Itsme A New Workstation To Exploit The Potential Of The Cyberspace 02

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Transcript of Itsme A New Workstation To Exploit The Potential Of The Cyberspace 02

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Fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e conoscenza.

Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.

Dante Alighieri , La Divina Commedia, Inferno,

Canto XXVI, 119-120, Transl. by A. Mandelbaum

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The scenario

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At the 1984 Superbowl

Apple launches the Macintosh:

A new personal computer with graphical user interface based

on the desktop metaphor

It brings forth the ideas developed at Xerox PARC by Alan Kay

and others to a large public, at a reasonable price

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And then …

All personal computers adopt the desktop metaphor

There is a dramatic growth of the size of internal and external as

well as fixed and removable memories of personal computers

The email becomes a universal medium

Tim Berners - Lee invents the Web

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Moreover, …

The Web, originally a system for publishing documents, grows and becomes capable of offering a large variety of services:

Downloading of files

Shared information spaces

E-commerce

Blogs and wikis

Chats

Social computing (Web 2.0)

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Three main problems

The personal computer has been unable to cope with the evolution of the Cyberspace:

dispersion of information (in the file system, the attachment

folder, the e-mail systems, the browser)

information overload (from keys to gigas; more and bigger

objects)

inadequacy of the file system with respect to the web (its

content remains without tags, links and structure)

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Unforeseen facts

Dispersion of information supports sub-optimal search methods (from messages to attachments, from documents to urls, …): a casual and incomplete divide et impera strategy.

More and more efficient search engines.

The web is constantly becoming more capable of providing all the functions of

personal computers: do we still need personal computers?

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Still some problems remain

On-line computing is not yet ubiquitous

The personal computer has some capabilities missing, compared with the web

Different users have different needs and desires: personal computers based on the

desktop metaphor are not adequate for some of them

Who has control?

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Our idea

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A new workstation

Avoiding the dispersion of information

Embodying what we know about knowledge work

Designed for those people who “think what they do has value”

Based on a new metaphor: “stories and venues”

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Avoiding the dispersion of files

A new front-end where:

related objects, messages, urls, people addresses, information sources,

tools appear in a single place

All objects are characterized by tags and links

No solution, today, to the structure problem: in any case we have plans for the

future with respect to this problem

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No solution as yet for the information overload

Putting everything in the same place does not solve the information overload problem. Moreover, it increase it

A hierarchical file system leads to greater confusion

Good search engines do not solve the problem: while performing an action we

need to have everything that maybe relevant, ready at hand

Searching distracts from the action we are performing

No real change with respect to the desktop metaphor

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The lessons of ethnographic research on work

What human beings do is embedded in their relations with other people: actions and interactions

Action and communication are strictly intertwined

Any action is situated in space, time and, often, in the story within which it has

sense

The stories a person lives are not disjoint

Stories are viewpoints on actions and interactions

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The target users of ITSME

High - value users, i.e., all those who have a great number of interactions with other people, manage loads of information, live a great number of stories at the same time, but do not have adequate support to manage the complexity of their life

Professionals

Managers

Intellectuals

Knowledge workers

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The limits of the desktop metaphor

The desktop metaphor has been able to sort workstation contents in a simple and intuitive way

But it has not solved any of the problems people encounter while managing their

actions and interactions

Where is the message John sent me about that issue? Where did Rick tell me that

important thing? Which is the relevant part of this huge document?

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Beyond the desktop metaphor

The desktop metaphor is over thirty years old. And it shows!

The displays of today’s workstations are either populated with a huge number of

icons or require functional commands to find an object.

In both cases, users frequently do not find what they are looking for, or find the

wrong thing

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A new metaphor: stories and venues

Our life interweaves a large number of different stories

Each story has its participants and objects

Each story has its venue, where you can access its participants and objects

Each person lives in several diverse interweaving venues

The new metaphor is characterized by its being plural and its reflecting

situatedness of human experience

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itsme / a workstation based on the metaphor of “stories and venues”

At any moment, ITSME presents the venue of the story in which its owner is acting

ITSME owners do not need to search for things: they have them ready at hand

ITSME creates, maintains and updates the venues of its owner

ITSME venues can be easily corrected, modified and/or organized by its owner

ITSME is not intrusive: its behavior is purely reactive

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A metaphor implemented through a light model

It lseems that if venues constitute a hierarchy, but the same file or resource can appear in different venues

