The DataPortability Project March 2008 Report

Since the emergence of the data portability movement in November 2007, a significant amount of attention continues to surround the resulting DataPortability Project. In every month since, this global volunteer project has continued to grow, while concrete outputs are developed and delivered. This report highlights some of the activities the individuals and organizations involved in the DataPortability Project have accomplished in the past month and what is coming in the future. You can find more information about the Project by navigating to the multiple resources on the main site: http://dataportability.org/

DataPortability.org News for March 2008

Highlights

1. DataPortability Project Road Map: Goals put forward in the initial Project Road Map continue to move ahead with the Invitation phase. New high profile individuals and companies will announce that they are joining the DataPortability Project in April. The Investigation phase is driving cross-team deliverables, including the formation of the DataPortability: In Motion Podcast show.
2. DataPortability Processes: Workflow and Decision Making Processes continue to be part of the Steering Group's discussion threads, and this month we moved one step closer to having some processes that everyone can support. From developer to marketer, everyone is ready to start doing more, now that we've covered every angle of how to do it. The detailed workflow has moved to the Wiki for final discussion, and some projects are already using this workflow to test it (see Item 3 below). A special taskforce will finalise the details of what has become an evolving social experiment for people organizing around a common goal.
3. Proposal for Specification Development Process: After various conversations via Skype and the Discussion Threads, members of the Technical Action Group, with input from others in Steering and Evangelism, drafted a wiki page as a proposal for a method to develop new specifications. The basic summary recommendation is that we split the work into two types of documents - technical recommendations for indicating support of a given protocol, and technical implementations for indicating methods to work with those technologies. Read more and add comments and suggestions on the Wiki page.
4. DataPortability Logo -- cease-and-desist no more: The logo competition moved closer to the community voting phase. Submissions came to a close, with more than 400 designs under consideration. Judges are selecting the best designs, with a shortlist presented to the community for public voting. Community voting will begin soon and we hope to announce the winner during the Web 2.0 San Francisco conference week in April.
5. "What Does DataPortability Mean to Me" Video Project: More than twenty videos were sent to the project as a result of our effort to capture positions on what DataPortability means. We are aggregating them all to showcase the diverse views of "What DataPortability Means to Me."

Update: Action Groups

The DataPortability Action Groups each tell a chapter of the DataPortability.org story. They are the lifeblood of the initiative, where they make things happen. As the months progress, each Action Group continues to self-organize around emerging issues and the arrival of new volunteer talent, at the same time developing roadmaps and action plans for their specific topics. You can find the results on the various Action Groups pages. This month's highlights are presented below.

The Steering Action Group

Group Definition: The Steering Action Group helps set the direction and sustain the DataPortability Project as a cohesive whole. It consists of representatives from the other action groups and individuals who wish to help set the direction of the project.

March Highlights

• Project roadmap: A core element of the DataPortability Project's mission is to capture the significant results already delivered by individuals and groups working to identify all sides of what makes data portable -- philosophically as well as technologically. The Steering Action Group is helping by making sure the project is inviting participation and documenting the who's who and what's what behind every such effort. So far, we have identified more than 60 such communities, individuals and tools/frameworks.
• People and nations: The Steering Action Group now has more than 65 members within the Discussion Board and on average twelve attendees on each call . We have global participation from most continents on our fortnightly calls and continue to test the governance processes to move the project forward
• DataPortability Processes: Workflow and Decision Making Processes continue to be part of the Steering Group's discussion threads, and this month we moved one step closer to having some processes that everyone can support. A special taskforce is finalising the discussions and reporting by the end of April on its recommendations for operating improvements. This will represent a landmark in the continued evolution of this project.
• Podcast: Meeting agendas and minutes are always published (see March 4th, March 19th, April 1st), and you can listen to our conference calls by subscribing to the podcast feed: iTunes | Feedburner | Via Email

The Technical Action Group

Group Definition: The Technical Group is in charge of curating the Design goals, Use Cases and Technical Blueprint development. In all aspects, the goal is to find and contextualize existing work from other groups to weave them into a story - not to invent or discuss the problems/solutions from scratch.

March Highlights

• Our research phase is underway: We are defining what constitutes a use case, design principles and implementation patterns.
• *Proposal for Specification Development Process: * Members of the Technical Action Group drafted a wiki page as a proposal for a method to develop new specifications. The basic summary recommendation is that we split the work into two types of documents - technical recommendations for indicating support for a given protocol, and technical implementations for indicating methods to work with those technologies. Read more and share comments and suggestions on the Wiki page.
• Labs: Out of the San Francisco Meeting and various Skype Chat discussions, the concept of Labs is under discussion. It refers to the experiments of technologists currently underway. Included on this new page is a template for submitting results to DataPortability.org or starting an experiment. More to follow for the April report as to how the Labs and the Specification for Development Process are finalized.

