Collaborative Thinking

Community Equity, SunSpace, FOAF+SSL, & KiWi

If you are following open source developments related to social networks, communities, and/or the semantic web, these three efforts (Community Equity, FOAF+SSL, and Kiwi) should be of interest:

CommunityEquity

Community Equity Open Source Milestone 1.1 released http://digg.com/u17asN

6:10 PM Jul 8th from twhirl

Community Equity (CommunityEquity) on Twitter

SunSpace Use Case

The second half of Friday was dedicated to discussing the Sun Use Case, and the technologies and services we would need to integrate there to support the already existing SunSpace intranet. We agreed that it was unreasonable and unrealistic to expect that Sun would replace the existing Confluence installation in favor of KiWi, because the aim of KiWi cannot be to create yet another Wiki engine that competes with what is already there. Instead, in the SunSpace use case, the KiWi system will be more like an intelligent index that integrates content and data from already existing sources and offers additional value in the form of advanced services (e.g. search, tagging, …) and widgets that can be included on the user interface level (e.g. recommendations, tagging, metadata, …). The data integration will make use of existing technologies like Linked (Open) Data. We decided that we would contribute particularly to the update mechanism of Linked Data since this seems to be an issue that is yet not resolved.

A second major point of discussion was the integration of Sun’s Community Equity (CE) with KiWi. We decided that we would head for a rather tight integration at the EJB level rather than at the Web Service level, because then we will be able to use CE more easily for e.g. recommendation and search. This integration will take place until end of August.

Finally, we briefly discussed single sign on for KiWi and correspondingly, Henry’s suggestion for FOAF+SSL, which Steffi has already mostly implemented in KiWi. Also, an issue still to be solved for the SunSpace Use Case is how to handle permission management in KiWi.

We closed the meeting on Friday afternoon. Most said it was the most productive KiWi meeting we had yet and that we have moved much forward. I just hope that we can also hold the pace.:-)

Note: I will upload figures and pictures as soon as I have them.

Sebastian Schaffert » KiWi July Meeting in Prague: Towards Integration

FOAF+SSL

FOAF+SSL is a authentication and authorization protocol that links a Web ID to a public key, thereby enabling a global, decentralized/distributed, and open yet secure social network. It functions with existing browsers.

It uses PKI standards — usually thought of as hierarchical trust management tools — in a decentralized "web of trust" way. The web of trust is built using semantic web vocabularies (particularly FOAF) published in RESTful manner to form Linked Data.

Based on well known and widely deployed standards, FOAF+SSL and its implications is being discussed on the FOAF protocols mailing list. Other implementations of this conceptual protocol will probably retain SSL in the mix, but FOAF may be replaced by any of several other vocabularies.

For the most recent description of the protocol, read the one-page FOAF+SSL: Adding Security to Open Distributed Social Networks. If you feel there is something odd going on, your suspicion will be confirmed on reading The FOAF+SSL Paradigm Shift, which should also help you align your intuitions better. For a much more detailed, technical explanation of the way we are thinking of trust, see FOAF+SSL: Creating a Web of Trust without Key Signing Parties.

foaf+ssl - ESW Wiki

KiWi - Knowledge In A Wiki - About

KiWi – Knowledge in a Wiki is an EU-funded project (No 211932) combining the wiki philosophy with methods of the Semantic Web, aiming to develop a new approach to knowledge management.

The main outcomes of the project will be

1. an enhanced wiki vision (the "KiWi vision") describing how the "convention over configuration" paradigm of wikis combined with semantic technologies can lead to flexible and problem-oriented knowledgemanagement,
2. a collaborative, web-based environment (the "KiWi system") that provides support for knowledge sharing, knowledge creation, and coordination in software and project knowledge management,
3. the evaluation of this system in two concrete, representative use cases at our industry partners,
4. the "KIWI handbook", describing the project vision, the KiWi system functionalities, as well as giving recommendations and best practices for using the system in concrete knowledge management scenarios.

The KIWI consortium brings together leading research groups (Salzburg Research, Aalborg University, Brno University of Technology, LMU Munich) in the areas of semantic wikis, reasoning, information extraction, personalisation, and knowledge management for software processes. These are matched by two large international corporations in knowledge intensive areas (Sun Microsystems and Logica) that offer use cases demonstrating a clear need for the advanced knowledge management we envision in the project, and by a SME (Semantic Web Company) specialised in the dissemination of semantic technologies to the industry.

