Participative Web : snapshot

Snapshot: How can I interact with the conference?

Kieren Mccarthy — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 23:34:00 GMT

Because this is the participative web, there are of course ways to interact with the conference even if you are not physically here.

First of all, we should point out that there has already been some significant uses of the new technologies before the conference even begins. Check out for example these videos, recorded by panellists, posted to YouTube and Google Video and linked to from the OECD.

A special Skype address was also set up with an answering machine so people could record messages and questions on it. But in terms of interacting while the actual meeting is going on you need to know three things:

The live webcast is here. The conference starts 9am EST (see here for what time that is in your part of the world).
You can email questions and messages to participativeweb@oecd.org before or during the meeting where they will be reviewed and possibly read out in the meeting or posted on the Internet.
You can add comments to our blog posts - which we will review and, if appropriate, read into the meeting.

That's it. We look forward to hearing from you.

Other snapshots:

Snapshot: What is this blog about?

Kieren Mccarthy — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:05:00 GMT

This blog has been created so that the conference might use and benefit from the very technologies it is discussing.

It is hosted by the OECD but the material on it will be produced by two independent bloggers and so the posts should not be taken to represent the official or unofficial stance of the organisation.

The blog will cover events as they happen – making the flow of discussions in the room instantly available to anyone online that is interested in them. It will also accept comments, and, where useful, those comments will be relayed back into the room, providing the opportunity for real-time feedback from anywhere in the world.

It will also serve as a useful on-the-ground resource, available for years to come, for those that wish to review what happened at the meeting but were unable to attend.

The nature of blogs

Blogs are undoubtedly the most well-known participative web technology, mostly because they are so simple and as a result have been extensively used by everyone from schoolchildren to politicians.

The idea of a blog however strikes at the heart of the uneasy balance that many feel needs to be struck with new Internet technologies. The ability to self-publish information on the Internet within seconds is a remarkable thing. Previously it was extremely, even prohibitively expensive to provide information to a large audience; now it is possible (in theory at least) to reach any of the over one billion individuals online and to do so at negligible cost.

But just as the removal of barriers has given birth to an extraordinary explosion of information and discussion, many organisations and governments remain concerned that the self-same possibilities can prove damaging if used incorrectly, or in error.

Person versus representative

One of the most significant issues that blogs present comes thanks to the age-old assumption that a representative of a government, country, or business is just that: a representative.

In real life, we are finely tuned to recognising when something is a work event, and when it is a social occasion – even if sometimes that distinction has to be made verbally and attested to.

Online, however, that distinction between work and social remains uncertain in people’s minds – especially when someone write personal reflections on work issues. The result is often a sense of trepidation in those that are encouraged to write freely and openly (and without review), and dread in those that are ultimately responsible for those people’s actions.

Mistakes – especially embarrassing ones – are eagerly seized upon (although the number of stories about bloggers being fired for unflattering information on their personal blogs is in rapid decline) and, thanks to the Internet, that slip-up is now capable of spreading around the world in a matter of hours.

It is, however, simply a matter of changing times. The enormous advantages to be had by publishing information on the Internet – as will be attested to by countless individuals at this conference – mean that it is not going to go away and instead we simply have to design ways to grow comfortable with our discomfort.

This blog hopes to demonstrate some of those advantages (without the discomfort) by providing timely review and insight into the discussions while also allowing anyone to respond, and so encourage coordination, cooperation and multilateral progress for the betterment of all. Which, fortuitously, is precisely what the OECD was created for.

Who we are

The two bloggers covering the conference are:

Richard Akerman: a Technology Architect at NRC CISTI, the National Research Council Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, Canada's National Science Library and Publisher.

Mr. Akerman joined CISTI in 2002. Previously he worked at AMIRIX Systems, where he was a Senior Software Designer. His areas of interest include the application of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to academic library and publishing workflows, and e-Science. He often writes in his blog, Science Library Pad, and elsewhere about the impact of new technologies on scholarly communication. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics with a minor in Computer Science from Mount Allison University.

and

Kieren McCarthy: a keen exponent of online methods to improve the depth and range of participation in organisations of all types. A UK journalist who has closely followed the progress of the Internet from both a political and technological standpoint since the 1990s, he is currently general manager of public participation for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Kieren was the official blog watcher at the inaugural Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in 2006. As well as running his own successful blog, he advises companies and organisations on how to make the most of the latest Internet technologies from advanced content management systems to simple audio recordings.

