What's the Father of the Wiki Doing at Nike?

The idea of the wiki is now so pervasive that we rather take it for granted - "oh, let's just use a wiki" is a typical cry these days. But it's important to remember that for all its simplicity, it took someone to come up with the idea (just as it did for the "simple" idea of a hyperlinked Web.)

That person was Ward Cunningham, who has led a colourful professional life, as his Wikipedia entry (oh look, a wiki...) makes clear:

He is a founder of Cunningham & Cunningham, Inc. He has also served as Director of R&D at Wyatt Software and as Principal Engineer in the Tektronix Computer Research Laboratory. He is founder of the Hillside Group and has served as program chair of the Pattern Languages of Programming conference which it sponsors. Cunningham was part of the Smalltalk community. From December 2003 until October 2005, he worked for Microsoft Corporation in the "patterns & practices" group. From October 2005 to May 2007, he held the position of Director of Committer Community Development at the Eclipse Foundation.

In May 2007, Cunningham joined AboutUs as its chief technology officer.[2][3][4] On March 24, 2011 The Oregonian reported that Cunningham had quietly departed AboutUs to join Venice-based CitizenGlobal, a startup working on crowd-sourced video content, as their Chief Technology Officer. He remains "an adviser" with AboutUs.

Well, he is moving again, to fill this rather interesting, if horribly-named, post at Nike:

At Nike we know tomorrow's world will be radically different from today's. To thrive in a world where resources are constrained, where people and governments and systems are fully connected, where sustainability is an imperative, not a choice, where transparency is requisite, we believe we need innovation. Disruptive, radical, jaw-dropping innovation. Innovation we cannot imagine. That kind of innovation is not going to come only from within. It will require the best of what we've got, along with unlikely partnerships, collaborations and open innovation.

We believe that data and technology will be key to unleashing new innovations.

Nike is looking for a person with the skills, passion and know-how to use data and technology to solve problems standing between business-as-usual and a sustainable future. We're looking for a creative visionary who also has both feet firmly on the ground — one in Nike and one in the open data world, ready to run. We're looking for a Code for a Better World Fellow.

The fellow will help Nike determine the steps needed to open our sustainability data to communities of data-obsessed programmers, visual designers and researchers.

The fellow will work with Nike's data managers to landscape current data and craft a desired future state; manage the formatting and release of data to the open data community; curate use of the data within the community; bring knowledge from the open data community back to Nike as actionable steps; attend conferences related to open data to grow Nike's network and profile in this space; and ultimately create/steward the creation of prototypes that demonstrate how opening Nike's sustainability data can be a force to drive change.

What's particularly interesting here is the emphasis on open data. So far, we have seen mainly governments opening up their data stores, but there are many benefits for companies, to do so too, as this article points out (it was also the source of the news that Cunningham was moving.) It also points out that Nike has been in the forefront of innovative business practices in this area for a while:

Nike have a surprisingly long history of releasing data. Back in 2000, they started publishing a list of all their contracted factories (scraped list by Selena Deckelmann) and related audit information. The aim? To improve their factory working conditions, both by improved scrutiny of Nike’s own measurement systems, and by enabling direct on the ground inspection and campaigning by activists.

Employing the Father of the Wiki is another smart move, and I can't wait to see what he does there.

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How Apt: Apt-urls Arrive

One of the unsung virtues of open source is the ease with which you can add, remove and upgrade programs. In part, this comes down to the fact that all software is freely available, so you don't need to worry about cost: if you want it, you can have it. This makes installation pretty much a one-click operation using managers like Synaptic.

Now things have become even easier:

As of this morning, apt-urls are enabled on the Ubuntu Wiki. What does this mean? In simple terms, this feature provides a simple, wiki-based interface for apt, the base of our software management system. It means that we can now insert clickable links on the wiki that can prompt users to install software from the Ubuntu repositories.

That's pretty cool, but even more amazing is the fact that when I click on the link in the example on the above page, it *already* works:

If you are a Firefox user on Ubuntu, you will also note that the link I’ve provided here works, too. This is because Firefox also allows apt-urls to work in regular web pages.

Free software is just *so* far ahead of the closed stuff: how could anyone seriously claim that it doesn't innovate?

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Wired's Open Government Data Wiki

Wired has an idea:

If you're a fan of free data flow into and out of the government, Vivek Kundra seems like an ally. But we can't rest on our laurels. Now is exactly the time when lobbying for particular data and documents to be made accessible could be most effective.

Data.gov is coming: Let's help build it.

The solution? You - and a wiki:

We've established this wiki to help focus attention on valuable data resources that need to be made more accessible or usable. Do you know of a legacy dataset in danger of being lost? How about a set of Excel (or — shudder — Lotus 1-2-3) spreadsheets that would work better in another format? Data locked up in PDF's?

This is your place to report where government data is locked up by design, neglect or misapplication of technology. We want you to point out the government data that you need or would like to have. Get involved!

Based on what you contribute here, we'll follow up with government agencies to see what their plans are for that data — and track the results of the emerging era of Data.gov.

With your help, we can combine the best of new social media and old-school journalism to get more of the data we've already paid for in our hands.

We could do with something similar here: Free Our Data, are you listening?

Includipedia - Count Us In

As I've written elsewhere, I am a big fan of inclusionism when it comes to Wikipedia - the idea that there is no good reason why it shouldn't include entries on anything. After all, nobody forces you to read the stuff, and it's not as if it's sitting on your bookshelves. Includipedia feels the same:

The main difference between Includipedia and Wikipedia is that Includipedia will have an Inclusionst policy.