Detailed information about the consortium is available in the Partners section.

KiWi - Knowledge In A Wiki - About

Social Graph Engines

Very likely to be one of the next "big battles" for those trying to scale social networking and related tools/applications. Anyone have other candidates to keep track of? The one's below might be the start of a watch-list of sorts: 

Large-scale graph computing at Google

In order to achieve that, we have created scalable infrastructure, named Pregel, to mine a wide range of graphs. In Pregel, programs are expressed as a sequence of iterations. In each iteration, a vertex can, independently of other vertices, receive messages sent to it in the previous iteration, send messages to other vertices, modify its own and its outgoing edges' states, and mutate the graph's topology (experts in parallel processing will recognize that the Bulk Synchronous Parallel Model inspired Pregel).
Currently, Pregel scales to billions of vertices and edges, but this limit will keep expanding. Pregel's applicability is harder to quantify, but so far we haven't come across a type of graph or a practical graph computing problem which is not solvable with Pregel. It computes over large graphs much faster than alternatives, and the application programming interface is easy to use. Implementing PageRank, for example, takes only about 15 lines of code. Developers of dozens of Pregel applications within Google have found that "thinking like a vertex," which is the essence of programming in Pregel, is intuitive.

We've been using Pregel internally for a while now, but we are beginning to share information about it outside of Google. Greg Malewicz will be speaking at the joint industrial track between ACM PODC and ACM SPAA this August on the very subject. In case you aren't able to join us there, here's a spoiler: The seven bridges of Königsberg — inspiration for Leonhard Euler's famous theorem that established the basics of graph theory — spanned the Pregel river.

Official Google Research Blog: Large-scale graph computing at Google

 

Neo4j - a Graph Database that Kicks Buttox | High Scalability

A graph is a collection nodes (things) and edges (relationships) that connect pairs of nodes. Slap properties (key-value pairs) on nodes and relationships and you have a surprisingly powerful way to represent most anything you can think of. In a graph database "relationships are first-class citizens. They connect two nodes and both nodes and relationships can hold an arbitrary amount of key-value pairs. So you can look at a graph database as a key-value store, with full support for relationships."

A graph looks something like:

For more lovely examples take a look at the Graph Image Gallery.

Here's a good summary by Emil Eifrem, founder of the Neo4j, making the case for why graph databases rule:

Most applications today handle data that is deeply associative, i.e. structured as graphs (networks). The most obvious example of this is social networking sites, but even tagging systems, content management systems and wikis deal with inherently hierarchical or graph-shaped data.

This turns out to be a problem because it’s difficult to deal with recursive data structures in traditional relational databases. In essence, each traversal along a link in a graph is a join, and joins are known to be very expensive. Furthermore, with user-driven content, it is difficult to pre-conceive the exact schema of the data that will be handled. Unfortunately, the relational model requires upfront schemas and makes it difficult to fit this more dynamic and ad-hoc data.

A graph database uses nodes, relationships between nodes and key-value properties instead of tables to represent information. This model is typically substantially faster for associative data sets and uses a schema-less, bottoms-up model that is ideal for capturing ad-hoc and rapidly changing data.

Neo4j - a Graph Database that Kicks Buttox | High Scalability

 

HeartProposal – Heart Project

Abstract¶

Heart (Highly Extensible & Accumulative RDF Table) will develop a planet-scale RDF data store and a distributed processing engine based on Hadoop & Hbase.

Proposal¶

Heart will develop a Hadoop subsystem for RDF data store and a distributed processing engine which use Hbase + MapReduce to store and to process RDF data.

Background¶

We can store very sparse RDF data in a single table in Hbase, with as many columns as they need. For example, we might make a row for each RDF subject in a table and store all the properties and their values as columns in the table. This reduces costly self-joins in answering queries asking questions on the same subject, which results in efficient processing of queries, although we still need self-joins to answer RDF path queries.

We can further accelerate query performance by using MapReduce for parallel, distributed query processing.

HeartProposal – Heart Project

Apache Shindig 1.0-incubating released

I would love to see a credible/viable open source option emerge that can support a distributed and/or federated model for social network sites. Still hopeful that Apache SocialSite Project Incubation Status can gain traction.

