All Information, All Languages, All the Time

Model for Making Amazon the Profitable World Brain

Robert David Steele (Vivas)

Seattle, 18 January 2007

FINAL As Delivered, Version 6.5

Planned Words in Notes—Copy at www.oss.net/AMAZON

The Plan• One slide for big picture.• One slide on Who Is.• 53 slides in 25 minutes.• INTERRUPT Concisely• Then 5 slides in depth.• Then interactive dialog• Drinks afterward if desired.• Email anytime:

oss.net[]cox.net

This briefing with words in Notes format is at:

http://www.oss.net/AMAZON .

Dare to Want it All!

End Game: The World Brain

Wikipedia in All LanguagesGoogleEarthAll Social Networks Online

Machine Translation, Online Dictionaries, and Human Translation Online

Localized Printing, Recycling, Conferencing, Banking, and Social Networking

Global Public Human Intelligence Network Organized By Topic & Location

Real-world real-time feeds to serious games & online budgets

Distributed Online and Offline Historical, Cultural, and Time-Space Sense-Making

Who Is Robert Steele?

• #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction• #51 over-all (all product reviews, doing just n-f)• A top individual purchaser of books ($5K/yr)• Member, Amazon Advantage & Amazon Prime• Author & publisher of intelligence books• Global authority on public intelligence• Former spy, angry about $60B/yr in waste• The world’s most demanding end-user• Patriot who wants to save USA by saving Earth.

Nits Before We Start• For Customers

– Allow search for specific reviewer within any book page– Adapt Lists to show full review by the list maker, for any book– Adapt Social Life of Books visualization for context– Option to be visible to “Popular In” collectives– Allow “Invite a Friend” to be used as indirect email.– Allow URLs to be added everywhere (reviews, comments, instead of reviews, etc.)

• For Reviewers– Allow sorting of full reviews into categories similar to lists– Provide dashboard for seeing titles only for categorization– Provide tally of recent votes & comments across all books– Provide spreadsheet of votes & comments for all books by category/title

• For Publishers– Allow specified minimum orders of two for shrink-wrapped books

• For Authors– Offer a Kinko’s one-of publishing alternative to China– Solicit customer interests for books that do not exist yet– Provide a portal for buying and selling raw data & piecework

One-Page Version of Brief1. A3 hosts all Information in all

languages on consignment.

2. Sell content at three levels:1. Synthetic (100% profit)2. Footnotes (micro-cash profit)3. Original works (50% profit)

3. Hence, put all publishers out of business and kill carbon cost.

4. Make sense of all information for profit, and provide F/OSS analytic toolkit.

5. Hence, put Microsoft and ORACLE out of business, create interoperable net.

6. Show, make sense of, and sell all overt government information (national to local) and especially budget data,

7. Show, make sense of, and sell corporate information/ evaluations including carbon & other footprints.

8. See “True Cost” information via ScanBack at point of sale, profit from buycotts that choose to go green.

9. Migrate world to paying for knowledge by the paragraph or text message while also creating new knowledge in near-real-time, owning the aggregate.

10. Show and sell memes & mind-maps and networks at clan and tribe level.

11. Make education free (to capture 5 billion new customers), and in doing so, save the Earth.

12. Grow by an order of magnitude.

Digital Analog Oral/Unpublished

EnglishLanguage

ForeignLanguages*

*33 predominant languages, 183 vital dialects, over 3,000 distinct languages in all.

NSA FBIS UN/STATE

Cascading Deficiencies:1) Don’t even try to access most information2) Can’t process hard-copy into digital3) Can’t translate most of what we collect

CIA/DO

NRO

Secret Intelligence FailureBreakdown in Collection and Understanding

50% Less Costly

Mor

e S

atis

fyin

g

SIGINT

OSINT

0% 50%

HUMINT

IMINT

MASINT

STATE

Does Not Exist

Secret Processing FailureBreakdown in Exploitation, Dissemination

In 2006, five years after 9-11, we still do not have integrated watch list for terrorists.