When people's work is trashed by deletionists, they become discouraged from contributing to Wikipedia. If many good Wikipedia editors get disgruntled with Wikipedia's deletionists, the important work of creating a repository of all information is harmed.

Why shouldn't every film, every TV programme episode, every small-circulation magazine, every pokemon character, etc have an article about it, if people want to write those articles? People who aren't interested in these subjects won't read them, and people who are interested will find them useful.

Also worth noting is Encoresoup, an partial, inclusionist version of Wikipedia all about free software:

The goal of Encoresoup is to provide a comprehensive reference guide to virtually all Free Software and Open Source projects and the FOSS ecosystem.

The core and inspiration for Encoresoup is the set of Wikipedia's FOSS articles managed by the Free Software WikiProject. Encoresoup seeks to build on and enhance this content in the following ways :

* Include many more articles. Practically any Free/Open Source Software project can be documented here (but see our inclusion policy) and we hope one day to host articles covering the vast majority of projects.

Truly, Gloriously, Bananas

After taking a nice long shower to remove the white sap like emulsion covering his body, Mr. Gestalt sat down and began jotting down the schematic of his banana time machine, the specifics of which had come to him spontaneously while splitting double-stuff Oreos to lick the insides. Although he lacked any formal training in physics and had been home schooled by rabbits who lovingly raised him in the wild, he felt that he was on to something. Papa Cottonballs would be proud, he thought to himself as he drew something between a trapezoid and a parallelogram with something looking like a snail shell coming out of it.

What would Krapp have said about all these bananas? (Via Read/Write Web.)

Google Sites – Not Your Father's JotSpot

On Open Enterprise blog.

I've Got a Little Brown(Book)

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Hardware: Soon to be Boring

The New York Times has a feature on the Neuros OSD (for open source device):

The Neuros OSD connects to your TV or home theater system and allows you to archive all of your DVD and video content.

Plug the Neuros OSD into your TV, connect your DVD Player or VCR, and hit play. Your movie will be safely and legally transferred into a digital library! It works with home movies too. Just plug your video camera into the OSD, push play, and your memories are digitized.

With the Neuros OSD, you can store hundreds of hours of video in one location (like an external hard drive), get rid of those bulky cases, put an end to DVD damage, and instantly access any of your videos with the push of a button on a remote. You can even transfer your video content to a portable device (video iPod, PSP, mobile phone, etc.) to watch on the go, or email your home movies to friends and family.

It runs GNU/Linux (of course) and Samba, but also features hackable hardware, as detailed on the company's wiki (where else?).

What's remarkable about all this is not so much that a company should be adopting openness in both hardware and software (though that's good), but that it should be pointing out the fact that it is doing so, and that the New York Times picked it up. That open meme is certainly spreading.

Is Debatepedia a Good Idea? Well, Yes and No....

It's always interesting to see how the basic wiki/Wikipedia idea can be extended. Here's one I'd not come across before, the more or less self-explanatory Debatepedia:

Debatepedia is a wiki project of the International Debate Education Association (IDEA) with the mission to act as the "Wikipedia of debate and reasoning". On it, debaters, students, experts, and citizens can all openly edit and co-create an encyclopedia of debates, pro and con arguments, bodies of supporting evidence (quotes, articles, studies...), and the stances of relevant actors. We encourage you to create an account (above), become an editor, and join this important social movement and community. Imagine the difference that this resource could make in improving reasoning globally.

Well, I think that's debatable.... (Via Joho the Blog.)

wikiHow Shows How

Although the fashinable wiki turns up all over the place, it's rare to come across really good uses of the idea. One fine example is wikiHow:

wikiHow is a collaborative writing project aiming to build the world's largest how-to manual. Our mission is to provide free and useful instructions to help people solve the problems of everyday life. As of this minute, wikiHow contains 25,548 articles. New articles are created every day and the existing articles are gradually improved by volunteer contributors. In time we envision this huge how to manual providing free, unbiased, accurate instructions on almost every topic imaginable. Please join us by contributing a new page or editing a page that someone else started.

As this points out, wikiHow has now passed 25,000 articles - a small number compared to Wikipedia's millions, but nonetheless a good start. (Via Creative Commons.)

Googling Google

Great title: "The Googlization of Everything." And open, too. (Via Open Access News.)

Stamboul Train of Thought

Interesting Turkish delight from the second OECD World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy, held in Istanbul on 27-30 June:

Official statistics are a key “public good” that foster the progress of societies.

...

To take this work forward we need to advocate appropriate investment in building statistical capacity, especially in developing countries, to improve the availability of data and indicators needed to guide development programs and report on progress toward international goals

Steady on, chaps, this is getting perilously close to calling for open data:

the OECD is thinking of creating an Internet site based on Web 2.0 “wiki” technologies for the presentation and discussion of international, national and local initiatives aimed at developing indicators of societal progress. By making indicators accessible to citizens all over the world through dynamic graphics and other analytical tools, this initiative would aim to stimulate discussion based on solid and comparable statistical information about what progress actually means.

Open Source Comedy

Well, that's what it says here:

The concept involves comedians driving around Europe and users (viewers) can decide where they go and what they do. In Where Are the Joneses comdedians drive around, trying to find their fictional siblings.

Users have a full arsenal of ‘open tools’ to engage with the site and campaign: a wiki to influence the script and also a twitter integration.

Ubuntu, The Magazine

For the distro that has everything, its very own mag. More details on its associated wiki.

More About Sculpties...

...but not much yet. (And what about some galleries, eh?)