Apache Shindig 1.0-incubating released

Thursday, July 02, 2009 at 10:58:00 AM

Apache Shindig aims to make it simple to create your own OpenSocial container by providing an open source implementation (in both Java and PHP) of the OpenSocial APIs. The Shindig team recently made creating and maintaining an OpenSocial container even easier, by publishing a release that supports OpenSocial v0.8.1.

OpenSocial API Blog: Apache Shindig 1.0-incubating released

Additional background info:

Apache Shindig Components

Server Side

The Java and PHP version of Apache Shindig have 3 major server side components:

1. Persistent Data Loading Mechanism;
2. Gadget Rendering Infrastructure;
3. OpenSocial server side implementation.

Components of Apache Shindig Java Server Side container

Components of Apache Shindig PHP Server Side container

Client Side

The Javascript features are:

• Gadget container (gadget.js), fully opensocial gadget compliant;
• OpenSocial container;
• JSON, Restful container and Caja support.

Shindig - Overview Of Apache Shindig

Communicate The Mission In Turbulent Times

What I like about this article (well-worth reading the full story on the Wharton site) - is the focus on communication, people, and (perhaps implied) constructing a sense of community around the mission. In some organizations that I talked to as part of the social networking field research study, a resurgence in communication and employee engagement works well when it is not "at" workers but "with" workers. Enabling participatory cultures within organizations augments communication and employee engagement efforts - more effective and sustainable for both employee and employer. What do I mean by “participatory culture”? I am building off the work of Henry Jenkins, Director MIT Comparative Media Studies Program:

“A participatory culture has relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby the most experienced members pass along knowledge to novices. A participatory culture also is one where members believe their contributions matter and feel some degree of social connection with one another. Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from individual expression to community involvement.”

Threshold, Spring 2009, http://www.ciconline.org/threshold

Thinking-out-loud, I believe this line-of-thought is applicable within the enterprise and enhances what people describe as Enterprise 2.0 - if you stretch is just a bit to not only focus on literacy but also include relationships and the systems of meaning that evolve through creative expression and community involvement. If we agree on that, then we can think of participatory cultures as it applies to certain aspects of what DuPoint CEO Ellen Kullman points out in two of her principles related to communication and mission (reading in-between the lines on my part):

DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman's Four Principles for Moving Ahead during Turbulent Times - Knowledge@Whart

..... Speaking at the recent 13^th Annual Wharton Leadership Conference, co-sponsored by the Center for Human Resources and the Center for Leadership & Change Management, Kullman described how she changed the company's thinking about its business model, while reinforcing its 200-year-old culture of innovation. "The question is, given the megatrends in the world and given the new economy, what changes do we have to make to continue to be successful?

..... Kullman identified three trends that would transcend the current crisis and provide a strategic framework for the company's annual $1.4 billion investment in research and development -- increasing agricultural productivity, reducing dependence on fossil fuels and protecting lives.

..... But organizing the company to respond to these long-term trends during a period of extreme uncertainty required strong leadership and specific initiatives "to change the way we think," said Kullman, who joined DuPont in 1988 as a marketing manager for medical imaging, and was named executive vice president and a member of the office of chief executive in 2006, and president in October 2008. Prior to joining DuPont, Kullman, who has a B.S. in engineering from Tufts and a master's in management from Northwestern, worked at GE. She shared four leadership principles that she has implemented to guide DuPont through the financial crisis since October 2008.

..... The first principle: Focus on what you can control. Kullman realized she needed to shift the company's attention from what was going wrong to the immediate action required to protect DuPont's financial position as revenues fell dramatically. "Last October, I saw a lot of people who looked scared and didn't know what to do," she said. So, she directed DuPont's management to "figure out those ... things we can do something about, and get about doing them."

..... The second of her leadership principles for the crisis has been to "adopt a new trajectory by rethinking your business model." For DuPont, that meant "getting people to think differently" about a business model that had always measured success based on plant capacity and capital investment: "We invent, we build, we make, we sell," Kullman said.

..... Kullman's third crisis leadership principle: Communication is key. "I'm a firm believer that there is a direct correlation between growth and the success of our communication. When we have an aligned team that understands" very clearly what the goals and the tradeoffs are, "that's when things can absolutely happen," Kullman said.

