And another Clique Space(TM) value proposition.

About two months ago, I made a submission to an organisation to try to elicit their interest in Clique Space. I was unsuccessful. I think it would be okay to quote some of what I had to say in a web log - especially since they asserted that anything I did submit to them would be treated as non-confidential.

So, here's a paraphrasing of some of the questions they asked, and answers I gave. These questions appear generic enough to be of interest to anyone who may want to think of helping me in realising Clique Space.

I was asked to give a detailed description of the business opportunity:

People have always desired mobility and autonomy in how they conduct their lives. This relationship extends specifically to how they interact with others in work (income generating) and non-work activities. Many types of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) devices empower the individual to greater flexibility with these qualities by keeping communications channels open at a distance.

ICT permit real-time interaction between an arbitrary number of people to occur over an increasing number of communications channels. This will continue an exponential growth trajectory for the foreseeable future.

However, this trend is also producing an intimidating mountain of technology. For each technology that comes to market, users need to grapple with the physical question of using a new device, and they must keep abreast of which other users might have the same device, who they may be representing when they are using the device, which other users may use the device if it is shared between two or more users. All user's must keep changes to their own usage pattern and those of others in case these details change, and attempts to engage one or more users by another one or more users are later perceived by the latter as intrusion when the former are unaware of, or can subvert any changes.

Therefore, adoption of new ICT will encounter growing resistance to their uptake as the number of available technologies increases. People will avoid using ICT because any impressions of enjoyment they may receive from their use are being stymied by an unnavigable morass in the sheer number, variation of their use, and the possibilities of increased probability of privacy invasion. While middle-ware solutions might go some way in reducing the physical barriers, other aspects such as standardisation of a device engagement interface, contact list management, individualised cross-cutting activity audit logging, and individualised cross-cutting device control remain largely unaddressed.

Clique Space will help ameliorate this resistance by providing an answer to what appears to be producing the resistance. It provides a simple and flexible collaboration mechanism that can be extended to work with any device. Although powerful, Clique Space is a simple solution to a significant and growing ICT dilemma.

I was asked to discuss the solution to the above business opportunity:

A Clique Space is realised by a device, or rather a network of collaborating devices called Agent Devices. The individual user connects any other hardware, software, synchronous or asynchronous device – a Client Device – to one of these Agent Devices through an Account that represents that individual self. The activity of all these devices and the interaction with other users generate device and Clique activity on a Clique Space that can be recorded and controlled by the individual.

Multiple Clique Space networks can be federated. These federated networks provide one way for an organisation to administer activity within their own Clique Space, and to coordinate activity between their own, and neighbouring Clique Spaces. Federation establishes administrative sovereignty within an organisation's Clique Space, while permitting regulated control of information between Clique Spaces.

A public Clique Space would function as a common federation hub through which organisational entities might federate their proprietary Clique Space. Anyone who needed to get in contact with any organisation may find that organisation's Clique Space presence through the public Clique Space. Metaphorically, the public Clique Space would function as a city street or town centre where most public interaction would take place.

While I believe it is fair not to expect licensing revenue from usage of the Clique Space implementation in a proprietary Clique Space, I do think substantial revenue would be realised in the cost of federating a proprietary Clique Space to the public Clique Space. Revenue may also be realised by device vendors that wish to register Media Profiles (customisations to the Clique Space for their particular devices) or small organisations who prefer their presence only to be manifest on the public Clique Space through an Account Profile user-role hierarchy. Revenue may also be realised through the provision of a guaranteed level of authentication

User Accounts are freely available and associable on the public Clique Space; anyone can use any account they want. There are, however, many ways of ensuring the authenticity of an individual's usage; but these would depend on characteristics of the devices and other federated Clique Spaces. To reduce the burden of information, I will leave discussion of these to a future meeting.

I was asked to describe the major characteristics of my product:

Although the concept is well-defined, its implementation is still a proof-of-concept. At the time this was written, the prototype is still relatively immature.

However, I envisage that Clique Spaces:

1. collect the activity state of devices connected to them, associating one or more devices with the individual(s) who is/are operating the devices

2. use the device activity state to generate real-time models of individuals as they collaborating

3. provide an opportunity to control collaborations in accordance with cross-cutting, device independent criteria associated with the collaborating individuals.

