.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;} Searching for the Moon
My original blog - I have moved to http://shannonclark.wordpress.com so this remains only as an archive.
 
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Searching for the Moon
by Shannon Clark
 

Saturday, January 31, 2004


Social Software ideas | A Whole Lotta Features
Social Software ideas | A Whole Lotta Features

I will also post this to Mesh Forum but definitely interesting to read about a whole lot of suggestions for Social Software functions from the perspective of a user.

1/31/2004 08:19:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, January 30, 2004


TCS: Tech Central Station - Tech's Immediate Future
TCS: Tech Central Station - Tech's Immediate Future

Worth reading by my political friends - a non-partisan (mostly) perspective on both parties failures and risks from the perspective of a tech entrepreneur.

(thanks to Auren Hoffman for the link)

1/30/2004 09:17:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, January 29, 2004


Social Software and campaigns
Many of my friends are Howard Dean supporters, others work for one of the other Democratic candidates. A few friends are republicans, a few are Libertarians, others are even anarchists (mostly anarco-capitalists as complicated as that can be).

As I watch the current Democratic primaries I find myself pulled in many directions and have not yet found a candidate that I fully support. At the same time, as a person who is very interested in the Internet, in software, and in the power of networks (indeed I am forming a group focused on Network Theory and plan to hold a conference on the subject in the future) I have been watching what the candidates do with the Internet to organize. In particular I have been following what the Howard Dean campaign does, though not exclusively and have not had the time to get into it as fully as I would like to.

After the first two states, the primaries are shaping up to be very different than in past years, but not, perhaps, as different as they were expected to be. Specifically, technically the campaign is still anyone's game - only a very small percentage of the delegates have been selected and while there are some fairly clear losers, it is by no means certain that Kerry will emerge the winner, or that Dean the loser.

That said, just this afternoon I recieved an email from a friend of mine here in Chicago who has been a staunch Dean supporter for quite some time - periodically mailing to his friends around the country about his support, even in the face of various public gaffs and blips. His most recent email, however, stated that he, along with many other Dean supporters he knows, has decided to shift towards supporting Kerry.

His problem with Dean is not a specific policy or issue, but rather Dean's seeming indifference to and lack of ability to present and project himself as a presidential candidate That is, while perhaps it should not matter, he does find that appearance and perception is vital to being able to win - not just in the primary, but in the general election.

In thinking about Social Software and the Dean campaign (as well as other campaigns) a few thoughts occur to me. For one, time is a vital element to all network activity of a campaign, unlike in more general cases such as the dating networks of Match.com or Friendster, a campaign has to not just create and mobilize and network, but focus that activity around very time specific requirements, a primary in each state and the the general election. For another, the network does not exist in isolation, there are many competing networks (other candidates, the "other" party) as well as many diverse forces that will react to the network's actions. As well, an open network is just that, open, you have to assume that not only are all of the actions public, but even the process of chosing and selecting those actions may very likely be observed (and perhaps even influenced) by people active in other networks.

This final point bears some further discussion. By this I do not just mean the "traditional" model of espionage between campaigns, I also that open campaigns mean that people who are making up their minds may still be active in and influencing many different networks. Consider as well that opening up the process of decisionmaking as well as the final decisions means that the messy process of reaching consensus (or at least a decision) likely plays out in the public eye, observed not just by supporters, but by potential supporters and competitors alike. Humans being who we are, it is also to be expected that gaffs will be focused on over the positives and that people will quickly leap to conclusions, even if a decision has not actually be made.

In any network it is very easy to assume that everyone is alike. At a very least most networks (and especially online communities) assume that the participants each have a set of things in common, over time these grow to include generally a specialized vocabulary and a shared worldview. The danger that this holds can be seen as you observe how networks change and grow over time, the more complex the shared history, the harder it can be for new members to join and once joined, it is that much harder for the new members to influence and shape the network. Consider a startup, in the early years every employee has a critical and vital role in the company (if they don't generally the pressures of a startup either make them have a critical role, or mean they have to find a new job elsewhere). However, as the company grows and the roles become more standardized and formal, the influence any new employee has over the course of the company diminishes. Until as somepoint a company becomes a big company full of mostly employees disconnected from driving the future of the firm and seemingly unable to shape it in a meaningful way (or generally to benefit from such changes either).

In a campaign, the early stages access is generally open and easy, most staff are unpaid volunteers driven by a common set of beliefs and vision for the future, and any given person's role is not hard to see and feel.

