Mike’s Digital Laboratory

Will Evans inteviews Erin Malone, Christian Crumlish, and Lucas Pettinati to talk about design patterns, pattern libraries, styleguides, and innovation.

“patterns focus innovation and creativity on the leading edge of the problem: the unsolved part.” –Christian Crumlish

This is an interesting read, and it is part of a broader  conversation about patterns that is not finished.  The story of how we use Pattern Languages to help us design and build new things is an ongoing story.  I think a most significant development of late is the movement to publish online, open pattern collections on the web. The general consensus in this interview is in agreement with this idea. As Christian Crumlish puts it:  ” Patterns are a bit like tamagotchi. If you don’t keep tending them they die, and they’re social in the sense that they thrive and become more refined and useful and subtle the more people are able to engage with them.”  Walking their talk, Erin, Christian and Lucas have put up a wiki encouraging others to collaborate on their new book, that will include a collection of social interfaces design patterns.

An ontology for rice.

Agropedia is a social software site for agriculture. A first glance reveals blogs, forums, wiki and semantic web enabled repositories for knowledge about potatoes and peas!

Form the home page:

agropedia is an agriculture knowledge repository of universal meta models and localized content for a variety of users with appropriate interfaces built in collaborative mode in multiple languages. agropedia aims to develop a comprehensive digital content framework, platform, and tools in support of agricultural extension and outreach. In other words, it aspires to be a one stop shop for any information, pedagogic or practical knowledge related to extension services in Indian agriculture – an audiovisual encyclopedia, to enchant, educate and transform the process of digital content creation and organization completely.

Hmmm…. Well I like the part about “enchanting”. However it’s still very rough around the edges. I also noticed they are using CMap in a collaborative mode to create the ontologies. Browsing the graphic representations of knowledge map for rice reveals the difficult challenge of displaying large ontology models. It’s just difficult to navigate, but it does work. Of course my 24 inch iMac display makes it easier, I’m sure it’s a significant difference on an average display. On the other hand large displays are becoming more and more common. One of our students the other day showed up in the lab with his 24 inch iMac in tow as his “portable computer”. I believe he had one of these (or something like it)

Problem-o-pedia

One thing I just noticed is that apparently there are more than one “agropedia”s on net.  This may be a sign of the possibly worn out naming convention of fillintheblankpedia as a way to name a site.  Having used this convention myselff (to name “Excellupedia”) I can testify that we had some qualms about it, but went ahead with it anyway.  An interesting argument against this naming convention is that these sites can become (are) so much more than encylopedias about this or that…  It’s possible that with sites, like this one, we are building a new sort of thing that we don’t really have a good generic name for yet. (socialsoftwarewikiizedforumblogthingamijig  just wont do.) Or are we struggling with the possibility that we may be redefining what an encylopedia is.  Are we?  perhaps.

David Kushner reminds us: The Legos Universe Cometh

Brick-heads are clamoring to get into the beta of Lego Universe, a massively multiplayer world that debuts in Q2 2009. Imagine hundreds of Lego nuts logging in to collaborate on the construction of Frank Lloyd Wright’s infamous design for a mile-high skyscraper. It’s a virtual sandbox where you can build your own gravity-defying rocket ships and dinosaur eggs. For a paid subscription, you can get your online creations made real through orders to the Lego Factory (and then shipped to your doorstep). Lego is leading the toy industry from plastic to pixels.

Lego Universe Home Page

SMW+ 1.4 (a.k.a. Project Halo) has recently been released.  You can purchase the commercial version of this special edition of the Semantic MediaWiki.  Or you can download the free (open source) version from Sourceforge. I take some pride in blogging about this as I was a contributor to this release. It was really a pleasure to contribute to this project. My part was to develop the lightweight project management ontology that ships with this version.  The PM Ontology came out rather nicely i might add.  If you try it out keep in mind I designed it with the idea that others would extend it and thus customize to their own needs.  It is simple (KISS) and it provides semantic templates and forms for tasks, projects, people,organizations, events and such.  Not much more. but then that’s is just to get you started.  Once you learn how to build your own semantic templates and forms you can easily expand this ontology to suit your own organization’s needs.  Here’s a quick fact blurb about SMW+ 1.4 from the Ontoprise site.