HUMINT SIGINT IMINT MASINT

ALL-SOURCE ANALYSIS

OPEN SOURCE INFORMATION

OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE

5% of cost 80% of value

95% of cost 20% of value

Secret Intelligence Misses 80% of the Relevant Information!

Baseball (Wiki) AnalogyHarnessing the Power of the Crowd

OSINTOpen Source

HUMINTHuman

SIGINTSignals

IMINTImagery

MASINTMeasurements & Signatures

Amazon Already Doing…

ScanBackWow! Think Green—

Water, Fuel, Labor Content Information, OptionsOwn Client by Being Their Hand-Held Intelligence Service!

Quest CoinWow! A new form of untaxed world currency

S3: Simple Storage ServiceWow! Become the Information Merchant Bank in all languages, starting with free storage for university dissertations and newspaper archives. Own the aggregate, which in turn allows 100% profit on synthetic top-level answers.

AskVilleWow! Needs work but could explode.

Vint Cerf Predicts:

By 2010 more than 50 percent of books sold worldwide will be printed on demand at the point of sale in the form

of library-quality paperbacks.  

Steele Asks: Amazon-FedEx-Kinkos?NOTE: BookSurge wastes carbon.

By 2010 more than 50 percent of books worldwide will be read on digital devices rather than in print form.  

Steele Asks: Amazon-IBM-Yahoo-CISCO-Trio?NOTE: Annotation of online versions good, needs work

—bring in Doug Englebart from Bootstrap.

http://www.longbets.org/predictions

The Problem• Earth changing faster

– Changes that used to take 10,000 years now take 3 years

– Peak Oil now definite– Water Scarcity is the

other major shortfall– Pandemic disease soon?– Individual Nations are

powerless in isolation

• Information exploding– Government focuses on

expensive secrets and military enemies

– Bureaucracies focus on day to day business

– No one is dedicated to making sense of all information in all languages all the time

WARNING: Books ten years in the writing no longer cut it—need real-time knowledge. At the same time, most products are unaffordable when “true cost” is calculated—Amazon can become the enabler for “green” products & services, and profit thereby. We need a global public intelligence network with a serious hub.

The New Intelligence Gap: the difference between what you can know and what you can use!

INFORMATION

TIME

Actionable Intelligence

Available Information

Open source information is more complex than secrets…Foreign languages are critical to global understanding.

The Information EnvironmentProfit is in tailored timely sense-making, not in mass-produced products or information.

• Time is the one asset that cannot be bought nor replaced.

• If Amazon can become the hub for near-real-time (NRT) collection, sense-making, and tailored dissemination, this is 80% of the profit base/intangible value, inclusive of enhanced global understanding, collaboration, & sanity.

Time-Value of InformationThis is really important!

Valuation Is Changing Fast• Irreplacable: TIME• Irreplacable: EARTH• Value-Added: SENSE• Infinitely shareable at no

additional cost: INFORMATION

• Losing value:– Goods– Cash money– Secret/Internal information– Proprietary technology

• High Value Offerings:– Multi-Media learning &

sharing, not just text– Communities of Interest – Context– Cultural intelligence– Localized relevance– Global connections– Quality– Innovation– Speed– “True Cost” savings

It’s not about products or even service—it’s about public intelligence, e.g. “true cost.”

Alternative Service ModelUsing Information to Connect People & Create Answers

• WIRED (& OPEN)– Top 10 Journalists– Top 10 Academics– Tribal Orders of Battle– Time Line Overviews– Soviet 1:50 Maps– Commercial Imagery

• TIRED (& SECRET)– Executive Summary– Old regional survey– High-level map– Desk analyst visit– Telcon with Embassy

Challenge Match for Aspin-Brown

OSS versus entire secret US IC

OSS won with six phone calls.

Seven Generations of Intelligence & Information Operations

Evolutionary Eras

1st Generation

2nd Generation

3rd Generation

4th Generation

5th Generation

6th Generation

7th Generation

What Do We Need to Know

Easy: Where is the army?

Easy: Where are the trenches?

Moderate: How many with what?

