Dr. Joseph E. Stiglitz recommends solution to economic crisis

Joe is one of my big heros and I just thought I would mention him again since CNN published one of his common sense articles today suggesting solutions for the US bank bailout:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/26/stiglitz.finance.crisis/index.html

When studying one of our Masters of Information classes I looked into the financial side of information management and discovered Joseph E. Stiglitz, the Nobel Memorial Prize winner in Economic Sciences in 2001, for his work on the economics of information. Joe is a professor at Columbia University.

Dr. Stiglitz wrote "Making Globalization Work" which I very much admire.

Here's a search response on his books:
http://books.google.com/books?as_auth=Joseph+E+Stiglitz&source=an&sa=X&oi=book_group&resnum=4&ct=title&cad=author-navigational

Here is a link to some of his writings about the current economic situation.
http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/Crisis.cfm

His autobiography:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2001/stiglitz-autobio.html

Here are links to two of the articles I wrote based on my reading research:

"In order to be considered a great global leader China should maintain peace and respect for corporate property rights. They need to immediately focus on their serious environmental pollution problems to survive. Politically China needs to resolve the long-standing repression of the Tibetan people; it is too expensive in terms of public relations."
http://wonderlane.blogspot.com/2008/03/report-china-is-likely-winner-of.html

and a "How I researched and wrote the article" document -
http://wonderlane.blogspot.com/2008/03/china-is-likely-winner-of-information.html

The Report: China is a likely winner of the information age supply chain through ecommerce by sticking with its successful strategies

The Report
China is a likely winner of the information age supply chain through ecommerce by sticking with its successful strategy of continued steady growth, coupled with continuing (the appearance of) a transparent society (where currently major decisions are made by top government and business officials behind closed doors) which manipulate and manage economies at large.

In order to be considered a great global leader China should maintain peace and respect for corporate property rights. They need to immediately focus on their serious environmental pollution problems to survive. Politically China needs to resolve the long-standing repression of the Tibetan people; it is too expensive in terms of public relations.

Caption: "The sign that says you're welcome in Shanghai" - Johnny Vulkan http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnyvulkan/1856903750/

The evidence is clear: China has McDonalds restaurants, and with extensive factories they make Dell and other computers. Bill Gates is eagerly pursuing business with China, and the Chinese government has given Microsoft the right to grant post-doctorial fellowships. Key companies invested in technology are willing to go to court to keep the most important Chinese corporate leaders. Kai-Fu Lee, once a vice-president at Microsoft is now Google's manager in China. Mr. Lee was the person at the center of twin lawsuits (suit and countersuit), a battle over which of the two companies would win him to work for them - he may be the ultimate in 'intellectual property.'

Caption ”On the Shanghai subway, rather than advertising computers for sale, Dell promotes job openings.” Danburg Murmur http://www.flickr.com/photos/danburgmurmur/247299162/

What is at issue are personably identifiable information (PII) and intellectual property rights (patents and copyrights) which are legislated and widely respected in the West.

Personal information is the feeder fish at the bottom of the information age food chain. China does not believe people have a right to privacy because of how communism is structured; this is true of members of their society until that person is wealthy and thus powerful enough to opt out of it, and even then the appearance of opting in must be kept.

Even in the West Intellectual property rights are eroding, which is as it should be, as it is not the same as owning a house, and can be damaging to others on a massive scale such as medical patents for aids, cancer, and other life saving drugs.

The Chinese style of governance comes with a 5 thousand year old administrative history of ordering a society consisting of large numbers of people. Because most people in American and the West do not speak their language nor write it, much of China remains a society closed to the English speaking countries. Due to communication barriers the West does not have the very healthy level of respect for China that it should.

The Chinese written language may give China advantages with online screens unknown in the West with their thousands of dense glyphs, pictographs, and phonetic parts. Currently it is estimated more than 1 billion people use some form of Chinese as their native language.

It can be said that he who owns the resources wins; especially true when supply chains are consistent and reliable. This applies to personally identifiable information in the information age as it relates to sales, because personal information is a building block in the information supply chain. Creating mass marketing campaigns targeting not just individuals but large groups of people is based on creating desire, an example is Steve Jobs and the Apple iPod. This is in addition to knowing what people want, not just what they need.

Meeting the needs of all people in the world is still a goal some people are working towards, while many more others try to capture wealth only for themselves and their investors. From the point of view that in the long run we’re all dead, many investors do not view themselves as breaking any moral,ethical, or other rules, just trying to get ahead, or make a profit on their investment, which they want right now. This uninformed short sighted view is killing people, and eroding the middle class of nations. Any country that has a middle class will miss it when it is gone; most countries are trying to build their middle class.

Business to Business (B2B) resource supply chains control wealth. Only the wealthy have a reason to protect privacy of information, because the poor and the very poor have much more immediate concerns. Hopefully the Chinese will learn as other countries like Malaysia did, that including diverse ethnic types is not just a ethical ideal, it is a strategy for long term success.

This lesson continues to be a painful and costly lesson to the US, which in many ways is exclusionary. Viewing the poor as beggars while subsidizing production with huge remedies is one of the inadequacies that may be overturned as international growth is managed at a global level because it can not be justified as anything other than corrupt practices. By all accounts I read, generosity in international relationships is mythical and with the digital age has only grown worse . Does it matter what you wear while you ask for money or how well educated you are? Apparently it does.

One size fits all privacy will never suit everyone because it has a biological basis and the need increases with education, and its cousin, wealth. Increasingly to have the opt out choice in terms of privacy you need wealth. That too will change subtly because as ecommerce becomes pervasive, some system or sets of systems will always knows that someone is there in some detectable way.

The patent and copyright systems can be damaging to others on a global scale by shutting down creativity, and unfairly favoring their protection even against life, due to medical patents for aids, cancer, and other life saving drugs being so expensive to produce or purchase that people are allowed to die as a result. Calls to action for multinational drug companies to reduce these costs, have changed little or nothing in the developing world. This has been featured so well in the headlines and news stories lately that it can hardly be a surprise to anyone that it is a problem – youth know because Digital Rights Management (DRM) is dead.

Ecommerce is a tool and can be used in many ways. Trading is already a cold transaction and to remove it from human context makes it even more so. In accounting they discuss "arms length transactions" - with ecommerce those arms get pretty long.

So we can expect that the human repercussions of global ecommerce, driven by the integration of B2B procurement systems, could stabilize and destabilize entire populations unless the planning is very good. That means everyone must hold the keys in some way, and be open to transparency at some level which runs counter to special interest groups . Transparency in action does exactly what it need to do, but which, for example, is not a match for the existing Chinese culture.

Real transparency in global governance with a goal to meet the basic needs of all people living sounds like a science fiction plot, but that is what makes it exciting. Transparent governance may only become possible due to radically unexpected causes, like education, religious idealism, or a shared social solution of the young through organizations such as http://www.one.org/. Oddly enough one of the religions which may benefit China is Tibetan Buddhism.

Ecommerce will not cause peace in the world, educated people working with strong idealism in transparent cultures will. Still my conclusion remains that China is a likely winner of the information age supply chain through ecommerce. We should invest in China.

Readings:
Making Globalization Work by Joseph E. Stiglitz

The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas Friedman

The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas Friedman

The World Is Flat?: A Critical Analysis of New York Times Bestseller by Thomas Friedman by Ronald Aronica and Mtetwa Ramdoo

Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Introduction to Geeksville

We are nerds. Welcome to the peculiar world of the generalized yet detailed global technologist.

Here we chat with our cohorts - who are coding television-on-demand security in Lisbon, attending class via video working on the open ocean in a research vessel while preparing to win an international martial arts competition in Tokyo, contemplating how to re-engineer a 100+ year old trucking company supply chain and communications system, traveling to Nepal to photograph and document a 1000 year old secret ritual and publish it on the Internet and in academia, establishing new standards for antiquated backwards thinking medical staff because we care.



Where the words 'I want to get off the grid' are more shocking than anything about sex or drugs. Here we have different standards than most people, and when it comes to technology sometimes our expectations of ourselves and the tech - well they are very high.

Here you find us where the belief that technology can help make the world a better place is not just a dream, it is a shared goal.

It is not a gentle ride.

Rant

--Sorry I was speaking in hyper dense terms expecting you have read what I have read etc. we havent exactly studied the same stuff. we don't think in the same way - transparency bias showing like an invisable slip, or a guiding hand that isnt there

it relates through intellectual property and what I am saying is that privacy does not have a one size fits all solution. Some choices are hard-wired and in some ways that will never go away while human beings exist unless you selectively breed it out of them

the joke about internet porn was in relation to a TV ad that is repeated frequently played bevause it catches our attention, I don't really go for internet porn, it doesn't interest me. but it was about how americans are attracted to it and probably many people as it relates to biology as in reproduction and seems to be something hard wired in humans, with social coverings and differing norms and is related to privacy. it is rediculous but there.

