Off Course-On Target

Happy 50th Birthday, LEGO™ blocks!!

Those who know me, have heard me speak, or have read my writings know that one of my longtime favorite models and metaphors is that of LEGO blocks.

Actually, it was my children playing with them 20 years ago that caused one of my greater epiphanies and led me to develop the concept of Learning Objects back in 1992 and I plan to post this fun story on the origin of Learning Objects here on OCOT.

Although my LEGO block model is often criticized for being too simple, I still find it to be a powerful and profound one precisely because of its simplicity.

So how could I NOT mention this is the 50th anniversary of the ubiquitous blocks that were introduced in 1958? According to a January 28, 2008 article on Gearlog, "There are about 62 LEGO bricks for every one of the world's 6 billion inhabitants" and "7 LEGO sets are sold by retailers every second around the world."

• Check out this fun timeline that Gizmodo put together on the illustrated history of LEGO.
• View this list from Jennifer DeLeo at PC Magazine of "The Ten Coolest LEGO Inspired Gadgets"?  The list includes everything from LEGO iPod Stereo Speakers, a homemade LEGO MP3 player, a hard drive, a watch and a USB charger. 

What fun!

I've also previously written about  "The LEGO of Gadgets" and the LEGO-like attributes of the fun electronic components from Bug Labs that you can literally snap together to create your own new devices. Check it out!

In the abstract and from my perspective, the LEGO block model:

• Makes infinite scalability a practical reality. It addresses what I've previously referred to as "Living in a World of Exponential Change" and "The Snowflake Effect" of mass personalization at a global scale by enabling you to create infinite new combinations or "assemblies" that are entirely (though not necessarily) created from pre-existing blocks.
• Is based on having a large collection of very, very small "blocks" that can be created in advance of a given need or use. This is a key part of enabling a strategy of "readiness for the unexpected" and dealing with exponential rates of change.
• Adds to the "pool" of blocks for future reuse and re-purposing, because in many cases the creation of new assemblies causes new blocks to be made.
• The "blocks" can come from any source at any time and with no need for any pre-agreements or design.
• Is based on a low-level and simple standard that enables each block to be "snapped" to any other block (size of "pins" in actual LEGO blocks is always the same)
• Each block is "just right" in terms of size—as small as possible, but not one bit smaller (to misquote Einstein)—when it meets two criteria:
  • It can stand by itself, ready for use.
  • It would almost never be used by itself, since it is too small to be of value on its own.
• It enables models that cover both ends of the spectrum, providing for maximum repurposing AND maximum relevance and personalization.

And just to be clear, these "blocks" and this LEGO block model can be applied to literally anything and is certainly not limited to content. For example, I've worked with others to develop applications of this same model for human competencies, software, music. You can also see examples of "hard" objects, such as those in the top ten list mentioned at the beginning.

What applications or ideas do YOU have for the application of this LEGO block model?

Happy 50th Birthday, LEGO!  I, for one, am planning on using you more than ever in the next 50 years AND I plan on being here to help celebrate your 100th anniversary! 

Moving aLOM

If you are a regular visitor here at Off Course - On Target, (OCOT) you know that metadata—characteristics that describe anything and everything—has been a major part of my life and a major focus for many years. If you'd like the full story of my initial recognition of metadata and its value, you can listen to or read my previous posting "Wayne's Wine Epiphany".

What is metadata?

Sometimes metadata is more commonly called "tags", such as the information you provide for things like photos that you upload or blog entries you create and search for. At a simple and personal level, metadata would include your name, phone number, address, family members, your likes and dislikes, skills, knowledge, etc. These are all of the literally millions of characteristics that describe, and to some extent, define you and the world around you.

Among many other benefits and uses, metadata is critical for improved "findabilty" and discovery, as opposed to searching. It is largely via metadata that we are able to find the "right"  people, places, and things (with "right" referring to our individual situations, context, and needs). This also works in reverse by enabling other people, places and things to find us, where appropriate and wanted.

What's been my involvement?