Hard: Watch every non-state actor.

Hard: Watch everything on the fly.

Hard: Make sense of billions of bits.

Very Hard: 24/7, 29+ languages and get your own house in order.

From Linear to Systems Thinking• Agricultural Era:

Simple localized systems• Industrial Era:

Complex isolated systems• Information Era:

Complex combinations of complex systems that most do not understand

• Conceptual Era: Learning to learn, to anticipate, to collaborate, and to create infinite wealth at all levels

• Verbal communications face to face (one to one)

• Books (one to many)

• Multi-media products (mixed)

• All information in all languages all the time, with historical & cultural context, and the tools to make sense and get answers in real time. READ-WRITE not READ ONLY. Connecting dots to dots at machine speed, dots to people, and people to people.

This era started around 1992—we are 15 years behind the power curve. The good news is that everyone else is 25 years behind.

Social Life of BooksCitation Analysis on Steroids

http://www.orgnet.com/booknet.html

Become the World BrainAll Information, All Languages, All the Time

OPG VPN

Weekly Review

Expert Forum

Distance Learning

Virtual Library

Shared Calendar

Virtual Budget

Shared 24/7 Plot

Shared Rolodex

Weekly Review

Expert Forum

Distance Learning

Virtual Library

Shared Calendar

Virtual Budget

Shared 24/7 Plot

Shared Rolodex

Major Capabilities in India, Singapore, South Africa, Panama, Roving Collection Teams

One-Stop Shop Displaces Intermediaries & Triples Profit

360° 24/7 All Languages….Amazon.com• Books• Authors• Local Buyer Networks• Content for Microcash• Alerts on new work

Amazon.edu• Answers/Reach-back• Classes/Degrees• Mentors• Testing/Challenges• Global Library

Amazon.net• News by threat, policy, challenger, neighborhood• True Cost information via ScanBack• Eyes On Everywhere

Amazon.org• Social Investing• Micro-Cash• Lift the 5 Billion• Flush the Corrupt• Save the Planet

Amazon.calc• MyBudget• BudgetMonitor• National Budget Online for Dialog

Amazon.geo• Places to books• Books to places• Actual & virtual influence circles

Amazon.time Amazon.event

WikiCalc@Amazon?

• Number extraction?• Number relations?• Budget links to books?• Water, fuel, labor

content as micro-cash service?

• Corporate and government budget monitoring & dialog as a service?

6.3 to 6.8 pounds (2.85 to 3.1 kg) of carbon emissions per burger

the rough equivalent of the annual carbon output from 7,500-15,000 SUVs if the 300 million US citizens hit the 3 burgers/week average.

“True Cost”@Amazon

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

EarthSavings

AmazonProfit

Labor"True Cost"

Carbon"True Cost"

Water"True Cost"

• Amazon can drop water, carbon, & sweatshop labor costs

• Amazon can displace publishers, reward authors, and print books at Kinko’s for FedEx delivery.

• Amazon can displace E-Bay at least in books

• Earth wins.

Dominate Knowledge Life Cycle

• Own & sell information– Blogs, Comments, Books, Etc.– True cost information– Information at the paragraph level

• Create a new environment life cycle– Enable sharing of information & products– Enable re-cycling of books & products– Enable infinite adaptation– Enable infinite innovation & invention

Policy Intelligence

Military Intelligence

Law Enforcement Intelligence

Coalition Intelligence

Business Intelligence/OSINT

Mass & Niche Media Intelligence

Citizen Intelligence--Intelligence “Minuteman”

Basic, Advanced, & Corporate Education

Foreign Countries,

Organizations, Languages

The Intelligence MarketplaceEach Isolated and Non-Collaborative; Proprietary SoftwareTools & Storage;

Limited Foreign Language Access, No Historical or Cultural Context

Commercial Online

Books & Journals

Conferences & Dissertations

Maps & Commercial

Imagery

Internet

Telephone Surveys

Gray Literature

Complex Human &

IT Services

Amazon Universe

Hold & Sell All InformationNote: Information will displace products & services

Government Information

Information Brokers &

Private Investigators

Schools & Universities

Public & Special

Libraries

WWW Virtual Library

Business Information

Intelligence Communities

Amazon Clients

Niche & Mass Media

Be the Aggregator for AllConnect People, Organizations, & Useful Knowledge

New Craft of IntelligenceCapture First Three Quadrants, Cut Fourth by 3/5ths

I

Lessons of History

II

Global Coverage

III

National Intelligence

IV

Spies & Secrecy

China, Islam, Ethnic, Etc.