The french for example don't want anyone to know what they earn or pay in taxes on their real estate that information they consider private, in america real estate taxes are public information. the french dont mind showing off something that the publically prudish americans swear they have no interest in but are actually facinated by in private (hence the joke about internet porn) such as their breasts on public beaches, just like brazil or italians. (depends on what you look like in the buff for some?)

But in China what you read may not be private. the differences I have seen in China have more to do with gender preferencial treatment than what we would even consider giving up as private (our thoughts freedom of expression etc) People do not chat on the bus or the train in China, because they are afraid of their government. That is fear of their private thoughts being known - illustion of transparency, but for them its real ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_transparency

biologically privacy is shown even among animals, by its very nature humans need some forms of privacy. Since it costs a human mother a certain amount of calories to concieve, bear and raise children, she will want to do that in a private, controlled, SAFE, environment - this means controllling who has access to her, her family and any and all information about them

Why? Because she wants the protection afforded by the many levels of privacy, physical, ecomomic, social, informational etc what ever other kinds, because they related to safety and security. Privacy is a individual and group response to biological needs for safety and security even in communial cultures. The desire for an increase in privacy generally rises with the level of an increase in woman's education which is linked to increases in the stabiltiy of nations. there are also social norms related to physical privacy, just travel to India and you'll see someone washing their private parts in public, china and you can not walk down the street with out your body space being invaded - these are social norms.

as far as China - he who has the key to resources has wealth. Think about B 2 B supply chains and intellectual property is again a form of wealth in the information age. traditional economics holds that (resources) its like diamonds and gold and timber and potato(e thx mr bush)s and pork bellies. But as our world grows flatter and ecomomic competion increases globally knowing information to turn it into things like instant *buy*sell* investments is a form of wealth. Of these forms information about people, our private information which we now consider an opt in privilege for others to have may become more like an opt out privilege to pay others to obtain so we aren't bugged etc. we want to make choices as you said, and that includes about our private information. just like walled villas of the rich and wanna be rich.

Think about Matrix as Neo walks through ads. He never had privacy - that is not going to happen because he will be able to afford to turn it off - he kept it on so he would not appear so wealthy in public which would tend to draw attention to him

think about the issues of choice modeling, a - b testing, cognitive biases,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases and all the biases in choices, the user is king, the more you know about your user the more power you have over them. All that Use case senario user testing marketing profiling stuff is about getting people the user to do what you want them to, in the guise of serving them at some level. user testing is about knowing what is in someone's mind, making tacit information into data/info/knowled/wisdom/=money.

Long term its been about class struggles but in contrast what do inventors and academics care about - not money but what their peers think - it's controllable. why work on designing new aids drugs if you know 3rd world folks will die anyway cause they can't afford the medicinal drugs regardless of emergency agreements?

private information is a form of wealth to seek sales or other goals. privacy issues will not go away even in the far flung future, because there will be differences in personal needs, different laws, coping strategies, biologically driven needs etc

as for a mothers strategy of complete transparency complete openness - it would fail because of the reason stated before - people do want to lean in at the table and learn some juicy gossip, the less spiritually and morally mature want to hate and hurt anyone they percieve as being a HAVE, talent money love what ever.

The children's naked bodies were examined by the police because the neighbours accused the mother of torchering them because the neighbours were just plain jealous of that artistic way of life, openness, joie d vive, etc this society is not ready for glasnost/transparency/openness as long as competition exists we will all search for something to cover whatever we percieve as our nakidness this side of Eden.


Outside the Gates of Eden - by Christopher Wilkinson

"There are no truths outside the gates of Eden. There none inside either. Truths tend to be defined. The domain of no definition is bliss. Bliss is orgasmic reality without center or boundary. On the outside of the gates, this is well conceived as the structure of a mandala. There are male and female aspects. The chip is material, and like the male principle, represents the structure of the mandala. The software -- particularly the OS, is basically female, and represents the intuitive power of consciousness -- the thing that gives it life.
...

Humanity is at constant war, whether it be war for good or war for conquest, or just to prove who is better or worse. The trials that determine who is right and who is wrong are only functional where the binary reality structure has been imposed on experiential truth -- at the level of total intermesh between OS and hardware -- life and earth -- yab and yum -- at this level all binaries are conventionalities at best. ..Information regarding the endlessness and painful condition of Samsara would tend to be depressing, as there is no real hope for consummate orgasmic awareness to override the dualistic binaries that dwell outside the gates of Eden."

Read:The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas Friedman The World Is Flat?: A Critical Analysis of New York Times Bestseller by Thomas Friedman by Ronald Aronica and Mtetwa Ramdoo Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas Friedman Making Globalization Work by Joseph E. Stiglitz

improveverywhere.com

iSchool University of Washington

Technology moves fast, just like information does. One of my own old technical prejudices I didn't notice until I visited Berkeley's iSchool - I asked how they re-wired the fabulous old South Hall, built in 1873. "Re-wire? We didn't need to," they told me, "It's all wireless."

From the Chronicle of Higher Education is an interesting article on the value of graduating: http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=wWwv6kBkcTbYktwbjrJkskjtdhknjqvf

Hmmm that article doesn't appear any more - perhaps it isn't recommended to be so critical of higher education putting people in unending debt to a loan they can never get out of - kind of like the buyout of collapsed financial institutions in progress now in the US.

Pop-tech vs Communication & Contemporary Risk Takers - Consultants

The basis of the individual digital divide is essentially someone who is informed by the desire to change, improve, learn verses people who have the desire to retire or retreat from thinking – the writing that most concerns me is the idea of “pop-tech” (IMs - instant messaging, chat, blogs, games/joysticks, wireless communications such as RFID, smart phones, etc), which I personally find idiotic, because it is such old fashioned thinking. It is part of an older paradigm that does not significantly comprehend communication at its root. Worse yet thinking that any part of communicaton is "pop-tech" is in fact what caused a significant delay at software firms in building technical communication tools based on such significant innovations as email.

When will people get the idea that people are important, not machines?

The idea that email is unimportant held software development firms up for more than ten years, nearly twenty years, in putting the investment and processing power into email that as a tool it deserved. Two years ago more value in seats for first class email tools were sold at software firms than for any other product. This success was much more about customer demand that any planning or extrapolation at “The Factory" as my friends there call one giant software firm, referring to it’s decreasing ability to pivot and change based on end users' needs and wants. But who cares? Such a large company will keep going by the sheer weight of it's existing value and profit and it is not going to fold anytime soon.

However at this late date, it should be easy for anyone in a technical consulting role to recognize that technical culture has revolutionized the very idea of communication. This is evident even in American comedy, which I won’t go into here. Consultants should have been able, even in 2004, to recognize new software tools such as chat, IM, wikis, wireless etc as having intrinsic value if only for technical exploration into new tools, the effort behind development which should be guided by questions, a strong desire to know what really works for people, and not any foggy old fashioned notions of pop-thisness or pop-thatness. Why? Because “popular” means accepted or high enjoyment factors, and that equates one way or another directly to economic benefit – directly this means money. Let’s just say “Popular & technical = money” and that is where one should invest massively.

The key missing idea in the “pop-tech” writings is that technology is its infancy – still is, will be for a long time, certainly throughout my lifetime. Any new thing we create in the technical scheme of things should be considered just that, a baby’s toy, no matter what it is used for now.

Who was it that said that work must be hard, continuously performed the same way, and no fun? It’s almost that pre- and post- Second World War era tainted the national consciousness to believe that we must all be farmers and toil long under the hot sun to add value. The hippies of the 60’s could said to be a reaction to the conformity of the 1950’s bedroom communities, urban fecundity and desire to get ahead in life and make their place in life better for their own children, with little or no consideration of the rest of the world. It’s as if culturally we were sold an ideal, which was reflected and reified by television and the nation’s leadership speaking to this standard of behavior as they themselves as individuals veered far away from it, and the national character completely changed under foot.

What is wrong with America's national character that we don’t believe in leisure time or at least open time without fixed hours if we can enable "always on" communications and work flows?

Exposing information about the way things really are seems to make a difference in terms of information gathering and wisdom, such as the Vietnam television coverage. As a young person I was so very glad the war ended, for many reasons, not the least of which was I did not have to watch bloody dying people on TV as I ate dinner any more. There is no question in my mind that this is why Mr. Bush did not permit live coverage of the Iraq war, because the truth would have barred the dirty, ugly, and banal realities. These realities of the War people of the US are not really prepared to personally accept as part of their access to oil and the things the petrodollar allows them to enjoy in their gas guzzling SVUs and anything made of plastic.