One of my more significant commitments to metadata started back in 1997 with the creation of the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee or LTSC, and within this committee, the formation of the Learning Object Metadata Working Group or LOM. LTSC is a group of volunteers who are devoted to development and implementation of standards for interoperability for use within the worlds of Learning, Education and Training (LET). LOM is a set of standards focused on the metadata required for more effective learning and performance.

I've had the honor of being the Chair of the LOM Working Group for over ten years, and this has afforded me the privilege of working with some of the most dedicated people I know. They have worked tirelessly, and often thanklessly, to produce several fully completed standards for metadata such as the IEEE 1484.12.1 standard for the LOM data model and the IEEE 1484.12.3 standard for the XML binding of LOM to enable the exchange of LOM instances (metadata records).

You may not understand or even be interested in these specifics, which is as it should be for most standards. How much do any of us care or know about such things as TCP/IP, HTTP, or the other standards which make the Internet possible? In a similar way, standards for metadata—of which LOM is but one—are part of what has enabled the improvement  of the creation and interoperability of metadata (though much is still needed).

To our surprise, LOM standards have been implemented broadly, both within the context of learning, education, and training, as well as within an eclectic and extensive list of other domains, including art, history, archives, and human relations. I know of no way to count the amount of such LOM-based metadata nor the number of implementations of LOM, but the numbers are globally dispersed and easily numbered in the millions and beyond.

What's Next?

Now it's time for both LOM and I to move on into our respective next stages and hence the title of this posting. As of January 1, 2008, I will be stepping down as Chair for the IEEE LOM Working Group, and I'm delighted to publicly congratulate Erik Duval for being appointed as the new Chair of LOM. I am about to make some significant changes in my roles and responsibilities, both personally and professionally (more on this in a future posting), and it is time for LOM and metadata overall to evolve to best fit the "Brave New World" we now live in. In spite of his relatively young age, Erik Duval has been one of the longest serving individual experts focused on metadata for learning, education, and training. Based on his work in metadata since the early 1990's, such as the creation of the ARIADNE project which is a large European based consortium focused on knowledge sharing and reuse, Erik was instrumental in the creation of the IEEE LOM WG from its very beginning.  Officially, Erik has served all this time as the Technical Editor of LOM and, along with Tom Wason, they created the initial kernel that grew into the full LOM standard. I could not be happier or more optimistic about the future of LOM and of the advancement of metadata than I am with turning over the leadership to such a capable individual and someone who has become one of my closest professional colleagues.

While those of us who first began to put this focus on metadata knew it was important for the future, I'm not sure that any of us could have imagined the degree to which this would be true or the scale of use and generation of metadata. To meet these new needs and scale will require both the evolution of metadata as we know it, as well as a complete rethinking. Some new leadership and energy will be of great assistance in making this happen. As such, the other main purpose for this posting is to bring your attention to some important and recent developments in the area of metadata; the first is a series of new activities within and related to the current LOM standards, and the second is addressing the longer term future of metadata developments—it's worth keeping your eyes on.

Where is LOM heading?

Here's a short overview of the new activities related to LOM:

