Linking is a Good Thing

Twenty years ago, Oxford University graduate Tim Berners-Lee wrote a memo to his boss while he was working at CERN. This memo was an information management proposal for a distributed hypertext system that we now know of as the World Wide Web. Note the major feature that he describes which was not video blogging nor banner ads nor even online chat. The major feature in this proposal was hypertext or "human-readable information linked together in an unconstrained way."

This past February, the same visionary gave a presentation at the annual TED Conference where he was still advocating for more or less the same thing. This time, instead of web pages linking to each other, the data that feeds web pages should also be available online and link to each other. This is what is called Linked Data.



Linked Data is collectively intelligent. Individuals contribute relationship information when they link. This relationship information aggregates into fantastic models of our world. Models that help researchers, journalists, and ordinary folk span problem domains in order to solve new and ever increasingly complex challenges.

But there are barriers in the adoption of Linked Data whose measure of success and effectiveness will depend directly on its ubiquity. One big problem is that many organizations value their data and quite naturally wish to protect it. Propriety and intellectual capital are profound cultural barriers to linked data that I, for one, do not understand how to overcome. I think that it's going to be a little more of a challenge than simply to ask you to stop it.

Here is another, even bigger, cultural problem to Linked Data. In our current web society where page rank is the coin of the realm, nobody wants to provide links anymore. Linking is passé. When you link out to another site, you contribute to their page rank. If you compete with that site, then that diminishes your page rank. It's some weird mind-share zero sum game. It's the new variation on the tragedy of the commons all over again. You're so protective of your own page rank that you dare not provide outbound links. Thus, the original, fundamental, collectively intelligent value of the World Wide Web is tragically subverted by individual or organizational greed. This mindset has gotten so bad that many sites automatically flag your content as spam if it includes a link in it. I link a lot in my posts so I can tell you from first hand experience that many prejudiced people will dismiss you as a spammer if you provide a link, even if you are linking to something that you have no official relationship with.

Once again, this noble visionary has provided a map to a more intelligent world but we are going to have to revisit our current values in order to completely embrace the gifts that he has given us.

Bucky Fuller Revisited

I ran across an article in last Sunday's New York Times about everyones favorite cold war era stalwart visionary inventor, engineer, author, and architect Richard Buckminster Fuller.

I remember being quite impressed with this man's writings. While I was in college, I read his Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth and Critical Path books. He introduced the concepts of synergetics and tensegrity to me through these writings. A prolific inventor and thinker, he held 28 patents and was great at reframing complex concepts in new and intriguing ways. People are verbs more than they are nouns. The universe is that "omni-interaccommodative, nonsimultaneous, and only partially overlapping, omni-intertransforming, self-regenerating scenario." To that affect, he was also prolific at coining new terms such as "livingry" and "dymaxion." I was so influenced by this man's work that I even named my startup company Dynamical Software, Inc. as a sort of reverent nod to this man.

Like almost any modern example of good journalism, the New York Times article references a recent event and presents a mild expose. The recent event is an upcoming exhibit (June 26, 2008 through September 21, 2008) of his work at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The expose is a debunking of his "suicide story" in which he claims that, after dropping out of college, failing at business, and becoming a heavy drinker, he seriously considered suicide. Just as he is on the precipice of that dark commitment, he receives an epiphany which causes him to devote his life to the betterment of mankind as a sort of cosmic experiment. Based on research at Stanford University and an upcoming book called "Reassessing R. Buckminster Fuller," the New York Times counter-claims this famous suicide story to be a myth created by Bucky himself. This research does assert that he did have a nervous breakdown after an extra-marital affair, with a women half his age, fell apart.

Yet Another Culture War Rant on the Internet

I normally don't comment on the rants of Robert Cringely because I find his rhetoric to be too "over the top" manipulative for my tastes.

However, a recent piece of his, entitled War of the Worlds: The Human Side of Moore's Law motivated me to blog about it here.