So as my reader you may wonder what does combat and communication have to do with a view of technology? What is this author ranting about – this ranting is about communication. Communication intrinsically bares reality, or one’s perception of it. And that is not only new, and different, but dangerous. Characterizing such technologies as “pop-tech”, writers using this terminology have distinguished themselves little between their document and a page on which is written “this page left intentionally blank.” All they demonstrate is that they have little or no understanding of the bigger picture.

Technical tools that allow distant persons to communicate without any moderation in between is radically new in this world, and I argue it is not only good for commerce but for the effects of peace. But for now, just consider the effects of a single ‘pop-tech’ toy, the joystick, on the effective training of the military in virtual environments such as aircraft, etc, the value add of the joystick is already well understood. Where does the joystick come from in technology? Joysticks come from aircraft to games and back around again through technology fitting it better to the educational and use need through virtual realities. Games are pop-tech, well, aren’t they? No, maybe not.

On the other hand, Outsell writers in another piece seem to understand a different basic change in how people consider their work – with the cleverly reasoned writing entitled ‘Dude, What Happened to My Company? The Changing Nature of Work” in the Characteristics of Old and New Enterprises, in terms of Old and New roles for real people. Some of those characteristics in new are effectively how I live – Decentralized, virtual, “flat” mobile, instead of Centralized, hierarchical, static – free agents verses ‘careers’, now this is useful information, and also radically true.

But even companies which are fairly far ahead in their use of technology can be said to have set their slider bar back into the past as far as their commitment to encouraging their current employees to step over the line into those new flexible working characteristics. In fact it is almost as if each new person they add as a full timer causes someone or some conservative mechanisms at “The Factory" to go, “Whoa, better lock this cog in the machine down, and force them to follow the tried and true working patterns of the past.”

I can only hope the sentiment and advice I have received regarding the importance and value of human capital, and its relationship to product planning, management and maintenance of systems can be communicated effectively up and down the chain at the Factory. Could my next step be to begin writing proposals for floater groups to compete within The Factory with those cogs outside tThe Factory that supply bodies at a premium?

It costs larger companies approximately 60K each year to find people like me – after a long time working for the same firm is it worth it? Don’t these companies know and trust their consultants already? Couldn’t they just pay us to find our own jobs within the company and add more value, by far, than what we cost? Pay me a retainer of an additional $59K to find my own job every year and save a thousand dollars. Have me dream up and build new products. There have to be legions of people in my same situation that form a valuable vendor class that larger firms loose money on rediscovering every year – people they should employ, and help them discover and structure their work at these same firms instead of leaving it to others outside of the larger company.

To me this adds up to mean that someone at the Factory’s management does not understand the value of communication, or the reality of ubiquitous computing power, any more than the “pop-tech” writers did about technology in general. Maybe it is hard to understand. Maybe you have to be steeped in communication technology and willing to take chances in the ways that only free-lance consultants ever will.

In the news, have you tried Paypal's moble pay system? Sweet! The setup alone is slick slick slick - it is so SJP - Sweet Japanese Princess - my cohorts term for cutting edge usefulness and fun! SJP refers to the Western marketplace's interest in how Japanese schoolgirls are using technical advancements. http://www.paypal.com

Introduction to Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery

From this week’s reading I learned three new things and added a fourth from the class discussions.

1. Data and information is fluid to information managers in the same way that steel is a liquid to a steel worker.

Imagine a person holding a piece of data between their hands like someone might hold a basketball – but this blob of information is superflexible, and changes completely in shape or dimension while it is moved around -- because it is data it may be viewed from any position or shape changed as affected by a model or compared to other data.

2. Data has three basic states:
• Stored
• Processed
• Communicated

The original data should not be written back to its original source, so information once it has been altered, if it is going to be kept, and not just the results, needs to be reposited someplace other than the original source location. Storage is expensive.

3. Managing data and transforming it into information or actionable knowledge means moving the data, by applying different dimensions and techniques.

Storing data is expensive. Generally unless it is a secret, and retains value by being secret, like CIA intelligence, or a corporate secret like the Coca Cola recipe stored data is not useful.

Data in motion, that is data being viewed, or altered, or accessed is commercially valuable and can produce value and revenue.

The The Two Crows Corporation article "Introduction to Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery" was particularly engaging to me beginning with its definition –

"Data mining is a process that uses a variety of data analyst tools to discover patterns and relationships in data that may be used to make valid predictions."

Wow, sounds like software can do something spooky – as in supernatural – and that special talent is to "predict the future." But this is in fact what software can do – and it requires three things to do this –

+ data from a source
+ ability to munge data to information
+ a place to store either the data or just the results, but the data to be effective must affect some thing else.

All this means is that either you move and store, or you move and munge and never permanently store results. Data is currently stored, or moving, processing or mungeing, which includes modifying other data. ( see: http://www.twocrows.com/booklet.htm )

From this appears that the removal of one of these nodes might serve to improve speed – such as the uploading into memory, and logically this means that computers which never turn off and continuously churn data in some way, such as very refined "data supermarts" would be most efficient.

The illustrations provided in these articles were very helpful in visualizing and made the understanding of these models and concepts easy. Reflecting on this made me think about what a visual model for the entire process of Data Engineering into Actionable Information. What I envisioned but haven't had time to draw is a person holding a glob or blob of data between their hands like someone might hold a basketball – but this is superflexible, and changes completely in shapes while it is moved around -- because it is data it may be viewed from any position or shape changed as affected by a model or compared to other data.

Reviewing data to detect empirical patterns and so forth makes sense – but this section was particularly interesting:

"New techniques include relatively recent algorithms like neural nets and decision trees, and new approach to older algorithms such a discriminating analysis. But virtue of bringing to beat the increased computer power on the huge volumes of available data, these techniques can approximate almost any functional form or interaction on their own. Traditional statistical technologies rely on the modeler to specify the functional form and interactions."

"Data mining is a tool for increasing the productivity of people trying to build predictive models."

If this isn't the most interesting thing a futurist, a scientist, a medical researcher, or a sales team, can hear and understand about computer science and data modeling I don't know what would be. Predictive models in and of themselves are recursively fascinating. This may lead us to the question of what does that take?

"While the power of the individual CPU has greatly increased, the real advanced in scalability stem from parallel computer architectures. Virtually all servers today supposed multiple CPUs using symmetric multi-processing, and clusters of the SMP server can be created that allow hundred of CPUs to work on finding patterns in the data."

Yes, that is more exciting news, this is the same way that linked computers in off times are used to search as a massive array for unexplained patterns in space's background noise hoping to hear a signal. They are looking for alien life. Clearly such a method is helped by all that linked volunteer processing power. But that's the lesson, if you really want to find something out, it's possible, and lots of businesses and individual people use these techniques in all kinds of application because it's cheap enough.

"Visualization works because it exploits the broader information bandwidth of graphics as opposed to text or numbers. It allows people to see the forest and zoom in on the trees. Patterns, relationships, exceptional values and mission values are often easer to perceive when show graphically, rather that as list of numbers and text."

Another exciting wow when it comes to how to work with data to information to predictive modeling – how to represent it and what the most impressive thing about this is – the same as geniuses such as Da Vinci – he had the ability to visualize complex information visually, as did Faraday, and Einstein – they used visual models to create predictive models of behavior in the world. What this is telling us is that anyone with proper understanding and access to the tools can munge data so that it represents data in the same way that our greatest minds naturally accomplished.1

One of the interesting ideas which came from reading the information on link analysis, from mention of the two kinds of inquiry commonly used "association discovery" and "sequence discovery" (with the factors of support, relative frequency, confidence, association) is the idea that a database that links to an additional database besides association and sequence, over time might arrive at many expected detections in patterns of data – if for example the data base was the "Life Database of Patterns of Obvious Qualities". Such a database would contain many thousands of facts such as 'dead people do not buy anything', and corollaries such as, 'so there is no point in sending advertising to their residence.'

Such a mammoth database would be a unique scientific challenge to create, maintain and link to, of particular interest to me, is how much of the data collected would be true and how much be useful? We can not always tell how solving a problem may serve to inform something else, such as the discussion on Microsoft's edge checking algorithm, email scanning software in use to weed out spam from Microsoft email servers – as it turned out this edging method was used to sort through DNA in the successful search for a vaccine for AIDs going into clinical trials.2

Also of interest was the categorical explosion in data, as well as the concepts around pruning tree structures. I found myself wondering what would happen if processing power and storage capability exceeded our ability to create new data? What would happen if every tree was allowed to grow permanently and one branch contained no splits as part of the earlier described Obvious Qualities database? In a way this is similar to the rapid irregular growth of a smart internet, combined with such simple tools as cookies, and the analysis of purchasing behavior - what will that data come to predict if applied to a large model. What can be predicted will be of interest for a long time to come.

Even the acronyms at this level sound spacey – MARS – the Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines. This is a much more interesting field than I was prepared to encounter, and in summation, I come away quite curious at how far our creative intelligence and need and desire to know will be able to drive the technology to the computational limit, and over into helping humanity on a mass level.

