Social Software and Academia – Conflicted views

I gave a talk at the Common Solutions Group meeting on Social Software, Web2.0 and Folksonomies a couple of weeks ago. What followed was a very interesting discussion about the implications, possibilities and difficulties in dealing with social software in an academic (or enterprise setting).

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CIC Identity Managment – Federated Identity and Sharing Resources

Session Details

This panel session discussed Federated Identity Management and Sharing Resources. The slides are here as a PDF

I was the moderator for the session. The panelists were:

  1. Kevin Morooney, PSU, Senior Director, Academic Services
  2. Kenneth Forstmeier, PSU, Director Office of Research Information Systems
  3. Mike Grady, UIUC, Sr. Technology Architect & Strategist
  4. Phyllis Davidson, IU, Interim Assistant Dean for Digital and I.T. Services

Below are the highlights that I took away from the panel.

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This has to be one of the funniest covers I have ever seen

Check out the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain video

Absolutely marvelous.

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I.T. Architecture in Academia – need for a group of peers

I have discussed with several people the need for a group of peers that would meet regularly. This group of peers (GOP – nah, already in use) would focus on the practice on the I.T. Architecture in Academia

At the highest level, they would:

* Define I.T. Architecture and Enterprise Architecture within Academia (and government) which does have a different flavor than in business
* Define the role(s) of the I.T. Architect and Enterprise Architect

The next level down:

* Talk about the processes that are used, what works, what doesn’t work
* Define various artifacts that we all could use in our jobs (frameworks, etc)

At the lowest level:

* They might work on a common Framework, suite of models or roles and functions for a given area (like I.T. Portfolio or Integration Competency Centers).

I have been contacted several times recently from people at Universities who are looking to become an I.T. Architect or who have recently been anointed I.T. Architect. Others have asked that I speak about what we do and our role in the enterprise.

Universities are interested in developing a core Architecture group and they will need a group of peers from which to draw expertise and to send new Architects to learn the ropes.

The next question, is how to start? Is there a national meeting which would be a logical and easy place to attach ourselves? Should we have a dedicated set of meetings to get started? Who would fund the meetings (pay for rooms, et al)? Who should organize them?

CSG – Web20, Social Software and Folksonomies

Presentation on Web2.0, Social Software and Folksonomies for the Common Solution Group in May 2006. Here is the link to the PowerPoint slides

The links that I used for the demo are below.

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SOA as IT Portfolio process

In the SOA Migration Strategy planning, we are transitioning from DISCOVERY to PROJECT process (see the I.T. Portfolio Book). We will begin a series of projects to implement SOA in the near futureThe book talks about three models for DISCOVERY phase analysis:

  • Technology Maturity Modeling (Gartner Hype Curve)

    • See the example here: http://nnlm.gov/pnr/eval/rogers.html

  • Scenario Modeling – two flavors

    • Business Scenario Modeling, Business Event/Process Modeling

  • Road-map modeling

In the Technology Maturity Model, several pieces of the Web Services stack are fairly mature at this time, others are still in early stages. Overall, there is a belief that the technology is sufficiently mature that we should begin to implement.

In the Road-Map model:

  • At some point in time in the future (say 5 years), we will implement Fusion based SIS, SFS and other software (probably)
  • This will instantly make us neck deep in in the WS-* stack, BPEL and MOM
  • Given this fairly sure hard milestone in the future, we should develop a roadmap that will make us mature in this technology on or before this event.

The Scenario model is under-developed at this time.

We have an opportunity to take SOA Migration through the I.T. Portfolio processes for each phase and to think about the analysis that should occur at each step of the phase.

GTD – Outside Context

Merlin Mann of 43 Folders just posted a podcast called “Putting Geeks In Context”. One issue with the Getting Things Done process is setting up contexts for your activities. I have found that defining meaningful and useful contexts is an on-going process.

Merlin suggests (very wisely I might add) that geeks need to use two super-contexts: Computer and Non-Computer. You then focus on doing Non-Computer things (like phone calls, reading, listening etc.) someplace else besides in your office in front of your computer.

I love the idea and I will focus on using the non-computer work as an opportunity for going outside. If I can find lectures or podcasts that I need to listen to for work, I’ll load them on my iPod and go for a long walk in the middle of day. I can take long documents to Union or Terrace to read.

Great idea Merlin.

U-Minn presentations: SOA, Folksonomy and IT Architecture

On Monday (April 3, 2006), I was at University of Minnesota presenting on four topics. Below are links to the slides as PDFs:

  1. UW-Madison’s SOA Migration Strategy – what is it and how do we get one
  2. Folksonomy and Web 2.0
  3. IT Architecture – What is it and why 3 isn’t enough
  4. Identity Management Nouns and Verbs

Note that the Folksonomy slides are from an Internet2 version of the talk and are more inclusive than the slides I used at U-Minn. Actually, I meant to grab these slides not the ones that I used. There are a list of links of the URLs that I used in the Folksonomy demo here:

Links I Use in My Folksonomy Demo