Cost-Sharing with Others--Shared Early Warning

Narrowly focused!

Harness distributed intelligence of Nation

OpenTools@Amazon?

• Where tools? Why not?• Tools for finding• Tools for gisting• Tools for linking• Tools for weighting• Tools for sharing• Tools for buying wisely• Tools for research• Tools for presenting

Conversion of Paper Documents to Digital Form

Automated Extraction of Data Elements From

Text and Images

Standardizing and Converting Data Formats

Processing Images, Video, Audio, Signal Data

Automated Foreign Language

Translation

Open Literature Non-Text Data Restricted Information

Detection of Alert Situations

Clustering and Linking of

Related Data

Statistical Analysis to Reveal

Anomalies

Detection of Changing Trends

Interactive Search and Retrieval of

Data

Graphic and Map-Based Visualization

of Data

Modeling and Simulations

Collaborative Work

Notetaking and Organizing Ideas

Structured Argument Analysis

Desktop Publishing and

Word Processing

Production of Graphics, Videos and

Online Briefings

Revision Tracking and Realtime Group

Review

NEW: Intelligent Network Enables Applications At All Points

OLD:

Intelligence@Amazon

Seven Intelligence Tribes:The Way Ahead

Military

Law Enforcement

Business

Academic

National

NGO &Media

Religions& Clans

Money@Amazon

Credits: Mike Hayden, Original Concept; Robert Steele, Labels & OSINT-Ops-Other; Steve Edwards, Turned Upside Down

Point of Entry Raw Produces Actionable Intelligence

Processed Raw

OPINTEL

Finished Intelligence

Policy Package

Public Perception

HUMINT SIGINT IMINT MASINT OSINT OPS OTHER

HUMINT SIGINT IMINT MASINT OSINT OPS OTHER

Dots need to be connecting at every level,Including immediately upon ingestion.

Today, one third of the dots connect here.(Collect 2/3rd, spill half—some say 80%)

TECHNICAL HUMAN

III - External Information

EXTERNAL

INTERNAL

Organizational Memory System

DataConversion

Data Visualization &Geospacial Rendering

HeterogeneousSearch & Retrieval

TripReports

Churning(Rotationals)

LocalKnowledge

Expert Hires“Just Enough,Just in Time”

Internal Reporting

Vendor Reporting

Government Monitoring

Customer Monitoring

Environmental Monitoring

Technology Monitoring

CHUNKS(Intellectual Property)

PERSONALITY

(Insight/Intuition)

Patents, Etc.

Trade Secrets

Meta-Data

Knowledge Capital™

Rolodexes/E-Mail

Personal Brand

Project/GroupManagement

Training

BusinessIntelligenceInstitutionalized

E-Commerce

Automated Analysis

Cell #

IV - Organizational Intelligence

I - Knowledge Management II - Collaborative Work

The Big Picture IFour processing quadrants that S3 can monetize

S3/IBM as Sense-Maker of Aggregate & Particular Data

The Big Picture IIFour information quadrants that S3 can monetize

http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2004/04/new_version_of_.html