4. define a uniform media engagement UI which would assist the uptake of new ways of communicating as they became available

5. can be federated according to mutual agreed organisational boundary conditions.

6. have the potential to provide unique ways of connecting devices, including the connection of devices that make up a Clique Space to themselves and other devices.

This list is not an exhaustive compendium of Clique Space's capabilities.

I was asked to outline my company's "go-to-market" strategy

I would expect Clique Space to initially become popular by specialised “early adoption” users. When the product is sufficiently mature, organisations might be approached to trial Clique Space to as a way to coordinate device activity within and between their organisational boundaries.

As Clique Space's versatility gains a reputation, its use would be adopted by a wider collection of individuals both inside and outside organisations, and it is hoped that business, wanting to reach these consumers, may observe a return on expenditure necessary for representing itself in the public Clique Space. This may be a long-duration objective, but one that I believe would attract large revenue.

The holder or licensee of a patent (currently a PCT which expires 15 July 2010) would also have exclusive access to the technology while the patent remained active.

So, there one has it. Indeed, I do my best, and that is all one can ask for.

Another Clique Space(TM) value proposition.

I've been thinking more about the value of Clique Space, and here are a few more suggestions. This web log is taken from another private letter I wrote to someone who has been helping me frame the concept so it can be understood by others.

1. Remote device control.

I believe this is a differentiating quality, because even though there exist some network administration utilities that are capable of remote device administration, I assert that no other technology makes a case for this notion as flexibly as Clique Space.

To comprehend how flexible remote device administration in Clique Space is, one must be comfortable with the concept whereby a Clique Space user is capable of connecting as many devices as one possesses to as many Clique Spaces as one has access to. Amongst those devices (Client Devices) so connected, a user may have one device that gives the user access to a Clique Space View. Through this Clique Space View, the user may also control all Client Devices which they have obtained Connections for, and all Cliques one Owns on all Clique Spaces on has connected this View to.

One might want to obtain a Clique Space Connection for a device that one does not have physical possession of. Although one would have to indicate to Clique Space some address so Clique Space could contact the device in question, one might not have to know anything specific about how that device is located through its own addressing mechanism, because the Clique Space might be informed about how to contact the device in question through the Media Profile that has been installed on the Clique Space by that Clique Space's administrators; all one might have to remember is a generic Clique Space addressing mechanism, and the installed Media Profile might provide a mapping of this address to one specific for the device in question.

Depending largely on the versatility provided by the installed base of Media Profiles, a Clique Space may completely remove from the user, the necessity of having to remember any device specific control semantics. A user might only have to deal with one interface: the interface provided through a Clique Space View to connect a device to Clique Space, control a device within Clique Space, or engage a device within Clique Space with any other device within or outside of Clique Space in a collaboration moderated by Clique Space; the Clique.

2. User privacy assurances through multiple Affiliations.

While other access control systems may have notions of role-based access control, I do not believe any other concept uses this notion with quite the same versatility as Clique Space. Clique Space role-based access control is realised through the Affiliation, which is an association between an Account Profile and an Account. Like an Account, which identifies a single Clique Space user, Account Profiles and Affiliations are Clique Space Elements.

Because an Affiliation is a Clique Space Element, an Affiliation can be published as can the Account and Account Profile to which it relates. Now, regardless of whether a user knows the Account identity of another user, this first user may be unable to enquire on the Account identity of the second because the second user may have instructed Clique Space, through the application of a Limiting Constraint, not to divulge any knowledge of the second user's Account. The first user, instead, would only be able see connections of the second user that were associated (through an Active Affiliation) to the second user's published Affiliation.

Hence, the second user would have a way to assure privacy at the level of specific Client Devices by selecting an Affiliation through which each Client Device Connection is established. A user could therefore maintain multiple presences on multiple Clique Spaces simultaneously under the same Account name. However, owing to the fact that the user manages multiple Affiliations, a user could maintain separate guises and separate, flexible awarenesses to other users.

Now for an anecdote that combines a bit of both points.