• Reaffirmation of the 1484.12.1 LOM standard, which is largely an administrative action required by IEEE for all active standards every five years.  As the name applies this is merely a check that an existing standard is still in active use and will continue to be so. As the millions implementing LOM can attest, this is very much the case.
• Corrigenda for the 1484.12.1 LOM standard, which will provide a list of all the minor (but important) technical corrections and edits to the original LOM standard, which have been discovered by those previously implementing LOM.
• Two New Parts for LOM:  After several years of work led by Mikael Nillson, the Joint DCMI (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative) / IEEE LTSC Taskforce has just initiated work on two new IEEE standards.  The previous link will provide you with access to all details of the work to date, previous meeting notes, and ways to contribute to these efforts.  As briefly and coherently as I can put it, these two standards are for:
  • Developing a Recommended Practice for Expressing IEEE Learning Object Metadata Instances Using the Dublin Core Abstract Model to meet the growing demand for interoperable definitions of Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) metadata terms and IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) data elements, which allow these to be used together in metadata instances.
  • Developing a Standard for Resource Description Framework (RDF) Vocabulary for IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) Data Elements. In simpler terms, this standard will  address the increasing demand for definitions of IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) data element semantics, which allow the expression of IEEE LOM instances in applications using Semantic Web technologies such as the Resource Description Framework (RDF). For some data elements, this expression can be achieved using existing, stable RDF vocabularies. The purpose of this standard is to define the semantics of data elements not covered by such vocabularies. This standard forms an important basis for making IEEE LOM useful in this larger metadata context.
• LOM next:  Over the last year or so, we've discussed how we want to make LOM evolve over the longer term. The time has come to consolidate that discussion, gather requirements, and start thinking about how to meet those. Erik and the LOM Working Group have begun a series of open, regular, synchronous discussions in order to first bring everybody up-to-date on these activities, develop a plan of action, and then to begin the necessary new work.
  • These meetings are open to ALL and will be virtual meetings accessible both online and via phone.
  • If you are interested in participating, please either contact Erik Duval directly via e-mail (Erik.Duval@cs.kuleuven.ac.be ) or subscribe to the LOM mail list on the LOM web site. 
  • While those with metadata expertise would be especially welcome, it is equally valuable to get input from a diverse range of others who want to use and benefit from significant improvements in metadata for LET in the future. Please consider adding your input to this important effort.

Trends in Metadata

Metadata is often unnecessarily limited by the popular "data about data" description, but it is so much more than this.  Metadata is perhaps most often applied to "nouns", and my simple minded recollection of the definition of a noun is a person, place, or thing. To date, most of the focus has been on metadata for content (which has been very beneficial and for which much more work is still needed), but the future will include much more attention on the other "nouns"—people, places and things. This post would go on for much too long were I to do justice to any one of these or countless other areas that would benefit enormously from improvements in their related metadata aspects, so I will only list a few areas and provide you with a glimpse of the future potential within. Watch for future developments in metadata for some of the following:

Metadata about PEOPLE

This kind of metadata, especially pertains to our skills, knowledge, abilities, experience, attitudes and competencies.

In one small example, the IEEE LTSC Working Group 20 recently completed a standard for "Reusable Competency Definitions" or RCD, and this Working Group is now looking at other aspects of competencies that would benefit from standards. 

Metadata about PLACES

For example, we are seeing the recent surge of metadata in the use of maps, and GPS metadata is being added to things like Google Earth", which will enable us to answer questions such as:

• "Where are you now?"
• "Where was this photo taken?" 
• "What does this location look like?" 
• "What happened here in 1782?"

Imagine the possibilities as more locations become "smart" with metadata about them and related to them. Photos and video might show what they look like now and in the past. Metadata will be increasingly available for every building, its contents, furniture, features, hazardous materials, fire extinguisher and escape information to name but a very few metadata elements.

Metadata about THINGS

Metadata about things provides the characteristics of all the physical objects in the world, such as machines, parts, equipment, food, furniture, music...well you get the idea. 

Add to this all the non-physical things, such as objects created in virtual worlds. Now imagine if all these "things" were connected and could start to share this information and "talk" to each other.

You are already familiar with bar codes, which contain the metadata for everyday things, as well as the more recent use of RFID tags to electronically capture and broadcast all of this metadata. This is sometimes referred to as "the Internet of things". See the 2005 executive summary of the Internet of Things for one perspective and more detail on this concept.

For example, imagine if all the ingredients in your kitchen made all their metadata available, such as how full or empty they are, when they are about to expire, which combinations might let you make a dinner along the lines of what you desire, and without a trip to the store.  It's all just metadata!

To learn more:

• Wikipedia provides this brief overview on the related topic of object hyperlinking.
• This short BBC article from 2005 discusses how the United Nations was predicting such a "network of everyday objects".

AUTOMATED metadata generation (AMG)

Once you start to consider the massive amount of metadata that is required and possible for each and every person, place, and thing, you quickly "do the math" and realize the overwhelming problem of "How will all this metadata ever be created?" Our initial tendency has been to assume that metadata is all human generated—literally "typed in" to forms. If this were true, there would not be much of a future for metadata, since there is most likely more metadata than data and certainly more metadata than there are people, places, or things! 