1. West T, "In the Mind's Eye: Visual Thinkers, Gifted People With Dyslexia and Other Learning Difficulties, Computer Images and the Ironies of Creativity". Prometheus Books; Upd Sub edition (September 1997)

2.The application description from Phil Fawcett, Microsoft Research Liaison PM, in person presentation on "optimized applications" http://research.microsoft.com/ivm/HDView/HDGigapixel.htm, University of Washington, Seattle, April 17, 2007.

Week 5: Modalities of Information Delivery
Data Mining

The Two Crows Corporation, "Introduction to Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, Third Edition" 1999. Accessed on 2/25/2006 from http://www.twocrows.com/intro-dm.pdf.

Witten, I.H. and Frank, E. (2000). "What's It All About?" In Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques with Java Implementations. (Chap. 1). San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann. pp. 1-35. (Focus on Sections 1.5 and 1.6)

Editorial Review & Delivery

McGovern, G. & Norton, R. (2002). "Editing Content." In Content Critical: Gaining Competitive Advantage through High-Quality Web Content. (Chap. 6). Pearson Education Limited. pp. 109-122.

IT Help Desk

Clarke, S. and Greaves, A. (2002). "IT Help Desk Implementation: The Case of an International Airline." In Annals of Cases on Information Technology, 4, pp. 241-259.

Walko, D. 1999. "Implementing a 24-Hour Help Desk at the University of Pittsburgh ." In Proceedings of the 27th Annual ACM SIGUCCS Conference on User Services: Mile High Expectations ( Denver, Colorado, United States). SIGUCCS '99. ACM Press, New York, NY, pp. 202-207.

Duhart, T., Monaghan, P., and Aldrich, T. 1999. "Creating the Customer Service Team: An Ongoing Process." In Proceedings of the 27th Annual ACM SIGUCCS Conference on User Services: Mile High Expectations ( Denver, Colorado, United States). SIGUCCS '99. ACM Press, New York, NY, 51-55. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/337043.337090.

Padeletti, A., Coltrane, B., and Kline, R. 2005. "Customer service: help for the help desk." In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM SIGUCCS Conference on User Services ( Monterey, CA, USA, November 06 - 09, 2005). SIGUCCS '05. ACM Press, New York, NY, 299-304. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1099435.1099504.

Understanding Business Intelligence

“Even though we live in the Information age, where ever increasing masses of data are at our disposal, we often struggle to understand what the data means.”

Describing Business Intelligence’s goals are three main items -
• “Making better decisions faster
• Converting data into information
• Using a rational approach to management
Making better decisions means improving any or all parts of the process; this also results in fewer poor decisions and more superior ones.”

It also seeks to analyze actions “resulting in progress towards company objectives.” Business who move too slowly “will lose out to their quicker rivals. There is a need to make not only better decisions but also better decisions faster.” In addition the “negative consequences of no information or old information can be huge” such as loosing customers or continuing to produce a product that no one wants.

Converting data into information” is a component of BI, the gap between large amounts of data and actual useful information is termed “the analysis gap.” Raw data which may be measured in gigabytes, terabytes and so forth needs to be processed to deliver information in “ relevant subsets instantly” in a form which people can relate to – “some call this ‘analysis at the speed of thought”.

Technology may be considered “a baseline definition of Business Intelligence, but this is “too narrow of a view” according to one author (Vitt, E., Luckevich, M. & Misner, S. (2002). “Understanding Business Intelligence.” In Business Intelligence. (Chap. 1). Microsoft Press. pp. 13-27.)“Often the hardest aspect of business intelligence is useful and relevant to a decision, such metrics are termed “key performance indicators (KPIs)… With advancements in e-commerce, business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactional systems, business intelligence is increasingly about delivering actionable information to people outside the organization – often as a revenue source.”

A rational approach to management can be characterized as:
• Seeking “measurable quantitative facts”,
• “organized methods and technologies to analyze the facts”,
• “inventing and sharing models that explain cause and relationships”,
• “experimenting with alternative approaches”,
• “understanding that people are not always rational”, and
• “running the business based on these characteristics.”

To me in all of the reading which explains the Business Intelligence model, this is the most key information being introduced. We can become educated on these business intelligence practices; we have known people who have astounding qualities and facilities of analysis and the ability to extrapolate beyond the data to its implications. But the key issue remains that we are people dealing with people’s needs, desires and wants. Both in business and in business analysis we need to remember what we are dealing with and for whom – so the closer we can get to allowing people to cleverly munge their own data, the closer we really come to real Business Intelligence, because the business of business is people.

Defining the BI cycle is “more than a attitude or enabling technology; in fact, it is a performance management frameworks, an ongoing cycle by which companies set their goals, analyze their process, gain insight, take action, measure their success,” and iterate. We call this progression – the BI cycle.”

Analysis is a filtering based on “our basic understandings and assumptions of how our business operates”, and as such can be referred to as a “mental model” or “tribal wisdom” and it can be a vision of what the business views as their goals.

Business Intelligence “systems that support freestyle analysis can help … break through the limits of … current mental models and even conceptualize new ones.” Step one of the BI cycle is to ask and answer many questions rapidly both the conventional and the unconventional. That is what real analysis is – the freedom to be curious and ask lots of really stupid questions until you ask a brilliant one.” Unfortunately in the real world not many business process analysts have a quality education, or a spontaneous or creative mind, so in the past in my own experience I have witnessed companies being lead down a garden path where there was no garden, and then cornered -- left without choices they made the only one presented, a bad one, which resulted in failure for both companies. Spontaneous reasoning, creative insight, and modeling using the open techniques described here could have resulted in more insightful investigations.

Even brainstorming has its uses in visualizing various aspects of business process analysis. “An insight is not always accepted because it is brilliant or even correct.” This being true what are the things that drive change into businesses and business modeling? – it appears to be time and success and failure. Sometimes stunning failure can be the only way for members of a company or unit to understand the results of their poor practices and decision making practices or lack thereof.

This brings us right to measurement – “key performance indicators” are fancy words for how you know you are right. Measurement is what keeps the iterative practices pointed in the right directions.

Moore’s Law corollary is that the computing power of microprocessors doubles ever 18 months but prices remain constant. For BI this means massive calculation power is increasing, and with the increase comes the ability to visual data in new and exciting ways. “The greater the quantity of data, the more certain the analysis and conclusion are correct.” This statement is humbled by two others,
1. Dirty data (quality of data), and so …
2. Asking the right questions.

By entering the “era of Information Democracy” we can hope that the privately funded research which may not have reached the right audiences does come out from behind the iron curtain of the Information Cold War, where companies zealous guard their research so that they make the profits they deserve based on their hard work – which unfortunately may mean that more friends like my friend Laura, who died of cancer two days ago in Fairbanks, Alaska will continue to die.

I am not suggesting that if "Sir Isaac Newton had observed more apples falling, he would have developed his laws of gravity sooner” because not many people were immediately and directly affected by his scientific statement of them, but in our case the potential good for data sharing of certain types is beginning to outweigh the relatively minor issue of money.

Even small businesses may soon not be able to navigate by dead reckoning any more if they could more easily afford some kind of Business Intelligence. Larger companies can afford more encouragement of “experimenting and tolerating good try failures” than smaller firms can.

To conclude, business intelligence is logical, communication, and analysis done in a timely manner to promote and provide for business needs, in a clear, rational and open way, using whatever tools are available to the practitioners, even if they are manual. There are many things that we are “dying to know” and I hope those needs will be met for ethical reasons if for no others.

