Re: [ontolog-forum] Data, Silos, Interoperability, and Agility

[Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 9/19/13 10:13 PM, Hans Polzer wrote:

Good choice, David.

 

I thought it was amusing that the presentation talks about breaking down silos, while citing a bunch of institutional silos, such as IOS and the Apple app store, Android and the Android market, not to mention the cell phone network(s), and talking as if different companies didn’t constitute silos in their own right.

Yes, but did you catch on to the fundamental issue of Web effect by way of the Web being woven into these systems? A less visible Web with ever increasing impact etc..

As I’ve said before, nothing much happens without silos. Note that the Internet and the WWW are both silos as well, albeit quite broad in diameter.

They aren't silos in the sense that you can bridge them using standards. For instance, HTTP URIs usage doesn't imply they are a sole mechanism for making data or content web-like, it simply puts the ubiquity of the World Wide Web (re. Hyperlink based Entity Name Resolution ) on a platter for other networks. The very same way DNS placed Machine Name Resolution on a platter for the World Wide Web.

There are numerous networks out there that have no connection to the Internet at all.

Yes!

That doesn't stop their Documents and Data Objects from being comprised of Web-like structure represented in digital form. Computers have always had this capability -- its intrinsic to operating systems that bridge hardware and software en route to collectively delivering the experience we refer to as "computing".
 

And of course, the Internet itself has sub-silos, thanks to national actors, and it connects intranets to each other, silos in their own right.

 

The issue isn’t silo vs. non-silo; it is whether the degree of silo-ness is appropriate to the objectives of the entity sponsoring/implementing the silo, i.e., a “Goldilocks” question – not too much, not too little: just right. Note that the answers to Goldilocks’ questions aren’t necessarily static, either. Give her a few years and she might like Mama Bear’s bed better!  And the degree of silo-ness is a many-dimensioned concept, not a single factor such as how “openly-accessible” data or services are, or what the nature of the data representation conventions/mechanisms are (and these example factors actually have sub-factors and complexities of their own).

A silo to me is an enclave on a network that's fire-walled by way of proprietary standards re., data access i.e., an impediment to data flow.

 

Lastly, silos need not connect directly with each other.

When is that useful re. data access? Note, when I say that it doesn't imply unfettered access to data.

Indeed, that’s not really a viable approach since each silo has limited scope and low probability/low bandwidth communication needs with most other silos. Third-party brokers (like “well-connected” nodes in scale-free networks) can facilitate interoperability across domain and “silo-grouping” boundaries. The blackboard type of functionality mentioned earlier is only one way that third party brokers can be implemented. Travel site data aggregators are another example.  And can you imagine Facebook service functionality without Facebook? Everyone querying each other directly using Internet/SW protocols?

 

Remember that we are each our own individual silo as well, as is this forum with its own rules and conventions.

We all have personal silos in our heads. We are individuals. That said, we value communication via words, sounds, sight, taste, and hearing. Would you prefer to exist without those means of communication, and remain human (i.e., a cognitively endowed social creature) ?

Silos don't work! They've never worked. If they did, we won't be having this exchange amongst other things.

Are we making all our personal data files network accessible (with appropriate access  and encryption controls, of course)? If the de-silofication sauce is good for the goose, why not the gander? The answer, of course, is that there is typically a different risk/cost/reward tradeoff for different individuals and different types of human institutions/silos. So let’s be clear about the context parameters and their validity value ranges when we argue that some aspect of silo-like behavior/design is to be avoided. It’s OK to have limited scope, and it’s OK to embrace diversity. It’s generally less OK to be vague about what that scope is or what degree of diversity you are willing/able to cope with.

I can be human and private. That's been the case before computing, why should modern computing attempt to break what exists?

Silos break our ability to communicate over networks (Silicon or DNA based). They stifle our agility. They stifle our ability to evolve.

Kingsley

 

Hans

 

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Eddy
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2013 8:43 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Data, Silos, Interoperability, and Agility

 

Kingsley -

 

On Sep 19, 2013, at 2:20 PM, Kingsley Idehen wrote:

How is the World Wide Web vetted? 

[1] http://www.slideshare.net/yiibu/reset-the-web/77 -- let the Data flow !

 

 

I'd file that under "content free information."

 

____________________________
David Eddy
Babson Park, MA

deddy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 
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