As We May Work
Andy van Dam
Brown University
April 17, 2008
Roadmap

My personal and selective history of hypertext

from Vannevar Bush's Memex to

Engelbart's NLS/Augment to

Brown's HES/FRESS/IGD and

Intermedia to Tim Berners-Lee's WWW

The age of the traditional WWW

Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0

Traction TeamPage example

Speculations on the future of Enterprise 2.0

what facilities are still missing

what is needed to provide them
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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Vannevar Bush – As We May Think
Memex (1945)
"As We May Think", Vannevar Bush
in The Atlantic Monthly, 1945
 purpose: to cope with
information explosion
 personal use
 microfilm-based, multi-media
 associative trails and
professional trail blazers
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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Memex – antecedents
Japanese linked poetry
Renga and Basho
Western religious commentaries
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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Engelbart's NLS (oNLine System) - 1968
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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Engelbart's NLS (oNLine System) - 1968
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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Engelbart's NLS (oNLine System) - 1968
"Mother of All Demos" (1968)
 Bush's vision influenced Engelbart to devote his
career to augmentation of human intellect



gestation since 1951
forerunners of NLS in the mid-60's
Focus – collaborative work groups
 Technologies introduced



mini-computer + video terminals with mouse, keyboard
collaboration tools for co-located as well distributed
groups
o
o
simultaneous voice and screen sharing
chalk-passing protocol for control of cursor
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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My personal history - overview

Brown University projects

1967: HES (Hypertext Editing System)
o

1968: FRESS (File Retrieval and Editing System)
o


partnership with Ted Nelson
influenced by HES and Engelbart's NLS

1979: IGD (Interactive Graphical Documents)

1982: Intermedia
1990: EBT (Electronic Book Technologies)
1995: Brown/MIT Bush Symposium in honor of
50th Anniversary of "As We May Think"
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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HES (Hypertext Editing System) - 1967
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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HES (Hypertext Editing System) - 1967

Inspired by Theodor Nelson's vision of hypertext



Ted as co-designer
Experiment with non-linear information structures

based on fine-grained links

e.g. cross-linked database of electro-plating patents
Read/write tool, no access controls
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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HES (Hypertext Editing System) - 1967

Simple graphical interface


commands provided via simple function keypad.
insertion points and character strings indicated with
light pen

Produced NASA Apollo documentation

Expensive System 360/50 mainframe hardware

with expensive IBM 2250 vector display

thus single user
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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FRESS (File Retrieval&Editing System)-1968


Influenced by HES and Engelbart's NLS
 information structures
o preserved HES's arbitrary length text
o fine-grained links now bi-directional and tagged
o completely difference data structures for scalability
 user interface
o vector graphics, soft fonts, e.g., Greek
o added NLS-style hierarchy, and access and viewing
controls ("view specs") down to the character level
o supported both a primitive GUI and an NLS-like
command language for less capable terminals
 intrinsically multi-user via time-sharing system and cheap
terminals
Used in production in a variety of courses and projects
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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FRESS (File Retrieval&Editing System)-1968

Influenced by HES and Engelbart's NLS

information structures
o
o
o
o

user interface
o
o
o

preserved HES's arbitrary length text
plus optional NLS-style hierarchy
fine-grained links now bi-directional and tagged
emphasis on scalability, e.g., new data structure
both a primitive GUI, and for less capable terminals, an NLS-like
command language
access and viewing controls ("view specs") down to character level
vector graphics, soft fonts, e.g., Greek
intrinsically multi-user
o
time-sharing system and cheap terminals
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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FRESS (File Retrieval&Editing System)-1968


Used in production in a variety of courses and projects
1975 - used in a course on "Man, Energy, and
Environment"


1976 - used in a course on the critical analysis of
British and American poetry



sponsored by Exxon
sponsored by NEH (National Endowment for Humanities)
rich interlinked corpus of poetry, professional criticism, and student
commentary based on hundreds of source documents
First online collaborative scholarly community

every student and instructor read and commented on everyone else's
online analyses
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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IGD (Interactive Graphical Documents)-1979
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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IGD (Interactive Graphical Documents)-1979
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IGD (Interactive Graphical Documents)-1979

Inverted the text focus of HES and FRESS


o
overviews with directed graphs of page icons
o
simple animations
o
automatically generated timelines, tag lists for visual
searching
Oriented towards online e-books


emphasized
primarily for technical documentation, e.g., sonar
systems
Context-sensitive links and trails


access control
history
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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Intermedia – IRIS (Institute for Research in
Information and Scholarship) - 1982
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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Intermedia – IRIS (Institute for Research in
Information and Scholarship) - 1982

Object-oriented on all levels


Separate link database


allowed multiple link sets ("webs") over same content
Unix-style access control


arbitrary nesting of objects
person-group-world: read-write-execute
Used in multiple courses

cell biology

planetary geology

Context 32 (a literature course)

...
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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EBT (Electronic Book Technologies) - 1990
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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EBT (Electronic Book Technologies) - 1990

Spinout from Brown University

Combined two previously unconnected technologies


hypertext

SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language)
Commercial product

focused on real-world needs of groups, e.g., Boeing

production and use of technical documentation

stylesheet-driven behavior and appearance

DynaText- standalone reader

DynaBase – content management platform

DynaWeb – browser-based
reader
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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Summary of pre-WWW contributions

Non-linear & multi-media information structures

branching trails within bi-directional graphs, even
hierarchies...

bi-directional, fine-grained, tagged links

conditional links

Read/write interactive user interfaces

Access & viewing controls

Multi-user

Metadata
However: all were closed systems!
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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The age of the traditional WWW – 1991