..... The last of her four crisis leadership principles is to maintain pride around the company's mission. "There's nothing like a bad economy to get people confused about what their mission is. They start thinking their mission is to reduce cost. That's a tactic, that's not our mission,' Kullman said.

..... During informal weekly meetings with employees, Kullman said she was amazed that the "number one question was about whether we are going to stick with our mission." She quickly realized that "people are scared [and] people want direction." Making sure that people understand the mission -- and linking their daily activities to the company's broader purpose -- is essential to reducing fear, maintaining morale and keeping employees motivated, Kullman said.

DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman's Four Principles for Moving Ahead during Turbulent Times - Knowledge@Whart

From Enterprise 2.0 Boston To Catalyst San Diego: Enterprise Social Networking Workshop

Bill Ives (Portals and KM) provided a write-up of the workshop delivered in Boston last week. I've read his blog for some time as well and it was nice to meet Bill and many others in the E2.0 social circle at the conference. I'll get around to some thoughts on E2.0 event itself soon but wanted to share Bill's summary and remind folks that it's still not too late to sign-up for Burton Group's Catalyst conference in San Diego July 27-31. If you heard good things about the social networking workshop (described below), I will be repeating the session on Tuesday morning, July 28th (so why not register and attend?). If you heard less-than-good things about the workshop, then let me know so I can make corrections! Feedback is appreciated either way...

Social networking promises to address an array challenges and opportunities within the enterprise such as bridging generational shifts in the workforce, facilitating collaboration and community building, and supporting strategic talent initiatives. Despite these potential benefits, a number of organizations moving forward with enterprise social networking projects experience a noticeable level of uncertainty. The road to success is complex. Project teams need to overcome the perception that social tools and applications are not a critical investment. Common issues proponents of social networking face include: establishing the business case, acquiring funding, determining metrics, developing governance policies, and addressing security concerns. In addition, strategists need to anticipate how best to handle cultural issues and adoption barriers that will emerge over the course of social networking projects.

In the fall of 2008, Burton Group conducted a series of in-depth interviews with 65 business and IT personnel representing 21 organizations to gain greater insight on enterprise social networking. These unguided discussions captured a variety of real-life stories, emerging best practices and common barriers confronting social networking project teams. Indeed, analysis of the study data reveals a repeating pattern of 15 critical issues organizations will likely encounter as the move forward with their internal social networking initiatives. This workshop provides an interactive forum for people to learn more about what other organizations are doing - their challenges - their successes - as well as their pain-points. Q&A time will be set aside after each module. The workshop will end with a general summation, updates on market trends, and address any remaining audience concerns.

Who Should Attend

• Business and IT staff whose job responsibility involves the following: innovation, talent management, collaboration, knowledge management, or community-building
• Corporate communications and HR staff involved in employee engagement strategies, learning, and strategic talent initiatives
• Social networking project teams who wish to learn more about business and cultural barriers, employee profiles, expertise location, community seeding tactics, and adoption strategies
• Business or IT executives and managers with responsibility for creating, sponsoring, or implementing social networking initiatives
• Strategists who would like to expand their knowledge of social networking trends

You Will Learn

• What are the critical issues confronting social networking project teams, and how organizations are responding to those challenges and opportunities
• How project teams are dealing with the business case for enterprise social networking, including concerns over ROI and metrics
• What cultural issues do social networking projects tend to surface, and how did organizations in the study address legal, HR, compliance and security considerations
• What difficulties project teams will likely encounter as they try to convince employees to adopt social networking platforms (e.g., profiles), and what adoption tactics were used to jumpstart participation (e.g., expertise location, communities)
• How interviewees felt their IT organizations were handling the topic of social networking, along with high-level impressions from participants regarding their experiences with different tools (e.g., IBM Lotus Connections, Jive Software, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)

Catalyst pre-conference workshop agenda - Project Concordia

Another option for those wishing to leverage attendance at Catalyst (on top of all the great Burton Group workshops, sessions, guest speakers, etc). Alice Wang and I will be exploring the intersection between identity and social networking during the workshop below:

