From OpenSource.com

What problems can we solve? How would it affect the way we learn? Work? Run our governments?

We want to shine a light on the places where the open source way is multiplying ideas and effort, even beyond technology. We believe that opensource.com will be a gathering place for many of the open source stories we’d like to share–through articles, audio, web presentations, video, or open discussion.

The term open source began as a way to describe software source code and the collaborative model for how it’s developed. Red Hat used this model for developing technology and built a business model around open source and its principles: Openness. Transparency. Collaboration. Diversity. Rapid prototyping.

The open source way is more than a development model; it defines the characteristics of a culture. Red Hat and other open source thought leaders want to show you where open source is headed next. Tell you how to get involved. Help you apply it to your life and the world around you.

The open source way is about possibility.

Open source presents a new way to solve old problems. To share ideas and effort.

The open source way opens doors.

Open source offers a new perspective. Open, not closed. Collaboration, not isolation.

The open source way multiplies.

Knowledge. Effort. Inspiration. Creativity. Innovation. The impact is exponential.

And it’s already happening:

CHANGING OUR SOCIETY…

The open source way thrives on broad collaboration and shared effort. Wikipedia is one of the world’s most extensive collections of information. Its rapid, exponential growth arose from a very different model and philosophy from the traditional encyclopedia. Anyone can contribute, and entries are subject to peer review.

CHANGING HOW WE WORK…

Two key characteristics of the open source way are transparency and accountability. With natural and organic foods market Whole Foods, they pass accountability to the employees that can most directly impact their individual areas throughout each store. Wages, staffing decisions, even choosing what items to stock–these activities are all done in the open.

CHANGING OUR GOVERNMENT…

US President Barack Obama came to office with the promise of change. His campaign encouraged participation, and his administration has pledged to create a new environment of openness and participation in government.

CHANGING HOW WE LEARN…

Education is all about an exchange of knowledge. MIT took the lead in sharing knowledge and chose to try and change the world in the process. They make the materials used in the teaching of almost all of its undergraduate and graduate subjects available on the web, free of charge, to any user in the world. With nearly 1,800 courses available, MIT OpenCourseWare is delivering on the promise of open sharing of knowledge.

visit site..

Here is an excerpt from the foreword by Robert Ainger, Corporate Director, Orange Business

One of the key findings within this research is the tension that distinctions between purely personal and professional life are becoming increasingly blurred and that this is particularly the case with younger employees. The report identifies the rise of the ‘network citizen’ who relies more on their network for career opportunities than on their employers. This new dimension adds an extra level of complexity for businesses trying to recruit and
retain the best employees while also managing their reputation and intellectual capital.In fact, this report identifies both the ups and the downs of
networking. It challenges the concept that networking will only engender creativity, innovation and freedom while reducing costs by highlighting a potential ‘dark-side’. Networks blur the boundaries between formal hierarchies and informal structures in a company, and between our personal and professional lives.
Networks can create a tension between employees and employers where traditional ideas of loyalty or ownership of ideas and contacts become difficult. Networking can be exclusive and the rise in online networking may exacerbate it. ‘It’s not what you know but who you know’ may be an age-old adage: should business success today be based on contacts made through networking or purely on merit? In the current economic climate, it might be easy to ignore networking as something to concentrate on when there’s more time for lighter, less business-critical activities. The report points out that the value of networking within an economic downturn is perhaps more important than ever and I believe it could, in fact, mean the difference between a business collapsing or capitalising on the tricky conditions.

http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/networkcitizens

All of the presentations were very interesting and will all be online shortly. I will update you on their availability and provide a full report on the event in a subsequent post as soon as the remaining presentations go online.

In the meantime here is the presentation I gave on
‘Working with Web 2.0 (Social Software in the Workplace)’

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…the power of the network has deep roots in some profound shifts in society and culture, particularly the singular move from push-based systems (the 1.0 era going way, way back until right around now) to pull-based systems (the 2.0 era from roughly a few years into this century and going forward).  That this shift is well under way is clear if you look at the sudden explosion of the blogosphere, social networking, social media, open source software, online communities, and peer production in virtually all things.  The good news (or bad news, depending on how you look at it) is that despite the remaking of more than a few industries already — including media, software, advertising — this shift is only just beginning…