Users can move things between venues, and also copy things to different venues

Venues may have sub-venues. Sub-venues are not hierarchical: rather they define

viewpoints on venues

The hierarchical model is only a light support to the metaphor

The metaphor helps users understand what they see on the screen

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Creating a new workstation and communicating it

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ITSME components

An open-source operating system embodying the venue metaphor in

its front-end

A new workstation, with a radically new design

A service supporting the migration of users from Apple and Microsoft

workstations to ITSME

A consistent and reliable plan for further improvements of the system

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ITSME / the operating system

A radically new front-end to Linux, based on two simple rules:

Objects created in a venue remain there

Objects arriving with the reply to a message coming from

a venue go in that venue

In the venue where a story is performed, users can access:

their partners in that story

the files, email messages and web bookmarks created, exchanged and shared

in it

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Some examples from the concept manual: the interface model

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Some examples from the concept manual: the interface architecture

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Some examples from the concept manual: the home

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Some examples from the concept manual: the home

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Some examples from the concept manual: a venue

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Some examples from the concept manual: the limbo and the transition panel

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ITSME / the operating system

Venues may be further organized (sub-venues, folders) by users

One-click mechanisms for correcting, modifying and organizing venues

In the Limbo, users find what has not yet been located in a venue (what has not

yet given raise to a story)

On the screen, a transit zone is always accessible, to move and/or copy files

A search engine to searching in other venues

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ITSME / the operating system

Based on Linux

The front-end is perfectly coupled with the underlying Linux operating system, so

that the system performs effectively

The front - end is based on a newly conceived interface design allowing users to

understand effortlessly what is going on, even when changes are not generated

by the user

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The migration service

Associating applications running on Vista and/or Mac OS to the applications running on Linux, allowing users to continue working on their files

Selecting a Vista (Mac OS) emulator to run applications not supported by Linux

Putting by default in the Limbo the contents of the previous machine not yet

located immediately in a story

Defining the interaction protocol for creating new venues and placing objects

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ITSME / further improvements

A new Linux file system, where files can be tagged, linked and have an XML structure

An email system supporting conversations, with bi-directional links between messages and attachments

A browser locating its bookmarks in the file system

Navigation systems within venues

Multiple views of venues

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Development milestones

A three - year process

Two years for the development of the front-end

(spring 2008 - spring 2010)

One year and a half for the development of a hardware prototype

(spring 2009 - autumn 2010)

Two years for the development of the migration support system

(autumn 2008 - autumn 2010)

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The help we need

Three active communities, supporting Itsme from the very beginning

Research (CSCW, KM; ID)

Open source software (Linux community)

High-Tech industry (particularly in Europe)

Good coverage of Itsme milestones by media and research community world-

wide

Support from public institutions in Italy and Europe

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Next steps in communication

An interactive web site (Web 2.0)

On line testing of the concept

Presentations in major Universities/cities all around the world

Courses at major Universities and Educational Institutions all around the world

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Selling an innovation

Proving Itsme's with added value with respect to competitors

Proving system and after market - assistance reliability of the Itsme initiative

Granting small migration costs (moving from Vista or Mac OS to Itsme is not more

costly than moving from one version to another of those systems)

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The company

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The ITSME team

A growing multi-disciplinary team organized in three work areas:

Interaction Design

Development and Open Source Software

Communication and Innovation

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The partners of ITSME

Giorgio De Michelis, who is its CEO

A group (≥20) of founding partners, subscribing the majority of its capital

A group of academic institutions (among which, University of Milano - Bicocca,

whose it is a spin-off)

The managers of the company, who will receive warrants, allowing them to

participate in value creation

Venture capitalists, who will provide the financial resources needed to reach its

objectives

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The Scientific Committee

A growing group of senior scholars in the field advising the company on its activities:

Alfonso Fuggetta (Politecnico di Milano and Cefriel)

Patrizia Marti (University of Siena)

Roberto Polillo (University of Milano - Bicocca)

Marco Susani (Motorola Corp., Chicago)

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The Advisory Board

A group of senior managers and entrepreneurs advising the company on its business plans. Among its members:

Elserino Piol (chair)

Luca De Michelis

Roberto Galimberti

Emanuele Marcianò

Roberto Polillo

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The ITSME Institute

A non-profit association, called ITSME Institute, will be created to better access public funding for open source code development

Giorgio De Michelis and Itsme will control the Institute

The Association will be open to research and academic institutions

The Association will allow significant cost reduction, if design and development

will be funded by public institutions

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Thank you for your attention!

[email protected]

www.itsme.it