Strengths from the beginning

from closed systems to open and universal access

scalability

textual links you can edit and email


a platform that makes it possible to build search
engines and other apps over WWW. no one had to ask
permission.
much lower cost of entry for application development
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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The age of the traditional WWW – 1991

Strengths from the beginning

open and universal access

scalability

textual links that can be edited and emailed

universal development platform

o
Web-centric crawlers, search engines, and applications
o
much more lightweight, agile development
therefore, much lower cost of entry for application
development
o
enables ASPs (Application Services Providers)
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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The age of the traditional WWW – 1991

Weaknesses

read-only; authoring became a form of programming
o
HTML lost the huge advantage of SGML's
generality, e.g. locked into predefined tag set




XML can be thought of as modern SGML
page-replace to follow a link; no visualization of "you
are here"
non-permanent and thus fragile (the dreaded 404!)
Note: some of these limitations are browser
limitations rather than intrinsic
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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The age of the traditional WWW – 1991

Weaknesses

read-only + forms

authoring became a form of programming
o
HTML lost the huge advantage of SGML's generality

locked into predefined tag set

XML can be thought of as modern SGML

links as unconditional & uni-directional 'goto' pointers

loss of context - no visualization of "you are here"

non-permanent and thus fragile (the dreaded 404!)

Note: some of these limitations are browser
limitations rather than intrinsic WWW limitations
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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Web 2.0 – "Back to the Future"
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Web 2.0 - forces driving change

Technical



WWW platform and applications pervade all areas of life
lightweight interactive tools lower development barriers vs. traditional
transactional ERP suites
Social

social network is THE incumbent technology for young adults
o



"NextGen" lives on web and does instant communications
open source movement
collaborative and emergent (bottom-up) intelligence as change drivers
Business


employees expect their corporate environment to work like the web
new communication tools lead to breakdown of traditional hierarchy
o



virtual organizations emerge within old structures
niche markets become viable due web-based marketing – "long tail"
design cycles accelerate; product lives measured in months
crowdsourcing ("open innovation") experiments, e.g., Proctor and Gamble
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Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
Web 2.0 –> Enterprise 2.0
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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Web 2.0 - components

User experience

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
Tools for users






blogs, wikis, social networking, e.g., MySpace, FaceBook, Mixi,
and location-based mobile social networks, e.g., GyPSii
tagging ("social bookmarking"), collaborative filtering,
3D virtual worlds, e.g., Second Life, multi-user online role-playing
games, e.g., Lord of the Rings Online
search engines
aggregators, e.g., RSS news readers
mashup tools, e.g., Google Mashup Editor, MSFT Popfly, Yahoo Pipes
web authoring, e.g., Adobe Creative Suite™, Microsoft Expression™
Google applications, e.g., Maps, gmail, ... and Google Apps
Tools for developers



Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) for expression and UI
Adobe Flex™ & Microsoft Silverlight™ web application frameworks
SOA (Service Oriented
Architectures) for Web services
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Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
World Wide Telescope Features
Multiple wavelength sky image sets
Links to image and data sources
Simple rich media authoring across
multiple image data sets
Robotic telescope control
Seamless zooming and panning
Communities and KML support
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
3D Earth, planets and panorama data sets
Gigapixel image panoramas
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Web 2.0

Web 2.0 provides: "capabilities"

interaction – moving from passive read-only back to active medium

collaboration support



Enterprise 2.0
but also vulnerabilities: much use of the web is still "too trusting",
e.g., wiki sabotage and cyberterrorism
Enterprise 2.0 needs: "guarantees"

stable content and links – robustness

ability to work within boundaries – security

easier peer-to-peer awareness and collaboration - lateralization
Example: FRESS viewing and editing controls
o
an early (1972) example of boundaries and spaces, e.g.
proposal = main body + summary budget + breakout pages with
(elided) salaries
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Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
Traction TeamPage example
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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Traction TeamPage example


Robust, secure, and linked 'spaces'

interoperates with WWW

version control of internal structure

permanent content and links

wiki and weblog style editable hypertext in spaces
Spaces define boundaries for customer,
partner, and internal group work

spaces carry role-based and individual permission

search results, tag clouds, drill-down use permissions

provides global views over many active spaces
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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Future - what facilities are needed?

(1/2)
Relationships among groups in business are
important but difficult to visualize



when entering a space (office, conference room, or
auditorium)
o
you know who the audience is, and
o
you know how to interact, using many social and visual cues
should be just as clear and simple in social software
systems
Enterprise 2.0 software designers
o

must learn to think more like architects, who design spaces for
social purposes
but the Internet is much bigger (and more complex, even
more potentially dangerous) than any physical building
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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Future - what facilities are needed? (2/2)

Data security and permanence

corporate data critical to the survival of the enterprise
o

heterogeneous combination of transactional and semi-structured data,
e.g., databases, memos, email, white papers, websites, ...

Enterprise 2.0 activities must integrate traditional data

Web-based SOA “applications” aggregate distributed functionality
o
via WSDL (Web Services Description Language), XSD (XML schema), …
o
dynamic, real-time data access
o
interconnection of multiple heterogeneous data sources and functions
o
but because of potential of introducing “exploits”, need guarantees!!!
Above all – ease of use!

legacy technology inertia very hard to overcome

needs strong incentives to change
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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Future – what do we need to do to make it
happen?



Learn from historical experience and apply it

assign economic value to lessons learned

expect everyone to be able to write as well as read

develop simple, effective metaphors and models
Learn how to design well for group use

to support very large numbers of groups (scalability!)

make social software easy to understand and use, safe
Educate students and teach employees

in development and effective use of Web 2.0 tools

and applying Enterprise 2.0 principles
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008
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“To Infinity and Beyond…”
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