…This list is aimed primarily at CTOs and CIOs since they are mostly likely to be located at the convergence of traditional business thinking and the wave of 2.0 change coming in off the network. However these ideas apply to anyone looking at how to embrace 2.0 transformation in their organization and take advantage of it.  This is one of the most exciting eras to be in businesses since so many directions are in flux and the outcomes, players, and market leaders of the near future are far from certain.  Those who can see the new opportunities clearly through the lens of 2.0 transformation not only have a fighting chance, but are able to seize them with once-in-a-generation ease…

…Ten Key Aspects of Web 2.0 Strategy

1. It’s not about technology, it’s about the changes it enables.  While technology is a close second (and ultimately makes 2.0 business models possible), the real discussion is about the disruptive new opportunities it creates.  Instead the discussion should be focused more around strategies such as harnessing millions of customers over the network to co-create products through peer production, engaging in mass customer self-service, customer communities, and open supply chains to thousands of ad hoc partners with open APIs. These are just some of the examples of using the network to create far richer and more profound results than could be created in the 1.0 era.  Don’t get caught up in the technology of 2.0 at first other than to understand the business possibilities it affords.  Avoid technology-first discussions like the plague.  Premature monetization discussions around 2.0 are also to be avoided to early, they tend to have a negative impact on process if done too early.

2. The implications of 2.0 stands many traditional views on their head and so change takes more time than usual.  In the 2.0 world customers and partners have a much closer, more sustained relationship because of social interaction and tightly integrated online supply chains, to name just two reasons.  The shift of control from institutions to communities of users takes a lot of getting used to.  Just understanding how and why intellectual property is better covered by Creative Commons instead of copyright will take the legal department years (if not decades).  Each part of the organization will have its miniature 2.0 revolution.  These take time to happen and sort themselves out.  This means getting these new ideas into people’s heads is one of the first steps…

3. Get the ideas, concepts, and vocabulary out into the organization and circulating.  If you’re trying to affect 2.0 change in an organization, there’s no better solution that exposing people to it.  Demographics can be a problem in this situation depending on the industry.  Younger workers tend to live and breath 2.0 while older workers may be aware of it but don’t think it applies to them.  I use point education where change needs to happen either first or quickly and then internal communities that bring the discussion of change, innovation, and transformation to the entire organization.  Either way, learning and education around 2.0 are a vital trigger to begin change and should be started early and non-disruptively.

4. Existing management methods and conventional wisdom are a hard barrier to 2.0 strategy and transformation.  You don’t have to get far into discussions about the Perpetual Beta or Product Development 2.0 before existing management methods seem outdated, inflexible, and ineffective.  This is one of the more difficult aspects of adopting 2.0 models and the implications is that we’ll have to do a lot of rethinking how we manage businesses driven by 2.0 models, where the boundaries of organizations are less clear, the ownership is much more community-based, and the outcomes are far more diverse and spread out, making them less trackable, controllable, and directed.  Overhauling management practices and techniques will be a core activity in a 2.0 transformation and will be hard to achieve quickly enough due to the Innovator’s Dilemma.

5. Avoiding external disruption is hard but managing self-imposed risk caused by 2.0 is easier.  The great fear than many businesses have is facing a fast-growth competitor that takes these ideas and either wrests away market share rapidly and aggressively or cuts them off at the pass with entirely new products.  YouTube did this to the broadcast and cable industry, which responded with Hulu.  Apple did this with iTunes to the recording industry and the blogosphere did the same to the newspaper industry.  Other industries are next likely including the financial services industry, real estate, and others.  Internally, however, risk management is still a challenge but is much more manageable.  The big implication for this is that starting internally first with things like Enterprise 2.0 initiatives and prediction markets to learn the ropes on how to deal with unexpected outcomes and results can help organizations climb the maturity curve.

6. Incubators and pilots projects can help create initial environments for success with 2.0 efforts.  Too much contact with the traditional support environment of an existing, primarily 1.0 organization makes it hard for 2.0 efforts to succeed; everything gets done in the traditional way instead of the new ways that are required.  The traditional tools, processes, and skills just aren’t there or are just too slow and burdened with unnecessary overhead.  Creating dedicated incubators that are designed to use the strengths of the organization while being isolated from its weaknesses can help.  Incubators are at risk of becoming too isolated however, and won’t inform or change the greater organization unless care is taken to roll the lessons and capability back in.