As a journalist, he has written for a number of prominent UK publications, including The Times, The Guardian, New Scientist, The Independent and the Daily Mail. He worked for leading IT news site The Register during the dotcom boom and spent several years as news editor of Techworld.com.

His first book, the tale behind the theft of domain name ***.com was published in April 2007.

Other snapshots:

Snapshot: What is the conference rundown?

Kieren Mccarthy — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 17:03:00 GMT

This is cut-down version of the full agenda. You can download the full agenda as a pdf here, or use the links below to learn more about each sessions and those taking part in it.

The conference runs from 9am to 6pm. It is based in Ottawa, Canada, so in terms of time that is Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) which is currently GMT -4 hours. See here for a time rundown according to different cities of the world.

The conference comprises five main sessions - three split into two different stream - running for 80 minutes each and with a five-minute conclusion at the end:

Participative Web conference agenda
Time	Event	People
9.00-9.20 TK: 10pm PA: 3pm NY: 9am LA: 6am	OPENING	Michael Binder Suzanne Huttner John Oxley (Facilitator)
9.20-10.50	The Future of the Participative Web	John Lettice (Chair) Jonathan Taplin Cyrus Beagley Ginsu Yoon Michael Gill
10.50-11.10	Coffee break
11.10-12.30	Creativity and the Internet Economy	Stream A	Stream B
TK: 12.10am PA: 4.10pm NY: 11.10am LA: 8.10am	Stream A: Business 2.0 and innovation Stream B: Research 2.0 - eScience and new ways of interaction	David Crane (chair) Bob Young Anthony Williams Paul Misener Daniel Bretonès Shenja van der Graaf	Walter Stewart (chair) Andrew Herbert Bill St. Arnaud Mario Campolargo Diana Rhoten
12.30-13.45	Lunch	Robert Sutor
13.45-15.05	Creativity and the Internet Economy	Stream A	Stream B
TK: 2.45am PA: 7.45pm NY: 1.45pm LA: 10.45am	Stream A: User-created content: What are the impacts? Stream B: Government 2.0 - Engaging citizens	Michael Leblanc (Chair) Jungwook Lim Andres Monroy-Hernandez Jennifer Corriero Manon Ress	Ellen Miller (Chair) Don Lenihan Alejandro Hernandez Pulido Wolfgang Blau Quitterie Delmas
15.05-16.25	Confidence and Competition in the Internet Economy	Stream A	Stream B
TK: 4.05am PA: 9.05pm NY: 3.05pm LA: 12.05pm	Stream A: Creation, access and competition Stream B: Confidence, privacy and security	William New (Chair) Kiyoshi Mori Urs Gasser Anne Bucher Martin Senftleben	Hugh Stevenson (Chair) Gary Davis Chris Kelly Jennifer Mardosz John Lawford
16.25-16.45	Coffee break
16.45-17.55 TK: 5.45am PA: 10.45pm NY: 4.45pm LA: 1.45pm	Policy Roundtable: Opportunities and Challenges for Policy	Michael Geist (Chair) Sangwon Ko Marc Rotenberg Daniela Battisti Joseph Alhadeff Keith Besgrove Neil Anderson
17.55-18.00	CONCLUSIONS and Priority-Setting for the OECD	Richard Simpson

TK	PA	NY	LA
Tokyo	Paris	New York	Los Angeles

Other snapshots:

Snapshot: What is the “participative web”?

Kieren Mccarthy — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 12:47:00 GMT

One of the easiest ways to pick out a fast-moving and dynamic area of activity is to watch the number of buzzwords that come shooting out of people’s interactions.

And for the past five years, the Internet has been the undisputed king of buzzwords for the simple reason that new products and services continue to come along every day that cannot be easily fitted within previous boxes.

Many of these terms are coined by people trying to find parameters to discuss exciting new developments or get across a novel philosophy or movement in a simple phrase. In this case the “participative web” fits with the first description – providing a useful envelope for discussions.

And this participative web is in large part thanks to one of the most recent buzzwords – Web 2.0. There are countless description of what Web 2.0 actually is – here is my explanation:

The first era of the Internet was all about getting people online and getting them to not only access the information there but also post their own information, adding to the global repository. That effort proved so enormously successful that pretty soon it became impossible to locate the information you want. In part this was solved by search engines – most notably the company du jour, Google – but even with search engines, it remains difficult to pull out the information you want from this vast global mesh (mess) of data.