Business Intelligence

Vitt, E., Luckevich, M. & Misner, S. (2002). “Understanding Business Intelligence.” In Business Intelligence. (Chap. 1). Microsoft Press. pp. 13-27.
Vitt, E., Luckevich, M. & Misner, S. (2002). ”Defining BI Technologies.” In Business Intelligence. (Chap. 3). Microsoft Press. pp. 49-63.
Vitt, E., Luckevich, M. & Misner, S. (2002). “Implementing a BI Solution.” In Business Intelligence. (Chap. 10). Microsoft Press. pp. 145-177.
Whiting, Rich, “Search and Business Intelligence: Complementary Tools,” Information Week, March 6. 2006. Accessed on 3/14/2006 from http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=181500684
Information Lifecycle

Goodwin, Phil. "Information Life-Cycle Management and Enterprise Content Management: The Confluence of Technology and Business." (2-18-2004) Accessed on 3/24/2006 from http://www.documentum.ru/pdf/analytics/reviews_meta_ILM_ECM.pdf.
Information Assessment

Outsell, Inc. “Information Management Best Practices: 2006 Product Satisfaction Scorecard – A Tool For Making Portfolio Choices,” InfoAboutInfo Briefing,Volume 9, February 10, 2006.
Knowledge Creation, Capture and Collections

Davenport , Thomas H., Thomas, Robert J. and Desouza, Kevin C., “Reusing Intellectual Assets,” Industrial Management, 4 (3), 2003, pp. 12-17.
Desouza, Kevin C., and Awazu, Yukika, “Maintaining Knowledge Management Systems: A Strategic Imperative,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 56 (7), 2005, pp. 765-768.
Supplemental Readings

Business Intelligence

Vitt, E., Luckevich, M. & Misner, S. (2002). “Identifying BI Opportunities.” In Business Intelligence. (Chap. 9). Microsoft Press. pp. 113-143.
Whiting, Rich, “BI Spending to Increase,” Information Week, March 6. 2006. Accessed on 3/14/2006 from http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=181500685.
Information Lifecycle

Horton, F. Woody. "Government Information Life Cycle Management: The Mission, the Needs, the Operational Requirements, the Roles." (10-13-2002) Accessed on 3/24/2006 from http://www.nclis.gov/govt/assess/assess.appen16.pdf.
Knowledge Creation, Capture and Collections

Awazu, Yukika and Desouza, Kevin C., “Open Knowledge Management: Lessons from the Open Source Revolution,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 55(11), 2004, pp. 1016-1019.

Reflection Paper Week 4:
Information Sources, Quality & Presentation

For Lee Dirks
520b
University of Washington iSchool
April 18, 2007

Liz Vitt (Intellimentum) spoke to the class on April 20, 2007. How do you know the data you are recieving is even reliable - data integrity.

Key term from Phil Fawcett (Microsoft) on "optimized applications" http://research.microsoft.com/ivm/HDView/HDGigapixel.htm

TechnologyVentres - from Idea to Enterprise
Richard C. Dorf
Thomas H. Byers

UW Architectural Commission Meeting - April 2007

As a member of the UW Architectural Commission -- today April 16th 2007, I listened to presentations by 8 architecture firms from early to eve, with our 10-15 person Commission (I'm the student rep, but I am a voting member). There must have been 60-85 architects, engineers, architectural PMs, and architecture support staff, and so forth. They appeared and left in waves.

It was very exciting - the UW master plan calls for the renovation of -

* The Hub (we already approved the team last meeting) AKA the Student Union Center
* Clark Hall (already under renovation)
* Lewis Hall
* Denny Hall (the oldest building, Lewis and Clark are the other oldest buildings)
* Savery Hall
* a new mammoth UW School of Business building with a curved roof, long and L shaped like twin boats.
* a new set of south hospital buildings - ( sections are already old, and part will need to be redone soon - it's an amazing maze of linked and interconnected structures) - just the preplanning generally survey.
* and the south shore development of the UW campus down near the fish pond and half basketball court, old fisheries and oceanography buildings.

So we saw the folks from Denny, Lewis, Business Building, South Hospital (beds and service entrances) and south shore (which I call recreational).

I love working with these folks - they are so formal (Roberts Rules of Order) I need to reign myself in, but it is fun! Who doesn't like to spend other people's money? Especially when it's your job?

The last set of architects presenting I felt could have the most influence and discussion with in preplanning. Since the site was something I am particularly fond of -- I advised them to go to the south UW campus (it's the most romantic best kept secret in Seattle) waterfront park and play some basketball, and walk the paths. They just CANT build more giant structures along that coast it is much too valuable. Like the cutest of puppies it begs for recreational use.


I was also able to quickly bring forth my ideas for some variation in the coastline, more use of water. I mentioned it there for the south campus and in downtown Seattle along where those horrible old docks are - they should dig out the old fill from where they dumped the Denny regrade soil and return that area to the water that it used to be. It would be so great to have instead of dock, spits of land coming out, with walkways, restaurants, shopping, educational parks, museums and more - it would be a huge draw to our city if we made over that area.

The younger architect I was talking with could see the vision and the idea of negative spaces, and the shoreline and water ideas - he got fabulously excited about them too. We also discussed round spaces with buildings that reflect the shape, and including underwater buildings and a kind of - like a Seattle Venice (moats and gondolas ? ) with waterways and land where the docks are now. We were sort of jumping up and down and dancing with these ideas by the day's end.

We approved the overall design for the school of business' center and I commented to Mark Emmert, President of the University, that it will naturally attract money to the university because of it's central placement. An architect added - yes, it's close to the attorneys har har har.


I made several positive comments about the loveliness and flows of the designs. There was a bunch of creative and design energy and it was just a joy. My eyes must have been like saucers!

Unerringly we caught design ambiguities, or where the architectural planners sort of didn't mention what the outstanding issues were - like the wheelchair access placement is still an issue with the Business Building, but they are on top of that. Or that security is a serious concern, the loading docks are all at the same place on the South Medical Center and they just want to add more. How is that wise? How about making an alternative tunnel to support the medical center separately from the regular traffic. Keep the floor heights the same once you determine them so it's easier to link future building. What the heck is going on with those elevators?

I got to vote on the architects for Denny and Lewis, and vote on approving the design for the business center! How cool is that? Of course I shot photos - they were grateful I had my live wireless MacWin box with me so we could keep up with the news...

Architecture seems to be one place where age is an advantage... Really great experience, learned a lot, esp. about presentation and enthusiasm. Great people the UW architectural commission - love 'em. The local and regional architects who made presentations were wonderful.

I believe the state is going to receive the best use of the money with the best results from such a sensitive and concerned, educated and historically interested group as the present architecture commission and from the architects they both select and advise to perform the design, and accomplish the work.

I love this quote from UW President, Mark Emmert, being "elitist is not in our DNA".

Here's the link to the UW Architectural Commission's page:
http://www.washington.edu/faculty/facsenate/handbook/01-03-04.html


More info:
ARCHITECTURAL COMMISSION STUDENT MEMBER:

GPSS Representative: Linda Lane
Committee Type: University
Chair: Daniel Friedman
Chair's Title: Professor and Dean, College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Meeting Frequency:
Description: The Architectural Commission Student Member is charged with the responsibility of reviewing significant matters relative to planning and architectural design of campus. It reviews and recommends general and specific planning and design policies, campus plans and the selection of building sites
Website Address:
http://www.washington.edu/faculty/facsenate/handbook/01-03-04.html

All photos used in this article are by Linda Lane.

- AGENDA -
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
ARCHITECTURAL COMMISSION MEETING
April 16, 2007
Location: UW (Faculty) Club Conference Room

REVISED AGENDA (rev 4/11/07)

7:50am Call to Order Friedman
Approval of Agenda
Approval of Minutes
Campus Landscape Advisory Committee Report (written) Cole

8:00am Savery Hall Renovation, Design Development Review & Approval
Project Manager/Presenter: Brian Berard
Architect: SRG Partnership

8:25am Denny Hall Renovation, Architect Interviews
Project Manager/Presenter: Randy Everett

8:30am Interview Firm #1, Bassetti Architects
9:30am Interview Firm #2, Mahlum Architects
10:30am Interview Firm #3, Thomas Hacker Architects
11:30am Break
11:35pm Lunch
Denny Hall Renovation Discussion and Recommendation
12:25pm Lewis Hall Renovation, Architect Interviews
Project Manager/Presenter: Randy Everett
12:30pm Interview Firm #1, Mahlum Architects
1:30pm Interview Firm #2, Mithun
2:30pm Interview Firm #3, Snyder Hartung Kane & Strauss
3:30pm Break
3:35pm Lewis Hall Discussion and Recommendation
4:15pm Break
4:30pm New Business School, Phase 1 and 2, Schematic Design Review & Approval
Project Manager/Presenter: Steve Tatge
Architect: LMN Architects
5:15pm UW Medical Center Expansion, Pre-Design Review and
Review and Approval of the South Campus Planning Study
Project Manager/Presenter: Will Smith
Architect: Anshen & Allen
6:00pm Adjourn

** Please arrive and be ready for your project presentation 30 minutes prior to your scheduled time. **
Next meeting – June 4, 2007, UW Club


ARCHITECTURAL COMMISSION regarding UW Medical Center Expansion
April 16, 2007

PROJECT SUMMARY: UW Medical Center Expansion
PROJECT NUMBER: 201385
PROJECT MANAGER: Will Smith
ARCHITECT : Anshen + Allen Architects, San Francisco
ACTION REQUIRED: Approval of Pre-Design and
Review of the South Campus Planning Study

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Design and construct a new building addition directly south and contiguous with the Medical Center’s Mullenberg and Pacific Towers. This addition will support the goal of delivering world class care and educational space in a technically advanced and patient-centered healing environment for the Medical Center’s high acuity inpatient population. The expansion will be in two phases. Phase One (this project) is a four-story approximately 127,700 gross square foot building with a mechanical basement level and roof top penthouse configured to accommodate a future Phase Two vertical addition. Phase Two will add three levels and approximately 95,100 gross square feet to Phase One. Together, these two phases will provide up to the total maximum allowed 226,000 gross square feet approved by the minor plan change to the University’s Master Plan to address the majority of the need identified in the 2005 Comprehensive Facility Planning Study of 260,000 gross square feet for year 2015. An additional 350,000 gross square feet is forecast as need in 2025.