SMW+ v1.4
It comes pre-configured and ready-to-use comprising:
- an appealing user interface to inspect, create and alter wiki articles and linked data,
- a sophisticated, yet flexible, meta data model to make project progress transparent,
- views on projects, tasks, calendars and linked documents which can be adapted by any team member using a WYSIWYG editor,
- personal home pages for team members including “friend-of-a-friend” features,
- tools for ad-hoc adaptations to the metadata model allowing to tailor SMW according to
the needs of individual team members and
- a web service connector to include data from legacy systems (i.e. bugzilla).

I was reminded of the new release toady while attending Session 4 of the ongoing Semantic Wiki mini-series.  Daniel Hansch from Ontoprise gave an overview of the new release during the lighting talks round.  Attending on-line events such as these is good way to keep pace of the development of semantic wikis.  Today’s focus was on vertical apps for semantic wiki and included presentations by Harold Solbrig and Prof. Guoqian Jiang from the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the Mayo Clinic on LexWiki and BioMedGT (see also: caBiG Knowlege base.) Another highlight today was a presentation by Jie Bao from the Department of Computer Science at RPI. Jie Bao reported on the Tetherless World project which as has delivered some very cool new applications including an interactive map of RPI and an interactive VTO Instrument Map for the the Virtual Solar Terrestrial Observatory. And  a third presention was given by Christop Lange who took us all on a whirlwind tour of semantic wikis for mathematics including his very own SWiM: A Semantic Wiki for Mathematical Knowledge Management.

Could it be that  Semanitic MediaWiki (SMW) is one of the most easily overlooked semantic web application for 2008?  It could be, for example in a recent ReadWriteWeb review of the top 10 semantic web applications for 2008 not a single mention is made of SMW. Not surprising, SMW is actually quite stealthy in it’s appearance on the web.   MediaWiki and the SMW extension and it’s companion tools (semantic forms, SMW+ etc.) comprise a very powerful semantic web application. And in my opinion one that I’d definitely put in my top 10 list. So why does it go unnoticed?

The answer is twofold. Firstly this an Open Source project.  And like so many open source tools, that  lead the way in groundbreaking technology, the internet hype factory is quick to forget (or not even take notice) when the marketing engines of the for profit companies ramp up.

Secondly it is the nature of SMW  to remain stealthy.  One can come across a site powered by Semantic MediaWiki and not even know it.  There are few clues for the uninitiated.  For example in reaction to the top 10 list on ReadWriteWeb, Gregory Kohs plugs MyBizWiki.com as a Semantic Web app that perhaps should have made the list.  Good point Greg, however careful inspection reveals that MyBizWIki.com is actually powered by MediaWiki and the Semantic MediaWiki extnsion.  There are many other SMW powered sites online today, all having the same potential as MyBizWiki in terms of building semantic relations into wiki spaces. Let’s give credit where credits due. When choosing a “best of breed” tool, do we praise the tools themselves (SMW) or the end products built with the tools? (MyBizWIki and so many other semantice wiki instances).  I prefer to praise the reusable tool set, as this set of tools (SMW and it’s realted parts) can be reused by others.  (for free by the way).

So how to spot an SMW powered site?

• Clue number 1: Look for the “powered by MediaWiki” logo in the lower right corner of any page.  Those familiar with Wikipedia and other Mediawiki sites will also spot the all to familiar UI/navigation scheme and feature sets on the tabs.
• Clue #2:  Semantic search or other semantic features in the navigation bar and/or…

• Clue #3: Look for dynamically generated tables for which when you do a “view source” or “edit this page” you see only some lightweight scripting with starts with the word “ask”. These are the dynamic queries that make Semantic MediaWiki so powerful.
• Clue #4: And finally if you want to be absolutely sure, every MediaWiki site has page that will tell you what extensions are installed. Just navigate to “spacial pages” -> “version” and look for the list of installed extensions.  Or just search on “Special:Version”.

But as you may have guesed already these clues are easy to overlook.  The SMW features keep a low profile and the output blends nicely with the standard MediaWiki look and feel.  So am I suprised SMW didn’t make the top 10 list? No.  Should it have?  I think so.