The Policy Action Group

Group Definition: Tasked with creating a Policy Blueprint. This group will largely feed off of issues identified by the Technical Action Group as well as other discussions about broader issues such as privacy, user rights, law, and more.

March Highlights

While we conduct research ... the Policy Action Group also is discussing how members will work on consolidating and communicating results -- specifically, the best Web locations and tools for communication, how and when best to move conversations from personal blogs over to project pages, and keeping to the project's stated scope. The issues include how to organize decision making without over-centralizing it and agreement on methods for ensuring all decisions are taken with all possible contributors heard.

The Evangelism Action Group

Group Definition: Tasked with managing all internal and external content, collaboration, and communications, this group maintains documentation, manages media relations, and develops information products that ensure consistent message and effective collaboration between the Action Groups.

March Highlights

• Launch of the DataPortability: In Motion Podcast show
  • 3/28/2008: Kingsley Idehen, CEO of OpenLink Software, about his views of data portability and accessibility. Listen
  • DataPortability: In-Motion Podcast - Series Information
  • Subscribe to the podcast feed: iTunes | Feedburner | Via Email

• Issues visibility: Check out who's saying and writing what about data portability in the Press Roomor on this collection of news feeds among the highlighted links below.
  • Chris Saad SXSW Download Squad Interview
  • Chris Saad interviewed by Loren Feldman 1938 Media
  • Sydney Morning Herald Attention Economy 'needs' data portability- March 11th,
  • The Economist - Everywhere and nowhere- March 19th
  • Certification Communications Magazine - Data Portability March, 2008
  • ReadWriteWeb- Mark Zuckerberg on Data Portability: An Interview March 10th
  • TechCrunch- Michael Arrington - FriendFeed, The Centralized Me, and Data Portability - March 30th
  • Microsoft Partners with Top Social Networks to Put Users at the Center of their Data
  • CNET- At Developer Garage, Zuckerberg talks data portability, challenges abroad- March 10th
• Speeches and presentations:
  • Christian Scholz -Barcamp Ruhr Essen, March 2008
  • John Breslin - WebCamp on Social Network Portability Kingsley Hotel, Cork / 2nd March 2008 (Slides)
  • Phil Wolff - Emerging Communications Conference, March 2008
  • ** Bonus Video: Chris Saad on Data Portability at The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam (Actually from April 4th not March)
• Evangelism biweekly Conference Call was kicked off on March 27th,

• Reference library: You, too, can become an expert in data portability. Our experts share the places they go to get up to speed.

• Found in translation: We want to know the words for "data portability" in every language on the planet. Visit this page to see how we're doing.

• Logo competition: The excitement builds as our judges makes their selections for finalists. Submissions came to a close, with more than 400 designs under consideration. Judges at the time of this report are voting on a short list, ready for community voting in the second half of April.

• "What DataPortability Means to Me": This video project's submission deadline was March 31st. There was a total of twenty submissions some with multiple videos that were tagged 'dataportabilityandme'. Submissions can be seen on DataPortability and Me Video Project page and include some contenders for the DataPortability theme song! Next step is to aggregate and create a video of the aggregated video. We'll attempt to have this finished in time for the Cannes Film Festival, if not the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

• Coming soon to a screen, hotel, hall or bar near you: Check out the eventshappening in the data portability universe.

The Implementation Action Group

Group Definition: Tasked with assisting developers in implementing the given standards and blueprints that enable Data Portability.

This activity of this group has been paused, pending suggestions that it merge with the Technical action group. It's future will be considered under the new proposed workflow model, a governance issue that the Steering Action group is currently working on

Goals for April

• Continue interviews with data portability giants_. _ Continue talking and documenting best practices with everyone who has examined the issue or is developing new technology around it.
• Organizational Process. Finalize the process for all DataPortability activities.
• Put 'Development' Projects into the Project workflow now being finalised.
• Announce the addition of more vendors as members of the DataPortability Project.
• *Announce the new DataPortability logo and the DataPortability.org message platform. * The judges panel has selected the finalists. Community voting is next, then the winner and the message platform.
• Begin to conclude the research phase, which, by the end of April will have marked two full months of outreach. Whilst we intend to continue the investigations and research for the life of the DataPortability Project, our focus will shift to following our roadmap to the "design" phase. We recognize the community is wanting deliverables and information they can see.

About this report

• Do you have questions about the monthly reports or content to contribute to the next report? Please contact Mary Trigiani (mtrigiani@foldier.com) or Daniela Barbosa (danielavbarbosa@gmail.com).