While human generated metadata, especially the more "subjective" metadata elements, will always play an ever more critical role in the future, it will become the minority of the overall volume of metadata. Increasingly, metadata will be generated automatically.

To learn more:

• See this article on AMG which comes from one of the many groups that Professor Erik Duval leads at KU Leuven, a prestigious Belgian university.

USER GENERATED metadata

Did you know that literally all the metadata for all the CD's and music you see displayed on your MP3 players, iPods and computers, artist name, title, album name, etc. is generated by other listeners, such as yourself and NOT by the record companies or publishers? What if we could tap into the metadata that each one of us (eventually all 6.6 billion of us) are probably generating every day, such as the tags and captions we add to photos, the PowerPoint slides we create, and search terms we use, to name but a few?  Such is the power of user generated metadata and there will be much work in the future to increase the generation of, capturing, and putting to effective use the flood of metadata that will result.

ATTENTION metadata

Attention metadata is a common term for all the metadata that captures your likes and dislikes, and which can help you find everything from great music to listen to, people to get together with, TV shows and video to watch, etc. We can think of it as the things we "pay attention to"...hence the name.

Attention metadata is what recommender systems are based on. One such effort to address some of the needs for better capturing and interoperability of this type of metadata is that of the attention.xml group. You can listen to this 2004 podcast with some of the originators of attention.xml and this podcast and blog from Alex Barnett discussing attention related topics.

Why would you need this? Consider shopping sites that track your buying patterns, and your opinions and preferences after such purchases, and use these to help you find additional items that you may want (if you let them). How does the system know if you are buying the item for yourself or as a gift for someone special? Currently they do not, and therefore the recommendations become less relevant and you likely stop using them. However as these issues begin to be addressed, there will be more and more "decision support" to help us deal with the growing problem of an economy of abundance and too much choice for those of us privileged enough to live in such situations.

Metadata UNIQUE and SPECIFIC to LET

While some of the metadata standards, such as LOM, are intended to cover the application to LET, most of the initial work to date has been much more general and largely applied to content. There is an enormous need for much greater focus on metadata that is unique and specific to learning, education, and training. This would include metadata to assist with evaluation and assessment—matching learning styles with teaching styles, and helping each of us as unique individuals to have LET options that are just right for us at just the right time and in just the right way.

And trust me, this is but a minor scratch on the vast surface of but one slice of metadata and its very exciting future! 

So LOM, for now....

I certainly have mixed emotions about reducing my direct involvement in LOM and the development of some of these future metadata related topics. However, I can't imagine leaving LOM in better hands than those of Erik Duval and the many, many other dedicated individuals, old and new, who have such dedication and passion for improving learning, education, training, and performance and indeed the world in general, through better use and generation of metadata.

Whether or not you consider taking an active role in this future development of LOM and metadata standards and specifications, I certainly encourage you to pay more attention to the role of metadata and how it serves as a fundamental principle in the future of your life, both personal and professional, and the future of the world around us.

Wayne

The Lego of Gadgets

How could I not like Rafe Neeleman's recent posting on Webware called "Bug Labs: The Lego of Gadgets"?!  Here's so many of my favorite themes all wrapped into one: Lego block modularity, mashups, gadgets and the whole DIY ethic (Do It Yourself). 

OK, I confess to having a severe gadget addiction that dates back to my early youth in an earlier era where it manifested as hot rods, restoring antique cars, woodworking, metalworking, sewing, and other pursuits. The DIY gene is very dominant in me (along with just being plain cheap). A friend and I were just discussing this idea this past weekend, when it worked out "cheaper" to go buy a new MIG welder and some other tools to build some custom stainless steel brackets that were going to cost too much to have made by a local shop:

DIY labor = less $$ + new toys tools

What's not to love about that formula?