Use Cases Driving Identity in Enterprise 2.0: The Consumerization of IT

We will hold a pre-conference workshop at the Burton Catalyst North America 2009 conference on Monday, 27 July 2009, from 10am to 5pm, in San Diego, California. Participate in this working session as end users, deployers and technology providers discuss identity-based use cases reflecting the intersection of traditional enterprise with Web 2.0 and SaaS, models with consumer underpinnings that are turning traditional IT approaches inside-out. The group will problem-solve together to discover and define:

• Different styles of provisioning/federating identities
• Privacy concerns around unmanaged employee usage of outside tools
• Security and policy approaches to address virtualization and the cloud
• Authorization models that combine flexible access to resources with appropriate administrative controls

In Concordia workshops, real-world use cases rule: we work together to understand trends and requirements, and then facilitate effective results in future technology development and harmonization. We have gathered use case presentation and discussion proposals, detailed below, in order to form the workshop agenda.

Registering to attend

It is free to attend this Concordia workshop; you just have to let us know you're coming. You can do this by adding your name to the list below or by sending mail to Britta Glade (britta at projectliberty.org).

If you are also planning to attend the Burton Catalyst conference taking place during the rest of the week, you can get a fantastic Catalyst discount for attending this workshop! Use the code concordia when registering on the [Catalyst site to get a full-conference price of $1,295 (this is an almost 50% discount for non-Burton Group clients who would normally pay $2,495 to attend).

Catalyst pre-conference workshop agenda - Project Concordia

Hyperconnectivity: The Power Of Sharing

Two videos, somewhat long, but worth watching. As you watch and listen, think about participatory cultures, participatory media, social networking, and to some extent, the enabling social tools. You might think about how this influences the enterprise (e.g., Enterprise 2.0) but I think the message is more interesting when you consider the broader implications.

Perhaps Mark Pesce should be considered as a keynote speaker at the San Francisco version of the Enterprise 2.0 conference - just a thought... the first video is a year old at the Personal Democracy conference (which is running today in NYC btw), the second video is recent but it shows the trajectory of Mark's thinking on the topic.

The Power of Sharing from Mark Pesce on Vimeo.

Introducing SharePoint Writer

OK, so that product does not exist - not today, and perhaps not even tomorrow (in a SharePoint 2010 timeframe). But it should. Windows Live Writer is perhaps the best tool for offline composition and publishing of blog posts to a variety of back-end blogging services. As Microsoft begins its marketing campaign for SharePoint 2010, one of the key focus areas will be social computing. This should come as no surprise since it clearly is an area where Microsoft needs to demonstrate dramatic improvement to just keep up with the competition (e.g., Jive, IBM, Telligent and a host of best-of-breed vendors). Note: I'm not talking about Microsoft moving ahead in terms of functionality - just improving in a "good enough" way to leverage it's other strengths with decision-makers (e.g., common infrastructure, common development, common operations, etc.).

One area where Microsoft could show some level of innovation could be content authoring - which brings me back to Windows Live Writer (a tool I use extensively). You could argue that Word could be used as well - but the user experience of Live Writer is just a lot more effective - it does exactly what it is intended to do without carrying a lot of other baggage for a content experience that I'm not interested in (traditional office documents). Microsoft could simply re-brand the tool (e.g., Windows Live Writer for SharePoint) but I think a specific version with extensions that make it more appealing to SharePoint environments (e.g., security, compliance, role-based templates, integration with workflow, lists, etc.) could help alleviate some management concerns regarding employee blogging.

So another "thinking out loud" post ... but in general, internal product teams at Microsoft need to leverage innovative work being done by other teams (that might be considered consumer-centric).

For instance, what does a tool like Vine, a notification service that behaves in a Twitter-like fashion, have on Microsoft's OCS platform? Can Microsoft recast some of the underlying tooling to develop an enterprise version?

As Microsoft moves from on-premise to cloud/SaaS instantiations of its products - will market perceptions shift in terms of interoperability expectations between its consumer and enterprise products and services? I think they will (digital life trumps digital work so to speak - interoperability will be a default assumption by a next generation workforce).

Right now, given internal team structures and organizational boundaries - Microsoft is not prepared to leverages those opportunities (in my opinion). Which is why I'm doubtful the Windows Live and SharePoint teams could coordinate effectively to delivers a SharePoint Writer idea to market.

But they should...

Leaving 'Friendprints': How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security

Good read from the folks at Knowledge@Wharton....