Deg

ree

of I

nfor

mat

ion

Con

nect

ivity

Semantic WebConnects Knowledge

The MetawebConnects Intelligence

The WebConnects Information

Social SoftwareConnects People

Artificial Intelligence

Personal Assistants

Intelligent Agents

Semantic webs

Ontologies

Taxonomies

Knowledge basesKnowledge management

Search engines Enterprise portals

Content portals

Databases Personal information managers

File servers P2P File-sharing

“Push” Publications &Subscriptions

Websites

Marketplace auctions Wikis RSS

Groupware Weblogs Community portals

E-mail USENET

Social NetworksInstant messaging

Conferencing

Knowledge networksThe

Global BrainEnterprise minds

Smart marketplacesGroup minds

Semantic weblogsDecentralized communities

“The Relationship” Web

Degree of social connectivity

web browser application

web server

business logic

Many Oracle Servers

Many Other Servers

Many TeraText Servers

Many Domino Servers

• Largest software text system• Fuses information across 260

disparate database systems• Over 4 billion documents• Over 10,000 named users

Putting It All Together

INTELLIGENCE ARCHITECTURE:• incorporates open sources, on and off line• matches global real time knowledge to individual situations

NETWORK ARCHITECTURE:• processing in the bit stream• interoperation

SEMANTIC ARCHITECTURE:• text-capable• scaled

Become the Earth Intelligence Network

Tailored Decision-Support on Each Topic

Collect & Produce Real-Time Raw Information

Use Information to Stabilize & Enrich

Earth Intelligence

NetworkEarthPedia EarthGame EarthBudget

Use or replace Google Earth as shared focal point for visualization and data relations.

All elements link from paragraph level to Amazon Inside the Book and Amazon Answers

Other Key Partners:CISCO content-based routingYahoo search & social networksIBM sense-makingFedEx Kinkos (publish & recycle 1 of)Reuniting AmericaWorld Index of Social/Enviro Resp.UN State of the Future, etc.

Key Concepts:Transparency (Public Intelligence)Accountability (Digital Memory)Resilience (Reality-Based Games)Sustainability (Open Budgets)Profit (Save Global Commerce)

Sell by the paragraph; create tailored books; displace most publishing houses; recycle booksCreate new paragraphs via EIN as needed, and sell those

If it’s known to an organization and is not private, it gets into EIN.

Brazil

China

Indonesia

India

Indonesia

Wild Card(s)

Venezuela

Russia

USA

European Union

Inputs: Twelve Policies Actualized in All Budgets at All LevelsO

utp

uts: S

ustain

able S

olu

tion

s for T

en H

igh

-Level T

hreats

Solution: Abandon the War Metaphor & Secrecy, Move Directly to Information

Peacekeeping & Transparent Reality-Based BudgetingReal-world Real-time

Dollars & Sense

Amazon Can Rule• What did the previous slide really mean?

– Access all information in all languages on consignment, but the only one with all of it, all with geospatial and time-date tags

– Make sense of all that information, in detail and in the macro or meta sense, and sell that sense to every government & corporation

– This includes belief systems at the individual, neighborhood, clan, and tribe levels

– Store state & local information, then do reality check on budgets– Store corporate and non-profit budgets, cross-fertilize/de-conflict

• The USG is insolvent. This is bad for business.• Corporations are predatory. This is bad for business.• Snowcrash is here now. Amazon can not only beat Google, it can

crush Microsoft & ORACLE.• Amazon can be the foundation for restoring informed democracy

and moral capitalism—natural capitalism—while lifting the world from poverty, creating 5 billion new clients & potential authors.

Intelligence Valuation $111B/Year Marketplace and Rising Exponentially

Federal smart IT and OSINT:

>$6B/year

US Corporate business

intelligence: >25B/year

State & Local smart IT and intel: >$5B/year

Global smart IT and

shared intel: >$75B/year

Value of Common “I” to

Generic “T”:Priceless

Global Distributed Knowledge

National Distributed Knowledge

Government Knowledge

Intelligence Community

1B 10B 100B 1 TRILLION

Real-World Information Dollars

Potential Burden-Sharing Budget from USG Outwards

Intelligence@Amazon

• Global understanding could prevent global warming & related catastrophes.

• Global education could resolve & prevent human breakdowns.

• Global tools could spread the wealth.