If you have any similar tendencies, do take the time to check out the Bug Labs site. It appears to be the work of a very passionate group—my favorite kind of people! On their new web site, their stated inspiration is:

There are so many great gadget ideas that haven't been thought of yet. With BUG, we want to unlock and inspire the discovery and creation of as many of these devices as possible.

Right now, they have a "BUGbase" unit (image left) which is the size of an old tape cassette (remember those? If not ask your parents) and is (their site described it); "a small hackable Linux computer" that has the basic components you need for most devices such as a CPU, USB, LCD interface, battery, WiFi, etc.

 

Some of their initial add on hardware modules (image at right) include a GPS, digital camera/videocam, touch sensitive color LCD screen and an accelerometer/motion sensor—all of which snap together with the BUGbase, of course, and can be programmed with the open source software SDK.

They apparently have a full development environment called Eclipse which is also open source and according to Rafe's posting, "looks to be philosophically similar to the Bug hardware—that is, highly modular."

While Bug Labs is still pretty high up the geek/DIY echelon, I do hope that this is evidence of an evolution towards a more modular and interoperable level, enabling mashups for hardware, much as we are seeing on the software side with widgets and the like. 

 

Once again however widespread adoption will depend upon the emergence of standards, be they de facto or de jure that will make everyone's modules interoperate and "snap together". What would Lego blocks be without standard "pin" size?! 

On the good news side we are seeing how something like the relatively ubiquitous USB connector has sparked an explosion of devices that all work off this same standard (even with the slight hiccup of there now being two USB connectors—A and B). This ability to use the same cords to plug any USB compatible device into any USB port has been a huge improvement in the interoperability of hardware and the exchange of power and data between such devices as cell phones, cameras, GPS, scanners, printers, etc. Heck, some of them even span the great Windows/Mac divide! 

On the other hand, no one seems to have been able to come up with a standard DC power plug in!  Even within the same manufacturer, it seems like every new laptop I get, for example, has a slightly different size connector, which renders all my other "brick" converters useless and means almost none of us can share them when we are together. 

So here's hoping that efforts like Bug Labs can start to make some significant progress towards standards that matter! In the meantime, all you DIYers like me, have fun creating more mashups, and be sure to share some of your creations with all of us.

Music, Metadata and the "Onomies"

Regular readers and listeners know that I see metadata as an integral component of the future visions for learning, performance, and probably most other things. They also know that I worry that we often suffer from a version of that old story/joke about the man looking for his lost car keys:

You are out for a walk one night and happen upon this poor fellow who is down on his hands and knees on the sidewalk frantically searching for his car keys. You stop to lend a hand. After you'€™ve searched for several minutes without finding them, you ask him to recall where he last had them and he says he thinks he dropped them as he was locking his car. To which you say, "So this is your car here?" and he says, "  No, my car is down two blocks and around the corner."  Puzzled, you ask, "Why are you looking here then?" and he says ..........................................."  Oh, because this is where the light is better!"

Sounds silly, but I wonder how easily and often we mimic this behavior of "looking where the light is better"? Seems to me that we often look in the wrong places for the wrong things, or don't shine a light in the right places. Specifically, I find that we often overlook some extremely valuable ideas, technologies, and solutions simply because they are not developed or applied for our specific domain or interests.

For example, the world of music is one of my favorite and richest sources of innovative examples of personalization. It absolutely reverberates with a plethora of great lessons. I'€™ll try to cover more in future postings, but today I want to bring to your attention to a recent blog posting from my Belgian buddy Erik Duval called "From folksonomies to taxonomies".

Erik and I are mutually fascinated by music in general and the lessons it has for us. Erik references a recent posting in Duke Listens! , a blog by Paul Lamere, which has some very good examples of using the automated metadata generated by Last.fm.  Although I have some concerns with his specific example (which involves the use of music genres, such as blues, rock, heavy metal), he uses it to make some excellent points about how you can take the metadata (tags), usually referred to as "folksonomies" or "metadata for the masses",  generated by something such as Last.fm and use these to generate taxonomies.

Duke Listens! is also a fun site for several other topics that I find particularly interesting including some of the amazing things that the middle school kids that Duke coaches build with Lego blocks, and his writings on speech recognition, tagging and music.