This morning, I discovered that I lost my mobile phone. Yesterday evening, I had coffee and cake with a friend at a McDonald's in Wollongong. I did not know that I had left it there, but I was informed of this when my mother told me someone had left a message on her phone telling me my phone was set aside to be picked up. Indeed, I was happy to get it back and thankful to the person; both because they took the time to call my mother who, they probably (and correctly) assumed, would be a good choice of go-between, and for the fact that they understood that the phone was my property and they should make an effort to return it to me.

However, even though they had to go through my contacts or call-log to find a suitable person to send a message to (they chose my mother because she is recorded in my contacts as "Mum") I did feel as though my privacy was violated. This was unavoidable under the circumstances, but with a system like Clique Space, this violation of privacy needn't happen. If my phone were connected to the public Clique Space, and was displaying my Affiliation to the public Clique Space's Account Profile named "Self", the individual who picked it up may be able to get in contact with me directly.

That individual could use a device that offer's a View to the public Clique Space to enquire on my Affiliation, bringing into View any other devices connected under the same affiliation. This individual could then find a compatible device, say, email, and using my email address which is supplied perhaps through a Connection to my email server, contact me directly. This individual would therefore have avoided going through my phone's contact list or call log, and they also would have contacted me directly - removing the possibility that whoever they did decide to contact would not have passed the message on to me.

A Clique Space(TM) value proposition.

What is Clique Space? How does it differ from anything out in the marketplace today?

This question is a nagging one that I haven't yet successfully explained. Here, I quote a piece of a letter I have just written to someone as an attempt to illustrate Clique Space's value. The boldface was added by me here in this blog entry.

Clique Space receives changes in the state of a Client Device which is connected using an Account that represents the individual responsible for that device's operation. The Connection thus formed is activated against an Affiliation so the individual can operate their Client Device in the Clique Space. An individual may obtain as many Active Affiliations for as many Client Devices as they wish, and may assign a level of access to [their Active Affiliations by] other individuals in a way that suits themselves, and any organisation which has created an Affiliation for them. Collaboration between two or more Active Affiliations are registered Cliques in which each Active Affiliation is registered as a Participant.

So, in essence, Clique Space is a user and collaboration activity modelling environment. Clique Space provides the opportunity to 1: collect information concerning an individual's use of one or more Client Devices they are operating, and 2: control the way these Client Devices behave in respect of the individual that is operating them, and the organisation that the individual may elect to be representing while they are operating them.

I do not intended Clique Space replace any existing transport mechanism, nor do I intend that Clique Space would replace an access control layer. It would use what is already there to support Clique Space's intended purpose. Indeed, an existing system may create the equivalent of Accounts, Media Profiles, and Account Profiles. These comparable entities would manifest themselves within Clique Space so that Affiliations can be assigned and Connections and Active Affiliations can be obtained.

How's that? Let me know...

Clique Space(TM) and more development.

Yet another development update.

I have decided to delay implementation of the Agent Collaboration Clique Space for now because the Clique Space semantics have still to be sufficiently developed, and a collaboration of cooperating agents is not something that I'm trying to prove. It'll come later.

So, currently, I can get a Client Device to connect, and can tell its Connection to disconnect. I can get the Connection to activate, and can tell the resulting Active Affiliation to deactivate. I can get this Active Affiliation to form a bipartite Clique with the Active Affiliation of the serving Agent Device, and I can tell this Clique to disband. In short, I've got a functioning skeleton for device connection semantics. It's looking good.

Currently, however, this communication is only from Client Device to serving Agent Device. I have a very strong idea of how I want to implement a system that alerts Client Devices in state and existential changes in the Elements they have obtained projections for. But for now, I'll implement (what perhaps is) a compromise solution that gets the Agent Device to alert connected Client Devices of changes.

This could be implemented before I present the prototype in March 11 at Wollongong uni. See this site for details.

Clique Space(TM) and NSW politics.

Again, another post (this time to an ABC television programme called the 7:30 report). I re-post it here because there is no guarantee at the time this blog entry was written that my post will appear there. It's 375 words long, and the web site to which I posted the original says that one's posts should not be longer than 100 words. So, at least I can guarantee that it appears here.

Here it is:

Mr O'Brien. I hope you'll excuse me for a reply that is more than 100 words; this is succinct as I could manage.

If you would like to discuss solutions to Australia's population and urban crises, you might like to include work from home in your discussion.

