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Social Networking and the Medici Effect: The SICoP Experience

Brand NiemannSenior Enterprise Architect, US EPA,

and Federal SICoP Co-ChairComputer Science Corporation

Office of Innovation’s KM GroupExecutive Briefing Center

December 18, 2007

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Bio• Dr. Brand Niemann is a Senior

Enterprise Architect in the Office of the Chief Information Officer of the Environmental Protection Agency. His work on EPA and Interagency data architecture to facilitate electronic information sharing was recognized by Federal Computer Week in its 2006 Power Player Series Special Report and recently at the Gartner Spring Enterprise Architecture Summit Conference. He was asked by Federal Computer Week to help organize The 22nd Semi-Annual Spring Government CIO Summit “Government by Wiki: New Tools for Collaboration, Information-Sharing, and Decision-Making” and provided a keynote on Government by Web 2.0 (Wiki): A Guided Tour.

Wiki PageFederal Computer Week

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My Interests

• 1. Providing training in collaboration with communities of practices using Wiki technology:– See my Wiki page and video (requires QuickTime).

• 2. Writing an on-line book on Data Architecture, Modeling, and Networks: EPA and Cross-Agency Data Architecture, Sharing, and Reuse:– See work in progress.

• 3. Supporting communities of practice in planning and producing events:– See 6 months of planning and 4th SOA for E-Government Conference

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Overview

• 1. Social Networking

• 2. The Medici Effect

• 3. Service Systems (An Information Sharing Environment)

• 4. The SICoP Experience

• 5. Upcoming Events

• 6. Questions and Answers

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1. Social Networking

• “A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, conflict, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease transmission (epidemiology), or airline routes.”– Not to be confused with social network services such as

MySpace, etc. or virtual community.• Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network

• My Social Network for My Government Work:– Wiki (Blog) Page at

http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?BrandNiemann– Social Networking and the Medici Effect, Government Computer

News, December 10, 2007, http://www.gcn.com/print/26_30/45533-1.html

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1. Social Networking

• Networking Communities of Practice:– What's the purpose?

• To develop members' capabilities; to build and exchange knowledge.

– Who belongs?• Members who select themselves.

– What holds it together?• Passion, commitment, and identification with the group's

expertise.

– How long does it last?• As long as there is an interest in maintaining the group.

William Snyder, Building Communities of Practice. Excerpted from the article "Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier" in the Harvard Business Review, January-February 2000. http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/1317.html

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1. Social Networking

• Suggested Guidelines for Communities of Practice:– 1. The President Urges Agencies to Work Together:

“Our success depends on agencies working as a team across traditional boundaries to better serve the American people, focusing on citizens rather than individual agency needs … I thank agencies who have actively engaged in cross-agency teamwork, using E-Government to create more cost-effective and efficient ways to serve citizens, and I urge others to follow their lead.”

– 2. Clarity (in what we are doing) - Clay Johnson, OMB’s Deputy Director for Management and Executive Chair of the Federal CIO Council, October 4, 2006, Federal IT Summit.

http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?BestPracticesCommittee#nid3A25

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1. Social Networking

• Suggested Guidelines for Communities of Practice (continued):– 3. Accountability (who is responsible by name) - Clay

Johnson, OMB’s Deputy Director for Management and Executive Chair of the Federal CIO Council, October 4, 2006, Federal IT Summit.

– 4. Transparency (the public can see what we are doing) - For example: The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.

– 5. Integrity (avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest in working across government and non-government communities) - For example: Open Collaboration with Open Standards to Increase Interoperability Across Multiple Levels of Government with Multiple Vendors.

http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?BestPracticesCommittee#nid3A25

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1. Social Networking

• Suggested Steps for Communities of Practice:– (1) Prepare a CoP Mission Statement:

• E,g, Learning, Best Practices, etc.

– (2) Prepare a CoP Membership List:• E.g., Attendees at recent event, other related CoPs, etc.

– (3) Prepare a CoP Strategy:• From a recent event, small group discussion, etc.

– (4) Training Conference Call (with items 1-3 entered into the Wiki space):

• Need to advertise widely (cast a broad net).

– (5) Get commitments to collaboratively publish and edit trusted reference knowledge sources in the Wiki space.

• E.g. Keep it simple and short term (say 3 month experiment) at first and then iterate to improve and expand by listening to feedback.

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1. Social Networking

• Web 2.0 Enables me to become an E-Discoverable Government Employee:– Google my name and get my Wiki Page at the

top of their hit list!– My Wiki page shows that I practice CAT*:

• Clarity (about what I do)• Accountability (for what I do)• Transparency (in how I do it)

* See Mr. Clay Johnson, III, Deputy Director for Management, OMB, Executive Chair of the Federal CIO Council, at the Federal IT Summit 2006, October 4th.http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?FederalITSummit_2006_10_04

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2. The Medici Effect

• “The Medicis were a banking family in Florence who funded creators from a wide range of disciplines. Thanks to this family and a few others like it, sculptors, scientists, poets, philosophers, financiers, painters, and architects converged on the city of Florence. There they found each other, learned from one another, and broke down barriers and cultures. Together they forged a new world based on new ideas – what became known as the Renaissance.”– Frans Johansson, The Medici Effect, Harvard

Business School Press, 2006, pages 2-3.

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2. The Medici Effect

• The Medici Effect:– “When you step into an intersection of fields,

disciplines, or cultures, you can combine existing concepts into a large number of extraordinary ideas.” (recall slide 4)

– “We have met teams and individuals who have searched for, and found, intersections between disciplines, cultures, concepts, and domains. Once there, they have the opportunity to innovate as never before, creating the Medici Effect.”