I'll cover some additional lessons from the world of music in subsequent postings. Meanwhile, check out these examples of automated generation of metadata and taxonomies. I think you will quickly imagine ways you can apply this technology to your domain. When you do, please share these ideas here so we can all benefit from your insights, and hopefully trigger even more.

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KISS...and Then Tell Me

As I’ll talk about more in my next podcast, our world is changing at unimaginable rates, and these rates are increasing exponentially. One interesting and increasingly problematic aspect of this phenomenon is that many of our units of measure are becoming less useful. They are so small that we have to start dealing with multiples that are cumbersome. Consider something as simple as our monetary units—dollars, Euros, pesos, yen, etc.  When we deal with the gross national product of a country or its deficit, say, can we really fathom how comparatively big or small a trillion dollars or euros is?  And if that’s not bad enough, it’s compounded by the fact that the same unit of measure can mean different things in different countries; a billion in the UK has 12 zeros behind it, whereas a billion in the USA has only nine (10¹² in the UK and 10⁹ in the USA)!

Being unable to make these units and numbers meaningful also interferes with our ability to make smart decisions or engage in meaningful discussions, so all of us need to be concerned about this growing problem.

To me, much of the complexity is needless and self-induced. A good dose of simplification and reduction goes a long way towards resolving the problem. I’ve always liked the notion of KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid), and so I was intrigued to read in this month’s (January 2007) issue of Spectrum magazine of a proposal to deal with these very problems as they pertain to energy. Spectrum is of the many monthly publications I receive from IEEE (Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers) where many of us have worked for years on standards for Learning Technology.

This wonderfully short and simple article “Joules, BTUs, Quads—Let's Call the Whole Thing Off” lays out an equally simple solution to the current problem of too many different and often too small units of measure for energy. The article includes a simple example showing how this problem makes it almost impossible to reasonably compare and choose from different energy sources. The proposal from several energy experts is to standardize on an existing single large unit of measure for all such comparisons: one cubic mile of oil (CMO). 

Illustrations are often wonderful examples of the elegance, clarity, and simplicity. The illlustration included in this article is just that. It clearly compares how many different energy sources (dams, nuclear power plants, coal plants, windmills, or solar panels) it would take to generate one CMO each year for 50 years.  As you can immediately see, using CMO as the only unit of measure makes the comparison clear and simple. Imagine instead what this would look like as a table containing all of the different energy units—from Joules to BTU’s to Quads—and all with enormous numbers in front of them!

Our challenge is look at our own fields of expertise for examples of this problem—too many units of measure and quantitative measures with too many digits—where comparisons are unwieldy and unmanageable. How many different terms or units can you eliminate by doing something similar?  What kinds of comparisons can you make so much clearer and understandable if you do? 

So KISS...and then tell me about it. Send me your comments via this blog or by other means. Share your results and help all of us collectively use the power of KISS to make this complex and exponentially growing world of ours a little better and more understandable. Here’s to all of us having better discussions and making better decisions.

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More on Metadata

While catching up with my online reading after a very hectic and productive week in Berlin, I was delighted to find that my posting in October about a keynote I presented on the Future of Metadata and Learning Objects at the International Conference on Digital Archive Technology (ICDAT) in Taipei had stimulated a series of comments in other blogs. I was particularly interested in comments by Scott Wilson and Andy Powell who are very well versed in metadata, and by Stephen Downes, a prolific blogger and presenter on related topics.

I always find it interesting how others interpret what I’ve written or said. Their comments serve to remind me that posting slides from one of my talks without the accompanying audio can make it difficult for the reader to know what I intended. When I posted the slides, I tried to fill in the missing audio using supplemental text. Stephen, perhaps wisely, often posts his presentations by capturing the audio portion, and then offering it as an MP3 file for downloading.

After reading my postings again several times, I’m still puzzled as to why the slides and accompanying text were sometimes misinterpreted, but since each of their postings made several good observations and since more discussion about the important topic of metadata is much appreciated, I encourage you to read them.