Level 1 accommodates Columbia Road, mechanical/electrical space, loading dock operations and future support space shelled for the Medical Center’s materials management and food services departments. Level 2 provides expansion space for Diagnostic Imaging and shell space to expand Surgery in the future. Level 3 houses a 32-34 bed Acute Care Nursing Unit, and Level 4 will house a 50 bed Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Future levels will house additional Acute Care Nursing Units.

A detailed Functional, Technical and Site program for Phase One has been developed as part of the Pre-design effort and a test-fit blocking/massing study with a project cost estimate has been completed. The Campus Landscape Advisory Committee reviewed and approved the Site Program in September 2007.

* Project Budget: $ 155 M
* Estimated Construction Cost: $ 116 M
* Estimated Construction Start: October 2008
* Estimated Project Occupancy: April –May 2011

DESIGN RELATED ISSUES:

Design and medical planning excellence are both critical for this project, given; a) the highly visible location of the project site; b) the project’s influence on the surrounding campus environment and existing southern views from within the Medical Center; c) the project’s organizational context as part of the Medical Center for patient wayfinding and patient care movements and; c) the importance and highly technical nature of the state-of-the-art medical functions and services within the building. The project will embrace sustainable design and green building principles so that this expertise is also very important

PREVIOUS ARCHITECTURAL COMMISSION ACTION:
May 2007 – Architect Selection


ARCHITECTURAL COMMISSION - New Business School Building
April 16, 2007
PROJECT SUMMARY: New Business School Building Phase 1
PROJECT NUMBER: 3673 Predesign; 201837 Phase 1 Building
PROJECT MANAGER: Steve Tatge
ARCHITECT: LMN Architects

ACTION REQUIRED: Schematic Design Approval

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The University of Washington Business School intends to place itself among the top-ranked business schools in the nation. The physical facilities of the Business School require significant upgrading and expansion to house desired program offerings. The Business School intends to supplement its currently assigned space in MacKenzie Hall, Lewis Hall, Bank of America Executive Education Center and Balmer Hall with a new facility funded primarily through development efforts. This new facility will join with a replacement for Balmer Hall, the existing MacKenzie Hall, and the existing BEEC to form a new unified Business School complex. MacKenzie Hall and the BEEC will not be modified under the current approach.

The major academic goals for this new facility include:
* Physically consolidate all Business School programs to the greatest degree possible.
* Provide large, flexible classrooms optimally configured for multiple teaching styles.
* Provide formal and informal interaction spaces that promote synergy and collegial interaction among faculty and students.
* Provide significant technological resources and access.
* Provide student support spaces.


LMN Architects developed the Business School’s original conceptual program in September 2001 and refined it further in a 2002-2003 Predesign. The 2006 Predesign Study identified approximately 123,000 gross square feet in the Phase 1 building and 61,000 gross square feet in the Phase 2 replacement of Balmer Hall. Program elements include undergraduate and graduate classrooms, faculty and staff offices, an auditorium, public commons space, and support spaces. Both phases will be designed to achieve LEED Silver certification or better.

* Project Budget (Total)/ Phase 1 Maximum of $80,000,000 (2009 dollars)
* Estimated Construction Start/ Phase 1 September 2008; Occupancy September 2010

DESIGN-RELATED ISSUES:

* Building massing, organization, and architectural expression
* Interior public spaces
* Relationship to nearby campus buildings, trees, circulation, and open spaces
* Approach to meeting both the design goals and the construction budget
* Implications for design of Phase 2 building

PREVIOUS ARCHITECTURAL COMMISSION ACTION:

Site approval March 2003; AOR approval June 2002; Predesign Study briefing May 2006; Predesign Study approval September 2006; Early Schematic Design guidance December 2006


ARCHITECTURAL COMMISSION -Denny Hall Renovation

April 16, 2007
PROJECT SUMMARY Denny Hall Renovation
PROJECT NUMBER 202039
PROJECT MANAGER Randy Everett
ARCHITECT To be selected

ACTION REQUIRED Architect Recommendation

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Denny Hall was constructed in 1895 as the original University administration building. The last major structural and interior renovation of this building was in 1956, the exterior masonry was restored in 1990 and the slate roof was restored in 2005. The facility is approximately 89,745 gross square foot in area. Denny currently houses the College of Arts and Sciences’ Departments of Anthropology, Classics, Germanics, and Near Eastern Languages & Civilization with approximately 23,000 square feet of departmental offices and over 11,000 square feet of specialized classrooms and labs, including the College’s Language Learning Center. There are also approximately 12,000 square feet of general assignment classrooms totaling 765 seats in Denny Hall.

The purpose of this project is to completely correct the facilities deficiencies including those related to instructional, fire and life safety, seismic upgrades and accessibility. The project must achieve LEED silver certification per State mandate.

Funding approval is pending by the State Legislature for the design phases.

* Project Budget: $56,900,000
* MACC primary: $27,000,000
* Pre-design: July to December 2007
* Design phases: April 2008 to November 2009
* Construction December 2009 to September 2011
* Occupancy November 2011

BACKGROUND

Seven firms/teams submitted qualifications in response to the RFQ. Of these, three have been selected to be interviewed: Bassetti Architects, Mahlum Architects, and Thomas Hacker Architects.

DESIGN RELATED ISSUES

The evaluation team short listed the consultants based upon:

* Successful experience with higher education facilities.
* Experience in design and renovation of existing buildings.
* Proven ability to work within project budgets and schedules and for public institutions.
* Staffing plan and LEED certification experience.


ARCHITECTURAL COMMISSION - Lewis Hall Renovation

April 16, 2007
PROJECT SUMMARY Lewis Hall Renovation
PROJECT NUMBER 202040
PROJECT MANAGER Randy Everett
ARCHITECT To be selected
ACTION REQUIRED Architect Recommendation
PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Lewis Hall, constructed in 1896 as the men’s dormitory, was later used as a women’s dormitory. This historic structure has never undergone major renovation. The 23,220 gross square feet building currently houses offices and program space for the Business School’s Dean of Business Administration, the Department of Accounting, and Educational Outreach program including nearly 13,000 square feet of offices and approximately 1,000 square feet of study and special use spaces. There are no general assignment classrooms in this building.

The purpose of this project is to completely correct the facilities deficiencies including those related to instructional, fire and life safety, seismic upgrades and accessibility. The project must achieve LEED silver certification per State mandate.

Funding approval is pending by the State Legislature for the design phases.

* Project Budget: $18,500,000
* MACC primary: $7,900,000
* Pre-design: July to December 2007
* Design phases: April 2008 to August 2009
* Construction September 2009 to July 2011
* Occupancy September 2011

BACKGROUND

Fifteen firms/teams submitted qualifications in response to the RFQ. Of these, three have been selected to be interviewed: Mahlum Architects, Mithun, and Snyder, Hartung, Kane Strauss Architects.

DESIGN RELATED ISSUES
The evaluation team short listed the consultants based upon:

* Successful experience with higher education facilities.
* Experience in design and renovation of existing buildings.
* Proven ability to work within project budgets and schedules and for public institutions.
* Staffing plan and LEED certification experience.

ARCHITECTURAL COMMISSION - Savery Hall Renovation
December 4, 2006
PROJECT SUMMARY: Savery Hall Renovation
PROJECT NUMBER: 200911
PROJECT MANAGER: Brian Berard
ARCHITECT: SRG Partnership
ACTION REQUIRED: Design Development Final

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Constructed in 1917 and 1920 in the Collegiate Gothic style, Savery Hall is one of four buildings on the Seattle campus’ liberal arts quadrangle. At 102,105 GSF building is a major instructional building with 25% of its area dedicated to general purpose classrooms and a 200-seat auditorium. The Departments of Economics, Philosophy, and Sociology occupy the building. Savery also houses the Center of Social Science Computation & Research, a computer center supporting all of the social sciences. Usage is anticipated to remain the same.

Over the years a range of isolated remodels and other improvements have been made; however, a major renovation has never occurred. The purpose of this project is to completely restore and preserve the core facility while making current fire and life safety provisions, seismic upgrades, accessibility accommodations, and other improvements to enhance instruction.

The GCCM procurement method is planned. Condon Hall will serve as the surge space.

Design funding has been appropriated by the State Legislature. Construction funding needs to be allocated by the state in early 2007.