7. Irreversible decisions around 2.0 around topics such as brand, reputation, and corporate strategy can be delayed quite a while, and sometime forever. Most organizations get paralysis around change and transformation because of concerns around decisions that can’t be reversed.  Concern over damaging the company’s brand is one of the top issues I run into and it’s a valid concern.  The good news is that many organizations are discovering they can safely leverage the advantages of their organization (such as their extensive customer base to drive initial growth of 2.0 engagement and adoption of new products and services) without dragging their brand into it whatsoever.  New 2.0 products from major companies are now often released under new brands entirely. This enables serious experimentation with 2.0 while taking little risk to the organization.

 8. The technology competence organizations have today are inadequate for moving to 2.0.  This is key if you’re a CTO or CIO today; your organization is almost certainly not ready to handle the development, management, scalability, identity, governance, and openness issues around 2.0.  If you’re not sure, just ask your IT staff.  Examples include cloud computing, open APIs, mashups, rich user experiences, Web-Oriented-Architecture, community platforms, Enterprise 2.0, 2.0-era computing stacks like Rails and Django, are all disciplines that are considerable in their own right, of rapidly growing importance to organizations in the 2.0 era.  These are all likely to be things your staff needs to come up the learning curve on in significant ways and with the rate of change on the network what it is presently, falling behind is too easy to do.  Note: The existing technology landscape of most organizations will have to change as well which is where Web-Oriented Architecture (WOA) is getting quite a bit of attention today.  And the Web products themselves have moved far beyond the model of the Web page and most enterprises are very far behind.

9. The business side requires 2.0 competence as well.  This includes how to design, build, launch, market, support, and maintain 2.0 products and services as well as the ways that workers should use the tools and concepts to work together.  I recently suggested that learning how to be effective in working within and directing communities of workers/users/partners to accomplish large-scale outcomes will be a vital skill in the very near future.  All of this requires both a new perspective as well as a hard-headed effort at skill building and a re-orientation of existing work habits and processes.

10. Start small, think big.  We have discovered that the leverage the network can give us is almost unlimited.  It’s ability to scale ideas, products, and communities of users as fast as they are able to is one of the aspects that makes it so attractive to business.  2.0 products tends to be very simple at heart, and though there is certainly challenges and complications growing, small ideas can become big very, very quickly.  Getting to the right solutions, not-overinvesting (which leads to complication and heavyweight management and processes) and letting customers and partners take the seeds of great ideas and run with them is what makes sudden success turn into a large-scale success.  On the Web, starting small, and thinking big can take you a long, long way.  Read more about network effects driven by architectures of participation .

Read entire article..

The federal government has released the report of the Review of the National Innovation System  Venturous Australia, which details recommendations for remodeling the nation’s innovation system.

Among 72 key recommendations was a call for an advisory committee of Web 2.0 practitioners to be established to propose and help steer governments as they experiment with Web 2.0 technologies and ideas.

“…exciting new possibilities are now emerging for government from the collaborative use of Internet technologies and platforms otherwise known as Web 2.0”, the report read, offering the example of crime being tracked in US neighbourhoods using Google’s online maps…

…“The possibilities [of Web 2.0 technologies] here are so substantial, so full of promise (and sometimes so challenging to existing cultures) that it is neither possible nor desirable for this report to spell out comprehensively what might or should occur,” the report, released on Tuesday, said….

…However, it did indicate that there are a number of principles with which we may be able to make progress:

“The most fundamental principle is that governments should be as open as possible to experiments with Web 2.0 approaches. Importantly, they should seek to learn from those that are successful but should expect, and educate the public to expect, that many initiatives will not fully succeed.”

The review also recommended making information about the full range of Australian state and territory government innovation programs available through a Web portal…

…Other ICT related recommendations include the suggestion that all practicable information, research and content funded by Australian governments should be made freely available over the Internet as part of a global public commons.

“This should be done whilst the Australian government encourages other countries to reciprocate by making their own contributions to the global digital public commons,” the report said…

The Review of the National Innovation System Venturous Australia can be viewed in full here

http://www.innovation.gov.au/innovationreview/Documents/NIS-review-web.pdf

 From RRW

If you were interviewing someone for a position with your company and they admitted that they didn’t know anything about the new trends and innovations taking place in their field, what would you think? Likely, what you would think is “next candidate, please.” In today’s business world, job-seekers are expected to stay current with the happenings taking place in their area of interest. There was a time when those happenings were very much job-specific and anything having to do with technology fell squarely on the shoulders of I.T. That time has passed. Web 2.0 technologies lifted the veil of mystery surrounding computing technology and made it accessible to everyone. Today, if you’re not staying current with Web 2.0 technologies’ impact on business, then you’re just not staying current. Period.