Not that I actually agree with his main premise which is that the Internet is going to replace primary education. It's not going to replace schools anymore than it replaced any of the other institutions that pundits have predicted it would replace including newspapers, television, or the family unit. It has and will, however, supplement, augment, and transform all of those institutions.

My experience working with offshore software development houses and in discussions with my peers in academia regarding distance learning lead me to the conclusion that the Internet cannot replace the psychological need to relate to humans in close physical proximity no matter how much money is saved by not having to have everyone together in the same room.

The Internet can, however, reduce these location driven costs because you can have a very effective group even when everyone isn't in the same room all of the time. They need to get together to meet periodically. They need to hang out a little bit. Then they can go back home and continue to work together over the Internet. Productivity can be higher than when they never physically meet at all.

What is your opinion? Are we "under attack" in some kind of culture war or is this just the next phase in human development?

New Years Resolutions

What better subject for the first blog of 2008 than to revisit the value of the new years resolution? This ritual is a common one that spans many cultures and geographies but how important is it really? Many of us have made these little promises only to break them before the month is out. Is there any value to the new years resolution or is it a waste of time?

The new years resolution asks us to revisit the past year. This reflection helps us recap and summarize our successes and failures. It is here that we are invited to analyze the mistakes that we made and to celebrate our good choices. It is a very up close and personal way to learn about the nature of consequences.

The new years resolution invites us to plan our future. It helps us formulate goals and to come up with an action plan for taking steps toward those goals. It is here that we are allowed to dream about what we want to be in a way that can be obtainable. It is here that we can learn how to take charge of our life.

The new years resolution helps us understand and value the nature of time. Over the years, these resolutions help us to see each life as a voyage. We look back at where we have been and call that the past, that which is known but cannot be changed. We look ahead to where we are going and call that the future, that which cannot be known but can be changed. Time is the ever present now which is the unfolding and transformation of the future into the past. The ritual of the new years resolution says that you are a ship. Grab the rudder and steer your life to where you want to go.

Learning about time and consequences is an important aspect of human development. Every religion has talked about the importance of consequences. Without the lesson of time, the lesson of consequences is simply this. Do good things and get rewarded. Do bad things and get punished. With the lesson of time, the lesson of consequences deepens significantly. We are defined by the choices we make. Religion isn't the only organized institution that codifies this lesson. The media reiterates this teaching through a long list of movies. The short list, of which, that comes to my mind is It's a Wonderful Life, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Harry Potter, even Spiderman 3.

Renaissance Software Development

I recently read a blog post called A Guide to Hiring Programmers: The High Cost of Low Quality in which Frank Wiles makes the case, when staffing a software development project, to hire good coders even if it means sacrificing everything else. Serendipitously enough, I also read a book called The Business of Software by Erik Sink in which the choice, at least for small ISVs, is to hire developers instead of programmers. Developers code but they also can do other things such as design, model, and interview customers in order to capture specifications or defects. I am interested in these different styles or philosophies in software development because of my long history of experience in the field.

Frank advises not to even bother with the requirement that they are familiar with the target programming language or application platform stack. He also advises to let them telecommute 100% of the time if they want to. His reason for all of this is the claim that a good quality programmer will be 10 times more productive than an average coder. My guess is that the big boost in productivity will come once they learn the environment, etc.

Erik makes the case that a good, well-rounded developer will advance the project faster than a hot code specialist. If you had to choose between an average developer and an excellent programmer, then you should pick the developer.

It's really the choice between generalists and specialists which, really, is no choice at all. A project full of specialists may produce something brilliant but it is unlikely to advance the stated goals of the organization. A project filled with generalists might produce something completely on target but with a very lackluster execution. I say, let's embrace the genius of the and over the tyranny of the or and staff the project with both. Use the generalists to keep the project nimble and on target. Use the specialists to quickly solve any advanced technical problems that will arise. You wouldn't play chess with all bishops or send out nothing but running backs on to the football field. Why would you do the same thing in software development?