Web 2.0 covers the technologies, tools and companies that try to make sense of this information for the individual by allowing you to define where you want to take your information from. The most successful of these efforts mirror our real-world approach to gathering information – we listen to individuals’ whose opinions we trust. And so Web 2.0 tends to allow individuals to share information with other defined individuals, who act as a huge and focused filter and so enable you to get on with your life.

This sharing of information between individuals is having enormous and sometimes unforeseen changes. Individuals are able to simply locate and then extensively communicate with those of a like mind – whether they live next door or on the other side of the world.

New technologies that allow Internet users to rate content, to work with one another and to share information at the click of a button have enormous social, business, scientific and political implications. Many manifestations such as Wikipedia or open-source software still appear to defy what we would regard as societal norms. The ability for people to make photos or videos instantly available to anyone in the world within minutes or their having been taken is something that continues to boggle minds.

Knowledge is power

Information has become infinitely more varied and more readily accessible. And if the information you provide is not as easily accessed as someone else’s, it is their information that people will read and act on. But with the huge pluses comes equally large problems: illegal content, disrupted industries, piracy, slander and libel.

What role can governments play in protecting – even promoting – the positive aspects of this global participation? While at the same time, what can be done to reduce, restrict, even remove the elements that we as a society deem damaging?

It’s a complex subject and this conference will begin to delve into it in order to find possible threads of agreement on the best way forward.

Other snapshots:

Snapshot: Why the OECD?

Kieren Mccarthy — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 11:39:00 GMT

You may wonder why an organisation best known for its statistics is hosting a conference on something as nebulous as the “participative web”.

But one of the OECD’s traditional roles (and sometimes its most valued) is in understanding, and then helping governments respond to, new developments whether technological, economic or social. The Internet continues to provide an extraordinary catalyst for change in all these areas - and continues to do so – and so this conference will serve as one of a series that will then lead into a large ministerial conference on “The Future of the Internet Economy” in June 2008.

Government and civil society’s role

Thanks to the Internet’s genesis within the academic and technical communities, it has been a long-held popular view that governments should only play a small part at best with regard to this inter-network of computers. But as the Internet has continued to take deeper root within all our lives, it has become increasingly difficult to ignore the vital role that governments must play in the Internet’s development.

With so much economic and social infrastructure tied up in the Internet, governments would be failing in their duty if they weren’t to see what an appropriate role for them is: whether that is protection of the systems from attack, or from abuse; or, more positively, whether the new technologies can’t help make government itself more efficient and reflective of society’s views and needs.

A short history of the OECD

In many ways, the Organisation for Economic Coordination and Development (OECD) is the ideal venue for the discussions that need to be had over the Internet.

The organisation itself was created with support from the United States and Canada as the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) in 1949 to help Europe coordinate its efforts for economic recovery following the destructive and distorting effects of the Second World War.

The OEEC then turned into the OECD in 1961 and soon became known for its pragmatic, almost business-like approach to building economic growth. A more relaxed and less political venue than other international organisations, the OECD is highly valued for its focus on coordination – meaning that governments come together to share policy ideas, approaches and lessons. The peer-pressure element of the OECD also helps make international agreements a reality.

A main tenet of the OEEC was to “recognise the increasing interdependence of our economies”. History has proven that assertion true - neatly summarised these days in the word “globalisation” - but the Internet has made that merging of economies ever-greater. Individuals no longer rely on companies to provide international goods in stores near them – today you can buy a single item direct from a producer on the other side of the world in one click.

Two sides; one coin

This economic world wide web is only one side of the coin; on the other side is vastly increased social interaction. And, increasingly, the economic value of greater social interaction through information sharing is leading our societies down a new path.

But where is the path going? What does it look like? What are the possible pitfalls? How do we recognise the best way ahead? What have we learnt so far, and how can we use that knowledge going forward? These are just some of the questions that this conference will raise and which, it is hoped, will start providing some answers to.

Other snapshots:

Participative Web : snapshot

Snapshot: How can I interact with the conference?

Snapshot: What is this blog about?

Snapshot: What is the conference rundown?

Participative Web conference agenda

Snapshot: What is the “participative web”?

Snapshot: Why the OECD?