Web 2.0 Is Everywhere
No matter which department you’re in, Web 2.0 technologies have had an impact. If you’ve been ignoring their prevalence and adoption, you’re at risk of falling behind in your career and your business is at risk of losing ground to its competitors who are tuned into this trend.

Read full article

The report notes the importance and benefits of strong government leadership and vision in identifying the importance of ICT for government and governance in Denmark.

“Denmark, in particular, has benefited from very effective government e-leadership, reflected in early liberalization of the telecommunications sector, a first-rate regulatory framework and large availability of e-government services.”

The Report features four thematic parts.

Part 1 includes the findings of the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) 2007–2008, together with a number of insightful essays on selected issues of networked readiness, with a specific focus on how it can foster innovation.Topics covered stretch from the link between innovation and ICT to recent trends in innovation (such as Unified Communications) and e-skills and telecommunications regulation in emerging markets.

Part 2 focuses on country/regional case studies showcasing best policies and practices in fostering networked readiness.This year, Singapore, Qatar, and EU cases are analyzed in depth.

Part 3 provides detailed profiles for each of the 127 economies covered in the Report, presenting a comprehensive snapshot of each economy’s current networked readiness status and allowing for international and historical comparison on specific variables or components of the NRI.

Lastly, Part 4 provides detailed data tables for each of the 68 variables composing the NRI this year, with global rankings.

The NRI rankings for 2007–2008 confirm Denmark as the most networked economy in the world for the second year consecutively, as a culmination of an upward trend observed since 2003.The other Nordic countries also continue to show their prowess in leveraging ICT for increased competitiveness, with Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Norway at 2nd, 6th, 8th, and 10th position, respectively. Among the top 20, Switzerland is up two places, at 3rd position, continuing last year’s notable upward trend, while the United States improves three ranks to 4th place. Korea, at 9th, realizes one of the most impressive improvements (10 places) from last year among the 127 economies covered by the Report.

The Networked Readiness Index
2007-2008 rankings (top 50 of 127) download full ranking.

Click here to view and download the report

The UN E-Government Survey 2008: From E-Government to Connected Governance assesses the e-government readiness of the 192 Member States of the UN according to a quantitative composite index of e-readiness based on website assessment, telecommunication infrastructure, and human resource endowment. ICTs can help reinvent government in such a way that existing institutional arrangements can be restructured and new innovative arrangements can flourish, paving the way for a transformed government.

The focus of the report this year, in Part II, is e-government initiatives directed at improving operational efficiency through the integration of back-office functions. Whilst such initiatives, if successful, will deliver benefits to citizens, the primary purpose is to improve the effectiveness of government and governmental agencies. Models of back-office integration, irrespective of the delivery mode, fall into three broad categories: single function integration, cross functional integration, and back-office to front-office integration. The level of complexity, expressed in terms of the number of functions within the scope and number of organizations involved, is the primary factor influencing a successful outcome – with a tendency amongst the more ambitious projects to fail to deliver the full anticipated benefits. The key variables involved in the delivery of back-office integration are the people, processes and technology required.

Here are some excerpts from the report:

E-Consultation

The Survey clearly indicates that few countries are implementing e-consultation applications and tools. Only 7 per cent of the countries surveyed received a score of more than 50 per cent. One way to improve these results is for governments to implement online applications to engage and include citizens in a dialogue.Web 2.0 has generated a class of online individuals and groups that want to share their views through blogs and/or online community networks such as MySpace, YouTube,Facebook and LinkedIn to name a few. As of October 2007, the blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 108.6 million blogs. This recent explosion in online blogging and publishing tools underscores a significant interest of web users in creating and consuming user-generated content. A few governments are beginning to acknowledge this phenomenon.

Countries that Use an Open Web Forum for Discussing Topics

Bhutan, Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon, Congo, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia,France, Ghana, Hungary, Japan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Mexico, Mongolia,Mozambique, New Zealand, Norway, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Singapore, Sweden, Ukraine, and United States of America.

