Speech for The United Kingdom Online User Group (UKOLUG) 20th Birthday Conference 15 July 1998 Manchester, England, UK TITLE: Balancing Technology and Competence ABSTRACT: The World Wide Web gives us an unparalleled medium for communication, information, and interaction. Today, Web and Internet technologies play an important role in electronic commerce and other applications. But what are we doing as users and developers of online information to improve information quality? I conclude that our goal should be to create competent communication systems and engage in meaning-making activities. URL: The online version of this speech is at: http://www.december.com/present/ukolug98.html NAME: John December TITLE/STATUS: President of December Communications, Inc. PERSONAL BIO: John December (johndecember@gmail.com, http://www.december.com) is president of December Communications, Inc. and the publisher of Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine and several widely used and frequently accessed World Wide Web-based reference publications about the Internet and the Web. An experienced Internet writer, teacher, software developer, and author, he holds an M.S. in Computer Science and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and is a PhD Candidate in Communication and Rhetoric at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is co-author of the books, "The World Wide Web Unleashed" and "HTML & CGI Unleashed," and author of "Presenting Java" all published by Sams.net. TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS: At the conference, I will present my talk using computer-based visuals. I'll require a computer with a Web browser installed, a live Internet connection, and the screen output of the computer projected onto a screen so that the audience can see it. No requirement for disks of any kind. I will connect to http://www.december.com/present/ukolug98.html for my presentation. Introduction The main point of my talk is that we as online users and developers must be more proactive. Instead of merely being consumers, we must winnow through the many emerging technologies to find what is competent, supports our work processes, and fulfills our own vision of what we want online. The Context of the Web The Web's technical organization is distributed, non-hierarchical, and interactive. This gives us the familiar environment we have now: one in which there is much innovation, new technologies, and new opportunities. Also, Web roles and its uses allow a much more diverse set of producer, consumer, and producer-consumer relationships than in any other media. Indeed, the Web offers us entirely different media characteristics than the mediated forms of communication that have evolved over thousands of years. Web Technologies and Applications We have seen the rise of client/server systems, hypertext, Internet protocols, gateway programming, and richer interactivity. In the present, we see emerging Internet technologies such as: ActiveX, Broadway, DHTML, Push, HTML 4, Inferno, Java, JavaScript, VRML, and XML. Each of these technologies has strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, some of these technologies can be best described as hype. Of these technologies, I think Java and XML have the most merit, as they conform to what I would characterize as the necessary qualities of "competent" communication systems (more on this later). The future of Internet/Web technologies could go two ways: one, toward meaning- related standards (for example, XML); or, two, toward hyped, proprietary, junk technology that makes the Web the "CB Radio" of the early twenty-first century. The World Wide Web Consortium has failed to articulate a vision of what an open Web should be. The constant press of new HTML versions keeps developers confused; the bastardization of HTML from the very outset, I think, has done enormous harm to the Web. Developers seduced by new technologies often get tempted into foolish things. The applications of Web technologies to applications such as electronic commerce, education, and others are quite extensive and well known. But what are we doing as users and developers of online information to improve information quality? The Real Challenge The biggest technological issue facing us on the web is not finding new gadgets, software, hardware, services, it is flourishing in this "wild" environment where it seems that new is always better. Therefore, the real challenge in Web technologies is not to constantly find new ones. Instead, it is to find ones that work to meet our needs. Our goal should be to create competent communication systems and engage in meaning-making activities. Competent Communication Systems What do I mean by competent communication systems? I mean systems that have three important qualities that contribute to their value: Open: systems that are built on publicly available standards. Open systems are expandable, applications and software can come from multiple vendors. Open systems foster a marketplace of content rather than a competition for market share. Agile: systems that require minimal resources to operate so that a range of hardware platforms can support them. An agile system offers multiple entry points for use--for example, an agile Web site would allow users with cellular phones to access the information via voice commands. Agile systems are flexible they don't fail easily. Lucid: systems that help people accomplish work. Lucid systems support the range of processes that people do in their work. Lucid systems do not bring the focus to themselves. Lucid systems are not bloated, over-engineered applications that become a nightmare to install, use, maintain, and upgrade. Meaning-Making Activities Finally, we can engage in meaning-making activities: Process-oriented changes: We can look at our work more in terms of continuous process improvement than in patching together flaky products. The application of quality concepts to the Web is a natural fit. Technical: We can choose technologies like XML that will give us a way to define logical structure in documents. Advocacy: We can build leadership through standards bodies and major consortiums to support competent systems. Personal: We can develop an attitude that is not swayed by the hype-cycles that pass for "progress" in this industry. Conclusion Competence in technology is a quality that is often under-valued. In the constant commercial pressure for newer and newer technologies, we often get lost in the hype. We can do better by choosing competent communication systems that are open, agile, and lucid. These will insure that our technology allows us to find our own human expression. We can engage in meaning-making activities that focus on process-oriented aspects of our work and that build quality in what we do. We can pick technical innovations such as XML to build meaning into our Web works. We can advocate and build leadership in standards bodies and major consortiums to support our goal for competent systems. Finally, we can develop a personal attitude that is not swayed by the hype-cycles that pass for "progress" in the Internet industry. We can take major responsibility for creating better Web technologies. ====