After a brief hiatus last week as Trent and Steve were otherwise indisposed, the DataPortability: In-Motion Podcast is back at half strength. Steve is still MIA, but joining Trent in the virtual studio is Bob Ngu, Founder of Jiggyme.com, a video aggregation startup that is beginning to focus specifically on technology videos.
Bob has been an active contributor to the DataPortability Project since March, and was highlighted in the project’s May report. The spotlight was shined on his DataPortability: In the Wild blog series. In this series, Bob outlines his discussions with various people involved with data portability. Among the areas he’s covered so far include:
Usually by this time you’d be loading up on our latest DataPortability: In-Motion Podcast. Instead, you’ll find we didn’t produce an episode this week. The reason is that both Steve and I have been incredibly busy this week. He’s traveling for business, and I’ve spent my allocated DataPortability time in other productive ways.
Taking up a couple hours a day has been my work with the Steering Group’s Governance Task Force headed by Elias Bizannes to sprint to the finish line on our upcoming deliverable. It’s coming together nicely, though we’re still hammering out all of the necessary specifics to ensure it works. Anyone who has pulled together a loose collective of volunteers can attest to the time, effort, and delicacy required to get that done. Needless to say, we’re making a lot of headway, but it’s time consuming.
In addition to that, I’ve been asked to moderate a panel for the upcoming OMMA Behavioral conference in San Francisco on July 21st. The topic centers around the portability of preference data and how that impacts the marketing and advertising ecosystem. So, I’m donning my matchmine cap and wearing a name badge as a DataPortability Project Steering Group member to facilitate the discussion. In addition to moderating, I’m also helping source the panelists (i.e. trying to herd cats). As soon as the cats are in the barn, I’ll spin out more details.
Finally, and closest to home… the matchmine Ministry of Openness is currently supporting the development of OpenID. Yup, we’re actually taking a couple pages out of the DataPortability recipe book to help make your data (in the form of your media preferences) more easily accessible. More to come on that front as we move forward.
So, at the end of the week… I don’t feel we’re letting down the podcast audience. Instead, I feel we’re moving the ball significantly forward.
If, however, you simply need your podcast fix, perhaps you’d be interested in checking out the archive of previous episodes. Enjoy!
In this very special episode of the DataPortability: In-Motion Podcast, Trent’s brother R. Mark Adams joins the data portability discussion. He is a genetic engineer who earned his Ph.D. in cell biology and was a pioneer in the field of bioinformatics. He is currently a Senior Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton and runs their bioinformatics group. Of specific interest related to data portability is his work for the open CaBIG (Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid) project, a National Cancer Institute initiative to link cancer researchers and their data.
Up until now, we have focused primarily on the use cases around existing social networking websites. There is, however, a wealth of knowledge and experience to be tapped within other fields. Mark has worked for over 15 years designing and building large-scale informatics systems. Further, his extensive experience within the standards and open source communities place him in a unique position to provide valuable insight into issues being explored by the DataPortability Project.
During the conversation, Mark offered up some cautionary comments regarding the process of defining standards:
There’s a tendency on the part of industry, broadly, to try to skip to a technology stack as a means of adopting standards quickly.
One has to be careful in how one creates standards. This is why I say trying to divorce standards as cleanly as possible from their underlying technology implementations is important to do. The reason being it allows you to determine standards that can be widely adopted and used without the complexity or the risk of lock-in.
Rounding out the discussion was a call to action on both sides. Mark is reaching out to the DataPortability Project to become more involved in the bioinformatics field, and suggests we solicit participation from within their ranks.
I had no idea what the guys at the office were up to when they camped out in the conference room one evening with their video gear. I figured it was just one of those things you just shouldn’t ask any questions about, and quietly move on. Well, here’s what they were doing:
… and I have to admit I think their take on collaborative filtering is pretty funny.
The show is kicked off with a discussion about his recent speculation that Microsoft could buy Facebook and keep it closed. Scoble talks about the services and tools like FriendFeed that offer alternate news streams to counter the Facebook hegemony. The discussion also flowed around automated behavior tracking, advertizing, and the interplay between control/privacy within various portable data models.
Of particular interest is Scoble’s view of the inevitability of an open flow of user data:
Openness does win in the end. It will just take a little bit of time to get there. We’ll see a lot of new stuff come along to make it easier for users to open these systems up.