A generation is growing up with social networking web sites such as Facebook and MySpace, casually posting accounts of their lives for their friends -- and the world -- to see. Few of these users realize that the information they post, when combined with new technologies for gathering and compiling data, can create a fingerprint-like pattern of behavior. The information provides opportunities not only for legitimate business purposes, but also for the nefarious aims of identity thieves and other predators, according to faculty at Wharton and elsewhere.

"The way privacy has traditionally been defined is being challenged," according to Wharton legal studies professor Andrea Matwyshyn, who earlier this year organized the Information Security Best Practices Conference at Wharton. Among other topics, the conference addressed security and safety issues raised by the social networks.

Research on online social networking and how it may alter privacy norms is just beginning, according to technology observers. "Our kids today will give everything [in terms of personal information] away, but it's not at all clear how this will shake out in the long run," says Wharton marketing professor Peter S. Fader. "Privacy is a moving target."

Leaving 'Friendprints': How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security - Knowledge@Wharton

Relationships and Identity: Two Sides of the Social Networking Coin

One of the interesting outcomes from my contextual research project on enterprise social networking was not only what was said by study participants but what was "not said". One such topic that did not come up to any great degree during the storytelling sessions was the topic of identity and its role in social networking. That gap could be the result of many factors (e.g., the people in the room, the way the conversations flowed, the project phase of the social networking project, etc). However, given the prominent role people are placing with user profiles on social network sites, it seems natural to look at profiles as the "fuzzy front-end" of identity - at least from a social computing perspective. The intersect between identity and social networking has intrigued me for some time. Below, I've outlined some work-in-progress thoughts on how the interconnection between social networking with identity management might evolve. To help me out (since I don't cover identity management), I've been brainstorming with Alice Wang, Director, Burton Group (who is an identity expert). Alice has given me some real-life context based on her consulting experiences with clients and her synthesis of our identity research as its applied to actual situations in the field. The thoughts below reflect this joint perspective Alice and I have sketched out. 

And if you're looking for yet another reason to attend Catalyst, Burton Group is hosting a Concordia workshop (details below) that, in part, will bring this topic more out into the open.

Thoughts and comments on the outline below greatly appreciated... if you are a Burton Group client, we would love to explore this concept with you in-depth.

Thesis

As organizations explore the use of social networking, the enterprise is no longer the only participant in managing identity. An employee’s social network site profile, social graph, and use of other social tools and applications enable them to construct additional identity facets to suit their own needs. As a result, organizations should incorporate “social identity” claims within identity management practices.

Framing

When we think of relationships, and study it from a social perspective, we look at:

• how people construct facets of their identity based on social structures in a particular context and activity
• how identity controls people’s impressions and establishes reputation
• how people switch between social identities to fit the needs of groups and activities
• how people evolve their social identity facets across activity domains and social processes

When we study relationships from a purely identity management focus, we look at the people, process, and technology arenas such as:

• how the organization ensures that authenticated and authorized employees are securely accessing information and applications
• how business roles are defined and separation-of-duties enforced
• how entitlements and classification policies are applied so that information is handled properly and compliance needs met
• how “need to know” access controls enable effective information sharing and collaboration between co-workers while protecting intellectual property

The result: an enterprise “tells” its employees what their identity is vs. what employees wish to create to suit their own needs. Today, few enterprise strategists, architects, infrastructure planners, and project teams involved in social networking initiatives are paying enough attention to the long-term implications of identity on efforts. Conversely, identity management teams are frequently not involved in determining the strategic ramifications of social networking initiatives on their enterprise practices. For instance, how does the organization assure attributes within a self-claimed social identity – what if employees build exaggerated or misleading social identities – what methods does the organization employ to vet social identity data (e.g., assess community equity and reputation)?

However, societal trends are fusing these two perspectives, compelling enterprises to connect the social aspects of identity emerging from social networking tools and applications in a manner that augments long-standing internal and external identity management requirements. Accomplishing this feat in a sustainable fashion enables organizations to leverage its network of connections across employees, customers, partners, and suppliers for competitive advantage (e.g., improved relationships, more effective knowledge sharing). Failure to address the social aspects of identity by managing identity only from an enterprise perspective will reduce benefits from social networking solutions.