However, if the campaign is to move beyond the formative stages and to wins in primaries, it most move beyond just activists and include regular voters in numbers that are larger than the opponents. Not only must the campaign motivate, identify, and draw upon this support, it must begin the process of building to handle every greater size and scale, eventually enough to win in a national general election.

One aspect of this, I conject, is to build support not just at a national level with nationally known leaders and among the small "activist" population around the country, but to build support from local candidates and officeholders throughout the country. These local leaders, in turn, provide a connection to the non-activist majority of the country. "All politics is local" is a famous quote (source I don't know but suspect Google would have an answer).

As such, "social software" has to do more than just provide the means for activists to talk to activists, it also has to provide access to the campaign by the far larger majority of non-activists. Further, the software has to be careful that it does not mistake the voices of an active minority for the views of the majority. The danger that many commentators have cited about the Dean campaign's focus on Iraq as a rallying issue, is that for many voters Iraq is not the primary issue of importance, but it could (as it is for me) serve as a negative point - i.e. much as I would not vote for a pro-life candidate, I am reluctant to vote for a stridently anti-war candidate because it does not give me confidence in that candidate's leadership in future crises or non-black and white foriegn policy problems - i.e. other cases where the US's "National Interest" might be opaque, groups such as the EU or the UN reluctant to engage, but a major and serious crises is unfolding that the US could, if we chose to, engage, stop and prevent (Rwanda comes immediately to mind as a low point for both the US and the UN).

So the challenge is to engage people to contribute - both money, time, and ideas. Without losing sight of the difficulty in engaging the non-activists and in getting their voices and opinions into the mix.

Like any software, the majority of users of a piece of "Social Software" will not modify it or customize it from how it is presented to them. So, in the case of Social Software, vastly more people will look at the front pages of a site than will customize it into a "my site" view, or who will go through a complex registration process, or who will proactively search out communities of interest. Further while the ratios can vary, in most online (and indeed offline) activities a small percentage (sometimes as low as 1 in 100) of the members are those who participate - by posting/emailing online, writing comments, or talking up offline. The majority of people will read or listen without speaking up.

One thing that groups such as MoveOn.org have gotten pretty good at is helping reduce this burden, in no small part by doing a lot of work up front. Thus, instead of sending out a mail such as "call your representatives and senators", they will send out a highly customized mail with detailed instructions on how to specifically connect with the specific representative or senator for the person to whom the mail was sent. Or instead of asking for "donate money" they ask for something more specific "give $x for this specific activity" and then also provide a wealth of immediate feedback on that giving - both showing what it is doing and showing how much as been raised.

But writing, talking, even contributing money, is a different act than voting. Voting is irrevocable and is, most of the time at least, a representation of making a decision - this candidate or the other (at least here in the US we don't generally have vote off style elections where you indicate a level of support and second/third choices etc, our voting tends to be either/or votes). To get people to vote requires a number of specific and each slightly difficult steps.

First, a person has to be legally registered to vote. The process and complexity of this differs from state to state. In some states this also requires a registration for a given party (states with "closed primaries", in many states however primaries are open so independants as well as declared members of a party can vote)

Second, a person has be aware of the date of the local election. Especially critical if the process of voting absentee is difficult, but even if it is easy, the steps to vote in that way must be known and followed up on. This awareness of the date has to penetrate into a freeing up of the time to get to the polls to vote, as well as time ahead of voting to become aware of the candidates being presented (especially critical if there are multiple elections being held at once, all too often people won't vote unless there is at least one election where they are personally involved with the outcome - typically of a very local race)

Third, a person knowing the date and registered to vote (or aware that they can register at the polling place in the states that allow that) has to know where their polling place is, and take whatever steps are needed to get there while the polls are open. Frequently this means taking some time off of work, or at least leaving work early or arriving slightly late. Why the US seems to generally hold elections during work days has never been clear to me, but I suspect in part it is to keep turnout somewhat down.

Fourth, a person knowing all of the above, has to actually take the time to get to the polling place and vote.

Here social networking software has to tow a careful line. On the one hand, peer pressure is a very, very powerful thing. As I cited above, all politics is local. While we talk in broad generalities, at the end of the day we tend to act in ways that are in keeping with our own immediate circle (which in the age of the Internet might not be people we live with or near). A committment to a distant, remote group is one thing, a committment to a friend is a very different thing entirely. However, voting is also, at least in non-caucus states, a very private, personal matter.