* Project Budget: $61,510,000
* Estimated MACC: $30,000,000
* Estimated Construction Start: Fall 2007
* Estimated Project Occupancy: Fall 2009

DESIGN RELATED CONSIDERATIONS:

* Finalized Design Development package includes re-design of interior spaces from the SD approval that contain reductions in the gross SF necessary to meet the budget.
* Redesign floor plate and interior spaces.
* Reduced and eliminated mezzanine floor space. Re-used existing fourth floor attic for occupied space.
* Reduced ADA Access to two locations.
* Exterior proportions of lowered modified entry locations on Spokane Lane (SW) and Chelan Lane (W).
* Continued development of the natural ventilation and mix mode ventilation systems.
* Developed open common areas for teaching assistance office and meeting areas. Eliminated closed TA offices.
* Relocated mechanical chiller systems to a roof well area from prior SD exterior at grade location for sound and visual considerations.

PREVIOUS ARCHITECTURAL COMMISSION ACTION: Design Development – in progress review

World Systems of Data: The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

As humans continually process behind the filters of the mind, in a time delayed way this becomes our mind map. Through extrapolation we will always have a data or information excess - just as we carve away at our brain pathways and build ourselves as children. (West, in the Mind's Eye)

We expect to do this with data -- it is inevitable that we will always tend to produce more data than we can handle unless there are some mighty leaps in technology and they will be overwhelmed again as soon as deployed -- like Washington State's Highway 90 was.

"It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds"
- Death Cab for Cutie

If not immediate in the moment, the mindstream is like a continuous movie of processed interpreted experience. For a sense of this applied over time take for example "Cutters" the person who is the subject of their own continuously filmed movie does not have time to watch the entire thing replayed.

L. Flordi mentions that the data collection from the new Large Hadron Collider at CERN will produce 10 petabytes annually. Google's whole storage system is 5 petabytes.

This author is saying that automated agents will shape thinking about being what existence is, ontology that is, because they will help try to produce a frictionless infosphere arising from the cause of intological friction - in this case meaning the flow of information, where when why how what and why not and what not etc.

I think a lot about this sort of thing. How restrictions can backfire and create new republics of alternative thinking, little subworlds, with all their own laws and rules. Then these worlds pick up the cool factor like Jim Morrison and they take over the paradigm which is exactly what Morrison did with his songs and poetry.

As far as our inability to keep abreast of our information processing and management needs, not even wants, remember Blake advised, "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." We may only learn to collect what we need when we have overextended our storage and retrieval capacity so that it becomes a burden.

The first level of human computer interaction is likely to be close to our person -- the near digitalmindskin will rule the level of datamonitoring almost as fluidly as the function of bare perception. In fact it may appear as a scene. (Digital Mind Scene)

In the catagory of it was not just a force of pretechnological cultures... It should be widely accepted that for some of us the world has never ceased to be a teleological system. See living system ESP research at the University of Cambridge: www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/psi/delanoy/node5.html

References:
In the Mind's Eye: Visual Thinkers, Gifted People With Dyslexia and Other Learning Difficulties, Computer Images and the Ironies of Creativity by Thomas G. West (Author)

Flordi, L., "A look into the future impact of Information and Comunication technlogies (ICT) on our lives", The Information Society. 2007, 23.1, 59-64.

Art:
Philip Sugden
15. The Enigmatic Universe at Sakya Monastery #4
http://www.asianart.com/exhibitions/psugden/19.html

Linda Lane
Palace of the Water Garden
http://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/PD--11666468/SP--A/IGID--11666468/Palace_of_the_Water_Garden_Fountain.htm?sOrig=CRT&sOrigId=10579&ui=1BDC9757629045A2845CE3476DC0E765

Afterwards:
Sand 2007-05-11 10:01:52
You seem to be aware that one of the prime functions of the nervous system is to act as a filter to discard input not co-relatable with pre-organized data. The brain, after all, deals with inputs already filtered through the other sense organs which have been conditioned by experience to automatically discard irrelevant data. Discarded data, insofar as I understand it, is perceived as noise and has no perceptual capability to contribute to or modify existing cognitive collections.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LL 2007-05-12 08:45:07
Digital Mind Scene is a way to express the appearance and feelings someone who is plugged into information at greater depth will feel. There are probably better ways to express it.

Nobody thought feedback from a guitar amp was music until Jimi did it with artistic grace and style. And it is music. In just the same way discarded or unintelligable data can be concieved to be a magical creative source.

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Sand 2007-05-12 09:36:31
All sorts of innovative sounds become integrated into music at various times. Amongst others the 1812 Overture used actual cannon firing and John Cage became famous by presenting silence as a musical experience. A motionless artist sat in front of a piano to create this effect. I have not yet heard if different musicians might have sat differently before their instruments to "play" this piece nor whether has been adapted to unconventional instruments.

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LL 2007-05-13 06:23:25
Sand, rest assured that I am playing John Cage's piece right now.


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Sand 2007-05-13 08:40:59
And I am listening with great appreciation since your innovation requires no instrument and has attained the status of conceptual art.

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LL 2007-05-13 21:06:54
J Sand - what a fabulous response. I can hear the applause now.

Poverty = lack of access to information - Charles in Space Blog

Q. Can spaceflight be justified with the extent of world poverty?
Mike, Ireland

A. I am not certain if it can be justified to your satisfaction. Nor am I certain that it needs to justified any more than hundreds of other human activities and industries that take up much more space and human resources than space, from higher education to rail transport, need to be justified. These days the concept of poverty includes the lack of access to information resources that are frequently space based. We should not try to eliminate poverty by eliminating those things that people strive for.
Charles Simonyi, blogging from outer space
http://blog.charlesinspace.com/category/ask-charles/?&paged=2

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/04/09/russia.space.ap/index.html

See my earlier post at:
http://wonderlane.blogspot.com/2007/03/charles-in-space.html

Approach with Confidence - You Have Arrived.

As you know we have raised 2.34 million dollars for the Space Travel Portal to cover everything about Space Travel. As Japanese School Girls are early adopters I would like to begin with their personas, and work back to American and European upper middle class and middle class travelers with a minimum of $500 American to invest in growth paths guaranteed for the principle. To begin with we are focusing on memberships of those with credit cards.

Our investors goal is to actuate Space Travel and some exploration in the next twenty to thirty years. We believe that the first pioneers in space are going to reap economic success in the mid-near term to far term future, especially strong will be market spin offs for those groundlings that are excited by the adventure but for many reasons will only be able to dream of space travel and related adventures.We would like to meet with you at your earliest conveyance (ha ha) to determine the best courses of actionable items to meet our aggressive goals for related information services regarding everything to do with Space Travel.

We are interested in cross and upselling ventures to begin sales in the next three months. We will require a beta b2b Intranet site completed in that time frame. We are operating system and application agnostic.

Our office located in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle is at your disposal:
8414 Greenwood Ave N, Seattle, Washington, USA, Earth, Sol

Our site is:
http://www.greenwoodspacetravelsupply.com/

Our Motto:
Experienced Space Travelers agree that a lack of preparation is a prescription for mishaps.

Thank you,
Sincerely,
Ms.Gravity Greenspace

Photos: Ajpscs, Dance in Tokyo, Manganite,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajpscs/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lost-moments/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/manganite/

Using Semantics in an Academic & Business Environment to Build Support

(Final Section to "A Case Study...")

Author: Linda M. Lane, (UW Candidate MSIM 2008) March 15, 2007

In "A CASE STUDY OF COLLABORATIVE, ENTERPRISE WIDE, INFORMATION SECURITY C-LEVEL MANAGEMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON" problems statement we concluded that the second most prevalent problem is:

(2) - Risk Calculation at UW
"With the increasing sophistication and complexity of security attacks, developing a solution of the addressed problems should take a high priority in the university risk management plan."

Not only should the university develop a security solution in the university risk management plan, the document should be framed within the academic semantic sensibility to insure greater chances for adoption and success. The semantics of the business language used within the university risk management plan will contribute to its success both inside and outside its environment by appearing to make every attempt for appropriate risk management while conforming to recognized social and academic norms. Evidence shows no relationship between the adoption of security policy and breaches of security. Moreover, even careful planning processes may produce worse strategic plans rather than better ones.

So what value does the risk management plan have? The language used can influence the appearance in order to gain cooperation and acceptance, build support and insure legal compliance. Effective use of language is a solution in itself to ensure success, regardless of the business management techniques actually applied to plan, enforce policies, and compliance.

According to one study there appears to be "no statistically significant relationships between the adoption application of security policies and the incidence or severity of security breaches." [i] The reason for semantically appropriate security policies is for appearances sake both with the university's environment, a "decentralized yet collaborative entity with an energetic, entrepreneurial culture" and outside, when courts seek evidence of best practices any time the university is held liable for security (PII) breaches.