E-Decision-Making
E-decision-making evaluates the extent of a government’s commitment to eparticipation,as evidenced by the definitive acknowledgement of an individual citizen’s input and by a stated commitment to take it into account when making decisions. The Republic of Korea is the leader in this assessment, followed by Denmark and France. With a number similar to e-consultation, approximately 66 per cent of the countries surveyed received a score in this section. To balance the heavily quantitative scoring, a few qualitative questions were still included to allow researchers to rate the general edecision-making performance. Only 11 per cent of countries surveyed committed themselves to incorporating the
results of e-participation into the decision-making process. This figure clearly indicates that the majority of not in position to directly involve citizens into the decision making process.

Governments that Publish Findings/Results of Citizen Opinions,including e-Opinions, on Websites

Australia, Bhutan, Canada, Cape Verde, China, Denmark, Estonia, France, Israel,Japan, Latvia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Mozambique, Netherlands, New Zealand,Republic of Korea, Thailand, Ukraine, United Kingdom,United States of America and Viet Nam.

Of Interest to Irish Readers

Ireland ranked 19 (out of 35) in the e-government readiness index and 17th out of 35 for web measurement assessment.

The web measurement assessment looks at how governments are providing egovernment policies, applications and tools to meet the growing needs of their citizens or more e-information, e-services and e-tools. It measures the online presence of national websites, along with those of the ministries of health, education, welfare, labour and finance of each Member State.

One Irish Government project was identified as a Regional best practice, this was the Etenders website: http://www.etenders.gov.ie/

“Ireland has implemented a single portal to centralize government procurement. As a one-stop shop for businesses to work together with the Irish Government, this portal handles tender submissions and vendor registration. The portal provides businesses with a simple two-page set of instructions in its “Suppliers-Getting Started page. Subscribers to this website receive e-mail alerts as new opportunities are published, access to business opportunities with the public sector, and clear and concise information on working with the government.”

Also on a positive point, Ireland listed as 1 of only 20 countries that use RSS to update and involve citizens, the total list included was:
Australia, Austria, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, ElSalvador, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, Togo, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

Download the full report here:

http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan028607.pdf

The Blurb:

Semantic Wave 2008 Report: Industry Roadmap to Web 3.0 and Multibillion Dollar Market Opportunities. It is the first comprehensive industry study of the next stage of internet evolution — Web 3.0. This landmark 400-page report is written for executives, developers, designers, entrepreneurs, investors, and others who want to better understand semantic technologies, the business opportunities they present, and the ways Web 3.0 will change how we use and experience the internet.

The executive summary (27 pages- the full report is 400 pages long) is available for download from the Project 10x website (you need to register for free to download the summary)

The semantic wave embraces four stages of internet growth. The first stage, Web 1.0, was about connecting information and getting on the net. Web 2.0 is about connecting people — putting the “I” in user interface, and the “we” into Webs of social participation. The next stage, Web 3.0, is starting now. It is about representing meanings, connecting knowledge, and putting these to work in ways that make our experience of internet more relevant, useful, and enjoyable. Web 4.0 will come later. It is about connecting intelligences in a ubiquitous Web where both people and things reason and communicate together.

Project10X’s Semantic Wave 2008 Report tells the story of Web 3.0. Over the next decade, Web 3.0 will spawn multi-billion dollar technology markets that will drive trillion dollar global economic expansions to transform industries as well as our experience of the internet. The Semantic Wave 2008 report examines drivers and market forces for adoption of semantic technologies in Web 3.0 and maps opportunities for investors, technology developers, and public and private enterprises.

http://project10x.com/

The essence of the paper is that we are ‘sleepwalking into a surveillance society’

The surveillance society has come about almost without us realising..

It is the sum total of many different technological changes, many policy decisions, and many social developments. Some of it is essential for providing the services we need: health, benefits, education. Some of it is more questionable. Some of it may be unjustified, intrusive and oppressive. People may have many different opinions. But in fact most people know very little about the surveillance society: it is seen as the stuff of science fiction, not everyday life. So there has been very little public debate about surveillance. The surveillance industry is already massive and (especially since 9/11) is growing much faster than other industries : the global industry is estimated to be worth almost $1 trillion US dollars, covering a massive range of goods and services from military equipment through high street CCTV to smart cards. The surveillance society has come about often slowly, subtly and imperceptibly and by the unforeseen combination of many small paths into one bigger road. It is a road whose direction we urgently need to discuss and debate. Read on

The Data Commissioner’s website is an extremely valuable resource for data controllers, perhaps you are one?