Additionally, social networking software has to watch out for the "group think" problem that any crowd - whether virtual or "real" can fall under. This is the phenomenon that most people will generally agree with a crowd around them, whether or not they privately (think when they walk into the voting booth) agree. This problem is a serious one, but also one that I think could be helped by social software, however the challenge is time shifting of participation. Few people will publically (on or off line) speak up with a view that is counter to how they percieve the group views things. Generally they will either not talk, talk in vague terms, or literally agree with the group (at least their perception of the group) while privately disagreeing.

Writ large, I wonder if this is some of the challege that the Dean campaign is facing. A lot of people finding some common ground, but privately holding back on many opinions that they feel are unpopular (at least with this group). Over time, these private reservations may grow and when faced with a private opportunity to act (i.e. vote) people appear to be acting in ways other than how they may have publically spoken up.

Consider the issue of Iraq. Within Dean supporters I suspect there are few who feel comfortable publically saying "I am, was, and will be for the war".

In corporate meetings a technique can be used to great effect. Rather than asking for public participation and feedback at all times - leading most to speak in a way designed to impress (and echo back) their boss; private feedback channels can be established - such as a private vote, poll or suggestion box - typically delivered electonically, but can be as simple as writing notes on a slip of paper. The key, is that people should all give this feedback, before hearing the results. As well, after it has been shown that there is a diversity of opinions and views, more feedback should be solicitated (as many people the first few times around will still think that they are being watched/judged on the basis of the feedback.

Often in such meetings it is very helpful to have people publically seen as neutral involved - whether people from another part of the same company, or frequently outside consultants, the presense of a third party often prompts people to open up in a ways that within a group they might not.

For social software, I think this is where the line between openness and privacy has to be carefully watched - what people will say in "public" and what they say and do in private are rarely completely the same. If a campaign wants to get a sense not just of what people say at a meetup, rally, or online petition, but what they do when entering a voting booth, the campaign has to provide opportunities for private feedback as well as public. Further a campaign has to highlight and emphasize the range and diversity of opinions if the base of supporters is to be grown beyond some core set.

More on this over the next days and weeks.

1/29/2004 10:59:00 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, January 27, 2004


v-2 Organisation | news | Ikeaphobia and its discontents
v-2 Organisation | news | Ikeaphobia and its discontents

Very sensible rant by by Adam Greenfield. I agree with him, and I would take it a step further. Anyway, go, read it, well worth it.

1/27/2004 08:29:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, January 26, 2004


ACME Mapper @ N 41.911252 W 87.632247, 1 m/p
ACME Mapper @ N 41.911252 W 87.632247, 1 m/p

freaky.

Cool.

but freaky. Hours and Hours and Hours of fun...

1/26/2004 12:57:00 AM 0 comments

Sunday, January 25, 2004


zipdecode - ben fry
zipdecode - ben fry (from BoingBoing) very cool applet that lets you type in a zipcode in parts and see where it is graphically.

Cool because it is a completely intuative, yet powerful, user interface and information presentation design that elegantly and effectively communicates a lot of useful information.

For example, you can put in a part of a zip code, and immediately know where (roughly) the zip code is in the county, as you go, you can then see down to the specific town (for codes that exist).

All in all, very cool and fun.

1/25/2004 11:17:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, January 21, 2004


Travel plans to NYC
So earlier this week my girlfriend found herself having to go to NYC on very short notice, she left this afternoon.

I leave tomorrow, late afternoon, we both return on Sunday. We're staying for the first part of the trip downtown, apparently with a view of Ground Zero, but that's where her office and the training she is attending is taking place. We'll be there thru Friday, but Saturday night we're staying by Union Square at a much, much nicer place (using up a free night certificate...)

Friday I hope to have a number of meetings, at the moment I am planning lunch and the afternoon with a former client to explore how we might work together again - mostly in a consulting capacity, but potentially doing some software/web development for him as well. Later that afternoon I'll be meeting with a contact of mine from a few months back (more on this later - not sure of the protocal of name dropping always, but he is a fairly notable "a-list" blogger).

However, my morning - breakfast and until noon or so is still open at the moment. If you are reading this, are in NYC, and would like to meet up, drop me a line and lets set something up. (via my email which I assume you have, if you do not, contact me on Ryze.com)

Friday night we'll go someplace, not sure where yet, but someplace good and fun - if we get ambitious perhaps try a Thai place I've read about many times (but is outside of Manhattan, we may decide it is too cold to go all the way out there etc). Saturday we'll probably explore NYC a bit, see what's changed since I was last there and check out some of the many stores unique to NYC. Saturday for lunch we might try a place I've read about Ada which appears interesting, or may try Amma which my sister suggests (not sure if they serve lunch however) or we may just go to Koreantown or Chinatown for something. Saturday night we'll probably have dinner with my sister. On Sunday we're going to try brunch somewhere, probably Five Points, and then it is off to the airport and back home...

