•During the process

•After the standard is “complete”

Why extend beyond LAM?

Why extend beyond LAM?

•Data management, selection, aggregation, preservation, curation, delivery, etc. are no longer the domain of just LAM

•LAM has a huge opportunity to share knowledge and shape deliverables (that then benefit LAM)

•Trust transfers

•Extraordinarily effective means to move beyond self interest for the greater good

One quick exampleOne quick example

•W3C Provenance Group

•http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/prov/

•Why not more LAM?

Creative TensionCreative Tension

Expand comfort zone

Expand comfort zone

Thank youThank you

Eric Millerem@zepheira.comEric Millerem@zepheira.com