Memory Connected Extending Memory on the Web via Human-Centric Knowledge Exchange Network

Jie Bao and Li Ding

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Memect Memory Connected

Presented at W3C Workshop on Social Standards: The Future of Business, 7-8 August 2013, San Francisco, USA

Memect Memory Connected

Where is my data?

• I’m locked in a garden • Ownership? • Needs for open exchange

• I don’t use a garden • Prefer not: security, cost • Needed, but no service

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person A Person B Silo Y

Silo X

http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/socialweb/XGR-socialweb-20101206/

Memect Memory Connected

Human-Centric Design – Three principles

Human readable knowledge

Tangible rewards and cost reduction

Bottom-up growth scales

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Memect Memory Connected

Human Centric Design – Principle 1

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Human readable knowledge • To extend human’s memory, not only store, but also recall • To facilitate human communication

Communicate

Memect Memory Connected

Human readable knowledge: Design Issues

• For developers • Readable code and data (e.g. JSON, python) • Reusable code and data (e.g. snippet, modules)

• For users • Readable data (e.g. visual vs. raw text) • Explorable data (e.g. faceted browsing)

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“programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute” (Abelson and Sussman , 1984)

http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/front/node3.html

Memect Memory Connected

Human Centric Design – Principle 2

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Tangible rewards and cost reduction • To obtain instant rewards and feedbacks • To enable cheap start

Books take months

-------------------- 130M/ so far

(est. by Google)

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/you-can-count-number-of-books-in-world.html (2010) http://en.wordpress.com/stats/ (2013) https://blog.twitter.com/2011/numbers (2012)

Blog Posts take days

-------------------- 47M/month @wordpress

Tweets take minutes

-------------------- 140M/day @twitter

Memect Memory Connected

Tangible rewards and cost reduction: Design Issues

• For developers • Ownership of code and data, e.g. fork vs. branch

• Keep it simple, e.g. RESTful vs. SOAP

• For users • Social/cognitive rewards often work better than money.

e.g. stackoverflow vs. google answer

• Expect immediate response from system, e.g. wikipedia, electronic spreadsheet

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Memect Memory Connected

Human Centric Design – Principle 3

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Bottom-up growth scales • Top-down: consensus may take years, by experts • Bottom-up: shared and evolving, by users

Memect Memory Connected

Bottom-up growth: Design Issues

• For developers • Leverage well-adopted technologies, e.g. json, csv, • Data can have mixed representations • Live schema from live data • Coding in evolving, agile, mashup fashion

• For users • Publish data now, refine it on demand • My data first

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Memect Memory Connected

Use-case Study

• Support mailing list users • Daily routine: improve signal/noise ratio

• Conversation: need timely response

• Topic: find relevant discussions for a topic

• Contact: trust in unfamiliar contact, activity stream

• Support team common knowledge • Shared understanding: reduce unnecessary cost in

consensus making • Is consensus just the project manager’s view?

• Group memory and knowledge transfer: versatile search/navigation tools to recall team knowledge

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Memect Memory Connected

Vision: Knowledge Exchange Network

• Extended Memory: capture and organize

• Connected Memory: exchange

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person A

Person B

person C

Broker X

Broker Z

Broker Y

Questions and Comments?