Understanding the intersection between identity and social networking trends, and its implications to enterprise strategies, is a critical first-step. Some of the core issues emerging from each of these two vantage points include:

• Identity in the context of relationships
• Relationships in the context of social networks (communities, collaboration)
• Social structures, fragmentation of identity, and structural holes in social networks (positive and negative consequences of)
• Identity and roles (both formal, “institutional” roles and social roles that are often emergent)

Rationale

From a social networking perspective, identity is a complicated, multi-faceted construction, created and evolved over time within the social structures of individuals. When we talk about social structures, we focus on two inter-connected spheres: systems of relations (e.g., patterns of roles, relationships, and forms of control) and systems of meaning (primarily culture and its associated beliefs, values, languages, and practices).

Identity therefore, from a social networking perspective, is not equivocal to a person per se. People put forth a persona (or social identity) they construct within the context and activities associated with a particular social structure. The social identity performed in one context and activity is just one facet of their overall identity. Different social identity attributes and social identity facets are evolved to fit a variety of situations. The existence of multiple identity facets raises the pro and con issue of enabling other parties to correlate and connect multiple social identity facets and, by doing so, gain the ability to connect social structures of that identity. Sometimes people are accepting of having their social structures (or actors within a social structure) being cross-connected – but sometimes they are not (raising issues of privacy). For a variety of reasons, people may prefer to create or maintain structural holes in their social networks. Structural holes can be a desirable objective as people try to control how their social identity facets are maintained for a given context and activity. However, closing structural holes may have benefits as well.

When it comes to communication, information sharing, collaboration, and other community interactions within the enterprise, people behave in a similar manner. Employees often (knowingly or unknowingly) construct social identity facets when interacting within a particular social structure (e.g., help desk discussion forum, profession support community, wiki editors group). Sometimes people use the term persona, or profile, or personal brand, when referring to a social identity. That social identity forms a “face” they create for purposes of control within a given social structure.

This implies and forms a key assumption at this stage of our hypothesis, that as employees interact across multiple social structures, they construct multiple identities based on context and activity. Engaging in these social structures also results in formation of social roles. Before the advent of social tools and applications (e.g., blogs, wikis, tags and bookmarks, social messaging, and social network sites), social identities and social roles were opaque and difficult to ascertain within a networked public. With systems that enable employees to define themselves more openly (profiles on social network sites, membership in online communities, or as avatars in virtual worlds), organizations are now faced with a situation where employees are augmenting the identity ascribed to them by the enterprise.

The enterprise views identity very differently. Identity management efforts are often a fundamental process for managing a variety of concerns (risk, privacy, intellectual property, compliance, etc.). Issues related to authentication, authorization, permissions, roles, entitlements, and security are common requirements for identity management strategies. Identity teams have valid concerns regarding the design of some social tools and applications (i.e., base don consumer models), or the level of controls that protect how identity is controlled by both end users and within enterprise policies. Finding the optimal balance between the social needs of employees and management needs of the enterprise must be a core design assumption for identity management strategies. As employees redefine, extend, or contradict these formal identity assignments, there may be unintended consequences to identity management practices of the organization at-large unless action is taken to view identity as a shared responsibility. Increased use of social tools and applications that span internal and external environments will only compound the situation unless organizations begin to act now.

Concordia Workshop

Use Cases Driving Identity in Enterprise 2.0: The Consumerization of IT

Date: Monday, July 27

Time: TBD

Description: Participate in this working session as end users, deployers and technology providers discuss identity-based use cases reflecting the intersection of traditional enterprise with Web 2.0 and SaaS, models with consumer underpinnings that are turning traditional IT approaches inside-out. The group will problem-solve together to discover and define:

• Different styles of provisioning/federating identities
• Privacy concerns around unmanaged employee usage of outside tools
• Security and policy approaches to address virtualization and the cloud
• Authorization models that combine flexible access to resources with appropriate administrative controls

In Concordia workshops, real-world use cases rule: we work together to understand trends and requirements, and then facilitate effective results in future technology development and harmonization. If you have a use case you'd like to share—please submit your suggested presentation and summary by June 19 to Britta Glade (britta@projectliberty.org). As the agenda develops, it will be posted on the Concordia wiki.

http://projectconcordia.org/index.php/Catalyst_pre-conference_workshop_agenda