• Scott Wilson's comments are at http://www.cetis.ac.uk/members/scott/blogview?entry=20061130132607

• Stephen Downes posted two comments at http://www.downes.ca/archive/06/11_29_news_OLDaily.htm and
  http://www.downes.ca/archive/06/11_30_news_OLDaily.htm

• Andy Powell joins in at http://efoundations.typepad.com/efoundations/2006/11/index.html

To further the discussion, over the next week or so, I plan to expand on some of these comments. Thanks again to Scott, Stephen and Andy for taking the time to read and comment on my previous postings.  I hope this will stimulate even more discussion by others.

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Hot Shanghai is VERY cool in Taipei

To cap off an excellent day of presentations and conversation, my hosts treated me to an evening out in the downtown "cool zone" of Taipei, where the entire city's young (20-somethings) workforce seems to go after work. Best of all, my hosts somehow managed to get us into THE restaurant in Taipei, called Din Tai Fung, for one of THE best and most beautifully presented Shanghai-style dim sum, and it was some of the best I've ever had. As you can see by the photo with the tower of bamboo dim sum steam baskets, a literal army in the kitchen is busy hand-forming each little treasure to be served.

The evening was made even more complete when the team who are creating the national metadata standard, which is based upon the IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) Standard, met with me back at my hotel. This exceptionally talented and energetic team has created a full Chinese translation of the IEEE LOM document, and even more impressively, a very detailed Taiwanese application profile to meet local needs. Their work is slated to become the national standard for educationally-oriented metadata for all of Taiwan in 2007, and they wanted to meet to get more guidance and suggestions for their final work on this national standard. A fabulous and dedicated team, and we talked late into the night.

A full day and most productive visit to say the least.  Keep your eye on Taiwan for a continued flow of great examples and experiences in all things metadata for both digital archives, learning and performance. Unfortunately there is still no sign of my lost voice yet, which certainly added an extra challenge to my presentations and meetings! Now I'm off to Ecuador to see if I can find my voice there. Stay tuned and I'll let you know where and when I find it.

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The Future of Metadata

My recent presentation at the 2006 International Conference on Digital Archive Technologies (ICDAT 2006) in Taiwan, dealt with the connection between content, competencies, and context, and how these domains are based upon a foundation of supporting metadata.  Below is a SlideShare version of the slides I used and if you would like to reuse or repurpose any of the slides you can download ICDAT2006.ppt

Some of my key points for the future of metadata included:

• Automated metadata generation (AMG) for producing the vast majority of metadata
• Augmenting AMG with the manual metadata from both mass contribution (consumers) and experts such as librarians, indexers and the like
• Making metadata much more transparent to the end users and remember that metadata is a means to the end of finding (rather than searching!)the "right stuff"
• Metadata "beyond text" to include the vast majority of content which is in the form of video, audio, photos, etc.
• Getting rid of the limiting default definition for metadata as "data about data" and extending it to include such things as metadata on people (e.g. competencies, skills, knowledge), places (e.g. GIS, location based), and equipment
• The power of inferred and implicit metadata, that which can be inferred from existing metadata by their relationships, such as if we know that daughters = female then all instances of daughter are also instances of female
• Capturing and automating "Attention metadata" (patterns of preferences, practices)
• The critical role and need for capturing and using Contextual metadata

After covering some of the history and current myths and misconceptions, I addressed the topic of the future of Learning Objects and covered some of the following points:

• The mass contribution phenomena of consumers providing massive quantities of metadata. Examples include all the metadata for music such as that on CDDB and the metadata being generated by the millions using Flickr and del.icio.us
• The mass customization and personalization of Learning Objects, such that we are able to have "just the right" content at the just the right time, on just the right device or medium, etc.
• Automating the assembly of content in general and Learning Objects in particular
• The inclusion of contextual metadata to enable content assemblies that are ideally matched to the unique situation of each individual

Given that I managed to do the whole presentation without a voice and yet got a rousing applause and extended session of questions afterwards, it appeared that they were able to hear me, and the comments resonated strongly with this audience.