• Frans Johansson, The Medici Effect, Harvard Business School Press, 2006, page 186.

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3. Service SystemsThe Challenge: Service Industry Growth

People Business

Products Information

enable develop enable transform

designoperate &maintain

create utilize

Industrial services Information services

Business servicesConsumer services

Non-market services

Source: Dr. Spohrer, Towards a Science of Service Systems, CIOC Best Practices Committee, March 19, 2007.

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3. Service SystemsThe Challenge: CIO Council Silos

People Business

InformationTechnology

Information

Architecture & Infrastructure CommitteeBest Practices Committee

Executive CommitteeIT Workforce Committee

Source: Pages 21-22, Federal Chief Information Officer Council Strategic Plan: FY 2007-2009, 28 pp. http://www.cio.gov/documents/CIOCouncilStrategicPlan2007-2009.pdf

Goal 1

Goal 2Goal 3

Goal 4

The “MediciEffect”

StakeholdersInput and Outreach

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3. Service SystemsCIOC Best Practices Committee Pilot with KZO Networks

People

Information TechnologyBusiness

Information

http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?BestPracticesCommittee_2007_04_16

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3. Service SystemsService-Oriented Architectures

People Business

InformationTechnology

Information

SOA Architecture & InfrastructureSOA CoP Knowledgebase

SOA CoP Demo Phases 1-5SOA Tutorials

Goal 1

Goal 2Goal 3

Goal 4

The “MediciEffect”

StakeholdersInput and Outreach

CoPs

Management of Change

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3. Service SystemsU.S. Environmental Protection Agency

People Business

InformationTechnology

Information

Office of the Chief Information Officer Office of Research & Development

The “MediciEffect”

StakeholdersInput and Outreach

2007 Reporton theEnvironment

Enterprise Architecture

Office of the Chief Financial Officer

Strategic Plan &Performance &AccountabilityReport

Capture the Semantics of the Organization and the Line of Sight.

Office of Human Resources

Innovation &Collaboration

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4. The SICoP Experience

• SICoP was charted under the Best Practices Committee of the Federal CIO Council in March 2003 and has delivered three white papers and produced eleven conferences.

• SICoP led the OMB/FEA DRM 2.0 Implementation Team.

• SICoP has given Special Recognitions (35) that document the progress along the Spectrum of Reasoning and Applications.

• SICoP actively participates in DoD CoI, W3C, Semantic Technology, NCOIC, etc. work groups and conferences.

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4. The SICoP Experience

• I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.– Robert McCloskey, State Department

spokesman (attributed).• http://

www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Robert_McCloskey/

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4. The SICoP Experience

• NSF Nanoinformatics Workshop (June 12-13. 2007)• W3C/WSRI Workshop at the National Academy of

Sciences (June 18-19, 2007)• Growing Communities on Karst 2007 Conference

(September 12-13, 2007)• Shenandoah Valley Science Symposium (October 15-16,

2007)• Mid-Atlantic Regional Planning Roundtable (November

9, 2007)• Sustainable Water Resources Roundtable (November

15-16, 2007)• Puget Sound Mashup of the EPA National Environmental

Information Symposium (November 14-16, 2007)

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4. The SICoP Experience

Google: Shenandoah Valley Science

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4. The SICoP Experience

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5. Upcoming Events

• February 5, 2008, SICoP Special Conference: Building Semantic Interoperability Solutions at the CSC Executive Briefing Center.

• April 30-May 1, 2008, Fifth Service Oriented Architecture for E-Government Conference, at the MITRE Conference Center.

• May 18-22, 2008, Semantic Technology Conference, San Jose, California.

• September 29-30, 2008, 6th SOA for E-Government Conference, at the MITRE Conference Center.

• Late October-early November 2009, International Semantic Web Conference, Northern Virginia.

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5. Upcoming Events

• SICoP First Special Conference, February 6, 2007, CSC Executive Briefing Center:– SICoP White Paper Series Module 3 for the CIO

Council's Best Practices Committee (June 18, 2007): Operationalizing the Semantic Web/Semantic Technologies: Advanced Intelligence Community R&D Meets the Semantic Web! (ARDA AQUAINT Program)

• A roadmap for agencies on how they can take advantage of semantic technologies and begin to develop Semantic Web implementations.

• Support for the Semantic Web and Semantic Technology in the U.S. Government, Semantic Report December 4, 2007, Issue 3.

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6. Questions and Answers

• Government Computer News, 25th Anniversary Issue, December 10, 2007:– 25 and Counting: A quarter of a century of innovations that

changed the way government works and how people live:• 1. What do you think social networking and the Web will be like in

25 years?• 2. What do you think the biggest challenges will be in getting there,

in terms of government and technology?• 3. So much of networking and the Web depends on sharing data.

How can government agencies do a better job of this?• 4. What do you think was the biggest technological achievement of

government in the past 25 years?• 5. The immortal Frank Sinatra said, "The best is yet to come." Do

you agree, in terms of government and technology? Why or why not?

• Note: My answers to the questions do not mention EPA, but my Wiki (Blogs) pages give EPA credit for the successes I have had!

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6. Questions and Answers

• "Recap the past 25 years and look forward to the next 25 or so".– Detailed responses.

• Rewarding Experiences with Three Technologies During My 27-year EPA Career.– Wiki Page.