Anyway, so the rest of tonight I have to send out a lot of emails, catch up on my reading, pack for my trip, do some laundry (so I can pack), make dinner to use as much of my food as possible (so it doesn't spoil) or freeze some of it, clean my condo, and do all this in time to get up for a breakfast meeting tomorrow morning at 7:30.

1/21/2004 08:20:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, January 19, 2004


whump.com | More Like This WebLog: Really, Catalogs Matter - Friday, 16 January 2004
whump.com | More Like This WebLog: Really, Catalogs Matter - Friday, 16 January 2004 A friend of mine recently wrote this short blog entry on XML catalogs, linking to it both because it is a useful and informative piece, and to remind me that friends of mine have dealt with XML issues in production environments recently and could be useful in the future when I encounter similar problems with software I am building or considering building.

1/19/2004 02:47:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, January 13, 2004


New England Cheesemaking Supply Company
New England Cheesemaking Supply Company

When I have time... a new hobby to consider... certainly would be a lot of fun to learn how to make some of the types of cheeses that I like, make them, age them in my closet and have them a few months (years?) later....

Probably not this weekend, but definitely sometime. (and a friend just found a supplier for raw milk from a local farmer/CSA in case I get really serious about this...)

1/13/2004 10:45:00 PM 0 comments
Salon.com | Joe Conason's Journal - Hallibutron on Mars
Salon.com | Joe Conason's Journal

the problem that I have with many critics on the left (and I'm basically left leaning on many things myself) is that they seem fundementally clueless about most complicated matters.

Business. Science. To a large extent world politics.

In this article Jow Conason manages to make it read as if Halliburton (and other businesses) were looking to drill for oil on Mars.

First, on a fundemental level, that's pretty unlikely, if there were oil, there would also be evidence of life and all sorts of other major items.

Second, as I read this, NASA is acting in a very reasonable way in approaching the firms with the deepest expertise in complicated drilling (oil companies) and asking them for advice and knowledge for the highly complicated task of designing tools for research on other planets, in this case the possiblity of extracting information from deep into the surface of another planet.

Anyway, highly clueless, more on this when I have more time, the Starbucks I'm in is about to close.

1/13/2004 05:49:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, January 12, 2004


A Movable Type Intranet
A Movable Type Intranet

Both a reference for myself for a personal project which I will be working on this weekend, and for my clients who might want to look into modifying this solution for their own internal sites.

1/12/2004 01:02:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, January 11, 2004


Salon.com | Homeland insecurity
Salon.com | Homeland insecurity

I will read this article in more detail and comment, but a few points.

1. Salon is WRONG on a fundemental point - more data is fundemental to better analysis. Especially with automated tools (applied AI) it is inherent in the nature of such systems that more data is better, the systems "learn" and recognize patterns, more data means more opportunities to learn and find "better" patterns.

As well, reducing the data by means of human assumptions, for example that certain ages cannot be security risks, will weaken the accuracy and effectiveness of computer systems - since in a fundemental way they are designed to recognize patterns that humans don't (and/or can't because of the amounts of data needed).

This is something that most people don't understand. Computers programmed well are inherently able to do things that humans can't - the goal of applied AI is not to make the computers "think like humans" - rather it is build systems that learn and recognize patterns, often in ways that humans because we don't retain all the same details and/or can't process the same type of data as quickly will never recognize.

Just to follow up on the concept of "age" - a human might simplistically conclude that age is a clear negatize sign for risk of being a terrorist and then set an arbitrary cutoff for that risk (say 16, leaving aside Columbine etc).

At that point, however, either the human has to "prove" age in some way, or assume that data in the systems is accurate.

A computer, on the other hand if given all of the data available (say about passengers) could use the following (just an example, as I stated, AI systems would probably come up with something much different)

1. Look at passenger's names (as given) and compare with a list of names (and known aliases) of people wanted for questioning.