Till next time,

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Consensus: How to Create and Maintain a Better World - Part 2

Being good at consensus requires being a great listener. Consensus is also the practice of true semantics, which contrary to popular misconception, is NOT about words but rather, about getting to meaning, as in "I know what you said, but what did you mean?" It's about listening for understanding.

One of the greatest lessons I learned from my parents was that "we judge ourselves by our intentions, and everyone else by their actions." I've learned how true this is and also how valuable it is to try to reverse it. So I work at trying to see how my words and actions are interpreted by others and not just assume that my intentions are obvious. Equally, I work at trying to understand the intentions of others, which are often quite contrary to what could have been assumed from their words and actions alone. Doing this with groups as I work on building consensus has proved extremely valuable.

Developing consensus with others usually involves finding common ground—removing or setting aside our individual or situational context to discover the underlying principles that are usually there when we get past the language and specifics of our unique applications and situations. Being able to abstract and synthesize from a large volume of input is equally essential. This process typically enables the real essence to bubble up and become evident to everyone involved.

Of course, finding consensus takes time to work through. In our hurried world, this can be an added challenge when everyone seems to be looking for quick fixes and instant gratification. But in my experience, consensus has always produced results and benefits that FAR exceed the expectations of those involved and is seen as a huge payoff for the investments made.

Negotiation is also a good skill to have. And yes, this is about compromise, but NOT in the form of giving in or backing away from achieving great success. This kind of compromise is about being able to look at the big picture, look at the consequences of our actions, and create solutions that will be lasting and successful because they work for all.

If any of this raises your curiosity, then you might do a quick personal assessment of some of these related skills and qualities. How good are you at listening for understanding—asking good questions that lead to greater and deeper understanding for you and others. What opportunities do you have to put consensus to work?

My greatest hope is that in the not too distant future, we can say that, rather than standards, it is consensus that we have in great abundance.

It may seem like this is a long and winding way from that strange power receptacle in my hotel room a couple of posts ago! But that shouldn't surprise you if you've come to this site before, since this is yet another example of how Off Course - On Target is where unexpected paths lead to great discoveries. I hope that this brief detour to explore consensus leads you to some great discoveries and value that you can take with you and use. Either way be sure to let me know about it.

Till next time,

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Consensus: How to Create and Maintain a Better World - Part 1

Last time, I talked about how the RJ-11 plug reminded me about the great thing that standards offer and how the power of consensus makes this all possible. In my experience, consensus seems to be either unknown or misunderstood by most. The Ball Foundation suggests that "Consensus is mutual agreement among team members that all legitimate concerns of individuals have been addressed by the group and everyone agrees to support the decision." and Merriam Webster has this wonderfully simple definition:"group solidarity in sentiment and belief."

In practice, consensus is about developing a collective decision that every member agrees to support with their words AND their actions. How often do you see that? Too rarely to be sure but whenever it IS seen, it seems to create great and lasting success, joy, and results.

To me, consensus is an extension of and an improvement upon "just" democracy, because consensus is not based on simple majority voting or our input as individuals. Rather, it is the requirement to think, work, and act as a collective, to consider the big picture and the consequences for all. In its true form, consensus requires that EVERYONE in the group helps to develop a plan that they can then support afterward. With the more typical majority vote and other forms of group decision-making, the decisions of the group are often followed by a complete lack of support by those who voted for it.

Another phrase associated with developing consensus—one that is pretty accurate in my experience—is that this process involves "herding cats". In my experience, it also has a few goldfish thrown into the mix!  :-)  But isn't that our reality? We're not all the same. Like our parents might have said, we are "snowflakes", each of us unique.  Not just us as individuals, but each of our projects, our organizations our every situation is an instance of true uniqueness. Yet, is not our diversity and eclecticness the great thing about being human? As we have more and more choice in our lives, more options, and more challenges, isn't there an escalating need to be very proficient and skilled at developing consensus among our groups, be they national, cultural, professional or personal?

In both the present world and the one that is looming, I have to believe that consensus will be one, of if not THE key, determinant of our ability to create and maintain a better world.

More on this later...gotta run.

w
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