So, Where Now?• Amazon is a great

company.• Can you lift Earth?:

– Earth Monitoring– Policy Development– Cross-cultural

communications– Public Intelligence– Futures arbitrage

ProductsStorage Finance

Intelligence

Start by Saving America

Electoral ReformInformed VotersVoting on week-ends League of Women VotersCabinet choices join debatesInstant Run-OffEnd gerrymanderingEnd corporate funding

National Security ReformEducate the Nation on realityHave a coherent strategyBig War force for $250BSmall War force up to $75BPeace force up to $100BHome force up to $75B

Intelligence ReformRestructure Presidential staffIntegrate All Sources/AgenciesElevate NIC to EOPGlobal Knowledge NetworkRedirect agenciesState & local intelligence

Governance ReformCoalition CabinetQuality education for allHealth care & public healthEthics is cost-effectiveFocus on Protecting FutureTrain the next President

“Creating a Smart Nation,

Of, By, and For the People”

Bottom Line: Live by the Golden Rule

The Strategic VisionGovernments are broken. Information can create infinite wealth and displace violence. Amazon can profit from harnessing the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth, while saving the Earth.

Operational Vision

• Harness the complete information spectrum• Become the trusted provider for tailored public

intelligence, answers on demand• Become the “Moody’s” for all products &

services• Be the direct publisher for all authors in all

languages• Be able to publish anything in any language one

copy at a time.• Use FedExKinko’s to share, collect, scan,

recycle, and nurture localized networks.

Three Major Profit Streams1. Pure new profit from

synthetic information free of copyright

2. Increased profit from monetizing at quote and page levels

3. Shared profit from displacing publishers and helping green companies increase marketshare, put Wal-Mart out of business by helping local producers.

1

2

3

If you are among 7% of color-blind, the above color is cash green…..

Copyright

• Most lawyers afraid to admit ignorance.• Synthetic information is copyright free.• “Footnotes” can be sold for micro-cash.• Step 1: Monetize at paragraph level.• Step 2: Establish right to sell synthetic.• Step 3: Recruit all authors directly• Step 4: Be able to publish anything in any

language one copy at a time.

Profitable First Steps• S3 Free to Academia, NGOs,

USSOCOM—this sets stage for synthetic information profit and displacing Institute of Scientific Information citation analysis service

• Create Global Intelligence Council—this harnesses most experts who are paid in access while S3 earns cash

• Adopt Golden Candle Society as Global Registry for anyone with a brain—change the model, aggregate customer requirements and then meet them immediately

• Monetize by paragraph and hour—double S3 revenue

• Displace publishers and consultants—double again—first monetize and honor copyright on existing works, then recruit all authors directly.

• Offer F/OSS STRONG ANGEL Toolkit—death to MS

• Accelerate digitization, collaborate with Internet Archives (Brewster Kahle) and Library of Congress

• Become the Information Merchant Bank with three objectives:

– 1) triple Amazon profit & revenue in five years by monetizing all information not now sold via Amazon, and selling existing information by the paragraph.

– 2) use the cell phone to profit from point of sale diversion of end-users;

– 3) save the planet by providing free education in all languages, extend Amazon client base to the other five billion people.

• Displace Google or Partner with Google. Use India as Partner to create unclassified CIA right now.

Pilot Project:

• Start with what you have on each of these 30 topics

• Go find and digitize the rest or know where it is

• Recruit the top 100 authors for each

• Begin selling old, current, and new knowledge online

• Host annual conference and global database on each

End Game: The World Brain

Wikipedia in All LanguagesGoogleEarthAll Social Networks Online

Machine Translation, Online Dictionaries, and Human Translation Online

Localized Printing, Recycling, Conferencing, Banking, and Social Networking

Global Public Human Intelligence Network Organized By Topic & Location

Real-world real-time feeds to serious games & online budgets

Distributed Online and Offline Historical, Cultural, and Time-Space Sense-Making

Will speak for sushi

• Robert D. Steele• www.oss.net• Meta documents:

– www.oss.net/BASIC– www.oss.net/LIBRARY

• Cool briefs:– www.oss.net/FAILURE– www.oss.net/HOPE – www.oss.net/BRAIN

• This brief:– www.oss.net/AMAZON

Dare to Want it All!