I am from Wollongong, and since I started in my professional capacity as a software designer, I have had to deal continually with the issue of displacement.

I like Wollongong, and I like software development. Almost 25 years ago, I took to software development as a career choice because I found that programming computers was an interesting and absorbing occupation that I could do from home.

Now, 2.5 decades later, I find that in order to participate in this career, one has to entertain what I consider the pathological association between this profession and a need to physically collocate. The consequence is ultimately to leave ones home town or to spend a significant fraction of one's life commuting from where one lives to an office desk where one works.

This is intolerable to me, and the antithesis of why I started down this career path.

If you like to get Mr Carr on your programme, and if you like to let him say the debate is over with regard to the building of concrete enclaves and sucking people into them, then maybe you might like to let me, another individual, take an opposing view, and let me talk about the troubles I've had in achieving my happiness - especially when such a man as Mr Carr, as premier of NSW, might systematically, with pernicious cajoling intent, thwart my goals in life and replace them with what he thinks they should be.

It is a pity that I cannot give you my email address privately so that you might have a chance to respond privately to my suggestion. However, rather than quoting my email address here, look up "Clique Space" (include the quotes) on Google. Do this, and you shall find a lot of information on a concept that would help managers and employees realise a virtual work-from-home environment. You will also find out how to get in contact with me, as well as a lot more about me.

Clique Space(TM) and yet another blog entry.

After listening to an article on the news, I wrote the following to the person featured in it. I thought I'd share it here because I think it's a good letter, and I invite anyone else to act as the letter instructs. The only thing I have done to change the content is to remove the first few sentences that could identify who the recipient might be. I do respect people's right to anonymity.

Here it is:

I have invented something that I have called Clique Space, and I would perhaps like you to indulge your imagination on just what it does, as there is no practical implementation of the technology [interjection: just yet - though at the time this blog was put up (a day after this letter was sent) I am tantalisingly close]. I am putting a proof-of-concept together between writing emails to people like yourself about it.

Imagine a system where you can connect any personal device you possess to it. Other people do the same. You connect each device to it through an Account that represents you as an individual. You can also elect to represent yourself, your employer, or any other club or association you might be a member of, and this representation acts as a way to limit the visibility of the devices you have connected to others, and maybe also the way these devices interact. This is basically what Clique Space does.

I believe Clique Space is not a Google anything, an Apple anything, or any other type of anything, but I do think that the anythings one possesses can be connected to a Clique Space so that the devices can be controlled, and so individuals can take device activity audit logs of any interactions they may have through the devices while they are connected to a Clique Space. Clique Space does not replace the mechanism that devices already use to communicate, so it isn't a middle-ware anything either.

I have, for a very long time thought that this idea is a sorely needed piece of a device integration puzzle that will become more obvious as time moves on, and so, I have registered an international patent for the technology. I'd like to know from you whether you think my idea might offer the same promise.

No one's really bashing down my door to help me implement this system, but I think that's because I'm one person who chooses, for lifestyle reasons, not to go to where the action might be. Hence, I would also like to know if you might to perhaps write about it. I can give you more info on Clique Space.

Get back to me when you can.

Thanks,

Owen.

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www.cliquespace.net
Clique Space(TM) Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=81335296379
Owen's Garden of Thought: http://owenpaulthomas.blogspot.com/

Clique Space(TM) and collaborative devices.

All Client Devices are collaborative for by definition, they collaborate with Clique Space. Because a device would (also, by definition) become a Client Device if it were capable of obtaining a Connection with a Clique Space, any such device can therefore be called collaborative, even if the only thing it is collaborating directly with is a Clique Space system.

In the abstract of my research report on Clique Space, I said that Clique Space models device collaborations over an arbitrary number of media. I have always considered Clique Space a type of medium, and the Agent Devices that make a Clique Space system to be Client Devices that collaborate in a Clique Space. I have steadfastly asserted that a Clique Space can be modelled inside itself or another Clique Space as a Clique where the Participants are the Agent Devices.

Hence, I intend any device that can be connected to a Clique Space - including devices that are not collaborative per se to be collaborative merely for the fact that each Client Device is collaborating with the Clique Space system. A car, a golf ball, a washing machine, a rotorlacter, etc. (if any can be connected to a Clique Space) are collaborative devices.