2. Look at related data to the passenger traveling, say credit cards used to pay for the ticket and look for discrepencies - i.e. names that don't match (passenger/card) - especially, pehaps, names that don't quite match that might indicate mispellings that in turn might indicate a false name being used); as well look for data on the card (such as billing address) which might match with a watch list (i.e. someone who lives at the same address as someone wanted)

3. Look at other known behavior - missed flights; check bags vs. no bags; passengers traveling alone; one way tickets vs. round trips; travel events in the in future (i.e. vacation booked at the same time) vs. nothing - especially with a one way ticket, etc.

4. Look at past events and see if anyone traveling matches closely.

For example, I have read of a gun being discovered inside of a stuffed animal being carried by a young child - the article stated that the mother claimed it had been a gift from a stranger. Nothing definitative, and certainly just one isolated news story, but I'd think it warrents some random screening of other stuffed animals to be on the safe side - especially if anything unique about that mother/child seemed like a relevant fact.

As well, one of the patterns that a computer might find (and a determined observer might as well) is a negative fact - i.e. "we do not screen anyone who is an elderly woman or traveling with young children"

Unfortunately such a pattern is likely to be noticed by the "bad guys" as well. So a very smart approach to avoid this is to vary up procedures and truly check random people (with a computer looking all the time to see if what "seems" random really is)

2. I disagree with Salon in their blithe dismisall of using computers to find patterns, and in their concern about too many false alarms. The challenge that all security faces is complency. "False alarms" while disruptive also shake off cobwebs and are vital realtime learning exercises for the system as a whole. As well, as the data collected improves, and as patterns are proven to be important (or not) the systems as a whole can get better.

It is unfortunately very expensive and costly to make an inaction mistake when it comes to people's lives and security - that is. if they miss a terrorist who does indeed exploit a whole in the security systems, that single person (or group of people) can harm a great number of people very quickly.

For example, there have been reports over the years, since 9/11, of stolen uniforms and badges of airline employees. As well, I could easily imagine that terrorists might respond to enhanced security around passengers with focusing on where the security is weaker, perhaps around employees and workers at airports and airlines. Who knows, which is a major part of the problem.

As a developer and thinker on AI systems, I have a sense of what they can do. The power, in most cases, comes from letting a system loose on lots of data, much (indeed perhaps most) of it seemingly nonsensical and irrelevant. The real power comes from the system being able to combine disperate facts and data into something unseen and unknown.

This has always been a part of security/intelligence opperations. The famous anecdote about being able to predict major world events by the number of pizzas delivered to the Pentagon is not completely without merit - such patterns exist all over the place. It takes much human effort, and much computer effort to tease these out - the challenge is to do so inadvance of the events in question, not after.

In the case of homeland security, I, for one, am not unhappy to see more proactive and random security inspections at airports, if anything I'd like to see more of them not less. As well, I hope that the people running the computers are using as much data as they can get and have tools that are capable of really "learning" from those sets of data. As well, as they appear to have an alarm, I hope that the systems continue to be given data, especially about alarms and begin to learn what might have indicated it was not a "real" alarm.

The risk is that, like the Salon article implies, humans will intervene too much and short circuit the capabilities of the systems - at which point I would agree that they do not offer much help.

1/11/2004 12:59:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, January 07, 2004


Heritrix - Home Page
Heritrix - Home Page

Open source crawler used by the Internet Archive. Looks likely to be very useful, going to investigate further but certainly I can see many uses for a good, well written (and well behaving) web page crawler/archiver. Especially as a tool to help with my other AI research (i.e. didn't really want to write a crawler myself, but I do need a large archive of websites/pages for much of what my AI research leads to).

1/07/2004 12:15:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, January 04, 2004


Indian Soybean Farmers Join the Global Village
Indian Soybean Farmers Join the Global Village (NY Times article, free registration required)

Exactly the sort of use of technology to empower people, while still being a profitable business that I think the world needs. Very much what many people I know are talking about, great to see that it is not just talk but is happening.

I'll be forwarding this article to many of the networks I belong to, and I hope to learn more about the company depicted and how they are doing what they are doing. Seems very promising and exciting.

1/04/2004 06:55:00 PM 0 comments
 
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Shannon John Clark (email me), b. 1974.

Male (to hold off the assumptions), currently in Chicago, IL.
I am active on many other forums and sites around the Internet. If I am online, feel free to Skype me.
You are also welcome to connect with me on Omidyar Networks on LinkedIn or Ryze.com and my blog on Ecademy or see more about me at MeshForum or my corporate site, JigZaw . I also maintain piecing IT together, as my corporate blog for JigZaw Inc.