Jon’s vision:

“Vision

Wire arbitrary bits of web magic together just by connecting boxes in workflow diagrams.

Make it trivial to create and offer bits of web magic to the world.”

Emerging tools to watch (and tinker with):

• Tarpipe
• Appjet
• Wireit

The  lens of change

What is the lens of change? The “lens of change” is all of us, who choose to shape the way change happens, how we see our collective reality and what we choose to do while in it. We have a golden opportunity this year to be a part of this lens. For me it seems that his year more than ever we have the opportunity to increase the “resolution” of the incoming image of change.

So I shall attempt to enumerate my wish list for the new year, a list of things we can all work on together for a better world. As an experiment I will use the newly developed Liberating Voices Pattern Language for my foundation. As you read my list you can follow the links to each individual pattern.

Smart lens, old images.

Just for a moment I’ll continue the metaphor of the lens. So what of this lens? Primarily I believe the the lens should be smart, and I am optimistic that we are growing increasingly smarter by the second as a species. A smart lens implies some form of social intelligence and this can work to our advantage.  Our combined civic intelligence can be a new source of power for change. But we also have old power systems in place that provide both stability and stupidity at a species level. If we want the “good life”, we need to replace some of the old antiquated systems of civic control and development.

Changing these old systems carefully and intelligently is important. Care needs to be taken, some of these old systems are like timbers holding up an old house and if we just yank them out things get problematic quickly. Yet like old timbers in a house the clock is ticking and If we don’t replace them they will eventfully collapse anyway. In contrast some of those old beams are just fine and we need to avoid doing stupid things that erode well planned structures. I think with the current economic situation many will know what I mean by this. Smart planning and action coordinated by governments, companies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and “ordinary” people together in harmony to improve the commons is the solution I like.

This cooperation I am suggesting is self organizing. We sometimes feel helpless as individuals, but I (and I hope others) would like to embrace the idea of global citizenship. Our Earth’s vital signs are in the red and we have work to do. Here are 9 more patterns of organizing principles I’d like to see flourish in our new year.

• Social Dominance Atttenuation
• Social Responsibility
• Collective Decision Making
• Fair Trade
• Sustainable Design
• Media Literacy
• Citzen Science
• Cyberpower
• Opportunity Spaces

Smart images, Smart Actions

Systems of human behavior are required to bring about change. Global citizenship might therefore suggest the need for World Citizen Parliament. Human energy is diluted when economic systems channel our actions into non-functional and often destructive systems, therefore economic conversion to the production of goods and services that will further and/or improve the many aspects of the human condition is greatly needed in these troubled times. Here are 5 more patterns for enabling systems I would like to see more frequently in our new year.

• Strengthening International Law
• Design Stance
• Citizen Access to Simulations
• Truth and Reconciliation Commissions
• Peace Education

Smart Questions, Smart Policy

We will never truly see until we allow that which can be seen to be seen. Transparency in how the policies of our society are developed at the local, national, and global level are crucial if we are to change for the better. This is my number one wish for the new year when it comes to policy. For too long the decisions of my state and country have been made behind closed doors in proverbial smoke filled rooms. Free and Fair Elections are essential but once elected, our officials need to keep an honest, open, dialogue with the people that put them in power. Here are 5 more policy patterns I would like to see in use more frequently in this new year.

• Privacy
• Media Diversity
• Ethics of Community Informatics Research and Practice
• Positive Health Information
• Grassroots Public Policy Development

OK, All Together Now

We can do it, We can do it together. Collaboration is key and I know from experience that when people collaborate on line and in person things happen. Here are 5 collaboration patterns that I would like to see more of this year.

• Wholesome Design for Wicked Problems
• Design for Unintended Use
• Future Design
• Citizen Journalism
• Community Building Journalism

It’s Ongoing

There are many more wonderful patterns of change to explore in the liberating voices pattern language, I hope you take the time to look at these and perhaps bring them into your thinking communities or discuss them next time you are at some great good place. Or perhaps, like myself during this new year break, simply spend some time in quiet retreat and reflection.