Dessler [ii] writes that Knowing Your Business is an extremely important aspect of planning and further presents evidence that the best laid strategic plans can go astray. "You have to be able to answer the question "what business are we in? before you do any business planning. You need a strategy for your company…" Strategic planning is "in a class of its own…. It's often highly subjective. Tom Peters… reportedly offered $1,000. to the first manager who could demonstrate that he or she had created a successful strategy from a planning process. His point was that a careful planning process many produce worse – not better – strategic plans."

The language used by the Board of Regents description of the University's goals is "…committed to maintaining an environment for objectivity and imaginative inquiry and for the original scholarship and research that ensure the production of new knowledge in the free exchange of diverse facts, theories, and ideas." [iii] The language used in describing the policy and practices the university is recommended to act upon is," to ensure that the UW creates an excellent compliance model built on best practices, while protecting its decentralized, collaborative and entrepreneurial culture." [iv] These are the university's facets of value, and how it views itself. Both statements show insight into the fact they know who they are and what they do.

That terminology is in stark contrast to the best practices language used for "…the management of information security (Barnard & von Solms, 1998), by defining: "the broad boundaries of information security" as well as the responsibilities of information resources users (Hone & Eloff, 2002b, p. 145). More specifically, a good security policy should: "…outline individual responsibilities, define authorized and unauthorized uses of the systems, provide venues for employee reporting of identified or suspected threats to the system, define penalties for violations, and provide a mechanism for updating the policy." (Whitman, 2004, p.52)." (Doherty, Fulford, 2004)

In the first heading of Information security: management's effect on culture and policy , authors Knapp, Marshall, Rainier and Ford, on page 28, state:
•"Top management support is positively associated with a security culture." They follow with explanations that security cultures are built from the leaders,
"Without top management support the creation training and enforcement of the organizations security policies would not occur or would not be taken seriously by the employees."
•"Without executive level support even a robust security comprehensive documented security policy does not guarantee enforcement across the enterprise." [v]
To prevail in creating a security culture within an environment dedicated to the free exchange of ideas, the university leadership must choose it's wording with care to obtain commitment from all the schools and campus leaders.

Even the responsibility of the CISO is to direct, not enforce, security and privacy policies, as stated in the UW CISO job description draft [vi], under the Duties section:
"Direct the development and enforcement of information security and privacy policies in compliance with federal and state regulations and standards."
These university policies must be written in a way to semantically reflect both the values of the university and to appear that it complies with all laws through best practices.

Taking these issues together, it does not appear to matter which business management methods it uses to accomplish these tasks as long as it uses appropriate language to obtain a committed security culture. Due to the culture, the language being used is a key issue for success, because the law requires the appearance of effort in doing security and risk management, and does not specify ways to apply compliance (HIPAA for example), while the university values objectivity, imagination, and a free exchange of ideas which applies to policy as well.

The academic environment only requires that such management fit its social norms, and the institution's goals, and the management style may be outside of its concerns or relevance, while the semantics and language used are relevant for appearance and cooperation.

The business of the academic and educational environment semantics of using "risk management as a service", "distributed management," and "voluntary compliance" sounds like the university. When contrasted and compared with the terminology and phrases used in traditional risk management planning language such as "unauthorized uses," "define penalties for violations," "reporting suspected threats" -- this language does not hit the mark.

To provide one example, "Sense and Sensibility" is a semantically different way of saying "Information and Aesthetics" or "Perception and Guiding Principles" but the semantic meaning differs. Aesthetically Sense and Sensibility is a graceful, elegant, polished way of saying those same things; but it is more poetic, cultured and sophisticated, and self-reflective. In a similar fashion compliance is what the CISO office wants and needs to produce and project - but "compliance" and the related terms "unauthorized uses," "define penalties for violations," "reporting suspected threats" are full of forced implications, inferences of power, and totalitarian references that do not fit with a university's urbane sensibility, raison d'être and social norms.

The business terms the university draws upon to include all the schools and campuses are likely to attract light critical attention if chosen with careful semantic intention, they will fit the academic environment. The university has no choice-- it needs to protect its people, service, reputation and brand. However, it is in the interest of the university to allow risk management to match its academic framework semantically.

An example of their semantic thinking is demonstrated in mentioning "disciplinary actions" the entire phase used is "disciplinary actions and incentives" which keeps in mind the appropriate semantic tone of university writing by including "incentives."

The university's CISO compared himself in his job to a junkyard dog - but that does not fit the semantic model for cooperation at the university. Junkyard dogs are mongrels generally found in junkyards, and not in ivory citadels of academia, with their land grants, traditions, and loyalty. CISOs in academic business environments are more like highly trained, prize winning dogs; never the less like any dog potentially dangerous when threatened. At the UW the image of a husky, their mascot, in drawing references may suit his position semantically better.

Creating culturally sensitive written policy is not just appearance outside the university it is a semantic tool which lends social cohesion inside the university. Using the correct terminology is likely to actually obtain willing, successful compliance in risk management issues because the university knows their business and how to speak in a language that will be heard and understood by managers and employees alike, in their decentralized, collaborative, and entrepreneurial culture. This same language will be understood outside of the university by courts and attorneys to be erudite, cooperative, displaying every attempt to deploy best practices within the school.

________________________________________
Resources Used

[i] Doherty, Neil . (2005) Do Information Security Policies reduce the Incidence of Security Breaches, An Exploratory Analysis. [Electronic Version] , Information Resources Management Journal, 18, 21 .

(Do Information Security Policies reduce the Incidence of Security Breaches, An Exploratory Analysis. Neil F. Doherty and Heather Fulford, Loughborough University UK, Information Resources Management Journal; Oct-Dec 2005; 18, 4; ABI/INFORM Global pg. 21 Copyright Group Idea 2005)

"The findings presented in this paper are somewhat surprising because they show no statistically significant relationships between the adoption application of security policies and the incidence or severity of security breaches."

[ii] Dressler, Gary. (2004). Management, Principles and Practices for tomorrow's leaders. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Chapter 5, Strategic Management, Knowing your business, discusses organizational goals and ways to align the organization and culture to achieve them.

[iii] Warren, V. (March-10-2007) Collaborative Enterprise Risk Management, Final Report.

http://www.washington.edu/admin/finmgmt/erm/ermsummary021306b.pdf

(COLLABORATIVE ENTERPRISE RISK MANAGEMENT, Final Report, University of Washington , by V'Ella Warren, Vice President, Financial Management, vwarren@u.washington.edu 206-543-8765, and David C. Hodge, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, hodge@u.washington.edu 543-5340 , February 13, 2006)

"The University of Washington (UW) is a decentralized yet collaborative entity with an energetic, entrepreneurial culture. The community members are committed to rigor, integrity, innovation, collegiality, inclusiveness and connectedness."

"The UW's excellence is reflected in the institution's reputation, "the bottom line" which links us to the community."

"The objective of this paper is to ensure that the UW creates an excellent compliance model built on best practices, while protecting its decentralized, collaborative and entrepreneurial culture. This paper lays out a conceptual framework for thinking about risk management. The framework is followed by information on models used by other universities, including four case studies. An evaluation of the UW's current situation comes next. Finally, the paper argues that a collaborative, institution-wide model works the best, and proposes recommendations for implementing that approach."

"Clearly, the creation of a culture of compliance needs to be driven by our core values and commitment to doing things the right way, to being the best at all we do. …we need to know that the manner in which we manage regulatory affairs is consistent with the best practices in existence."

"As a core value to serve its purpose "the University is committed to maintaining an environment for objectivity and imaginative inquiry and for the original scholarship and research that ensure the production of new knowledge in the free exchange of diverse facts, theories, and ideas" (Board of Regents 1998)."

[v] Knapp, Kenneth . (2006) Information security: management's effect on culture and policy . Information Management & Computer Security . Retrieved March 10, 2007, from Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0968-5227.

(Information security: management's effect on culture and policy
Kenneth J. Knapp, US Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA and
Thomas E. Marshall, R. Kelly Rainer and F. Nelson Ford
Department of Management, College of Business, Auburn University, Auburn Alabama, USA
Information Management & Computer Security
Vol. 14 No 1, 2006, pp. 24-36 @ Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0968-5227)

[vi] Unknown Group Author. (March-10-2007) UW Chief Information Security Officer job description, 2003-2004 .
www.washington.edu/president/tacs/utac/meetings/2003-04/materials/security.officer.description.pdf

Additional Resources

Bailey K. (2007). Personal Interview. University of Washington, Seattle. February 22, 2007

"A CASE STUDY OF COLLABORATIVE, ENTERPRISE WIDE, INFORMATION SECURITY C-LEVEL MANAGEMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON"
Written by "The Documents":
Dany Dahler
Linda Lane
Joel Larson
Michael Paulsmeyer

for more on Semantics see:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Linguistics-and-Philosophy/24-903Spring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm