Report from SIIT 2007
On Friday of last week I was in Calgary (sans baggage; thanks United!) speaking at the Fifth International Conference on Standardization and Innovation in Information Technology, SIIT 2007, hosted by the University of Calgary. As I was in Washington DC for ANSI World Standards Week on Wednesday and Thursday I missed the first day (and apparently some good papers), but was there for the second. Slides for presentations may be found on the conference web site.
My presentation (paper and slides) was on the convergence and harmonization of accredited and non-accredited standards organizations. I introduced my presentation as being a bit like Mythbusters, but unfortunately without the explosions. There are lots of perceptions about consortia and about accredited or recognized standards bodies, but these perceptions depend a lot on who you ask. While many perceptions are based on historical practices these are changing and the two types of organizations are becoming more and more like each other. The issues of openness, democracy, balance, process, governance, expense, etc. are not binaries; each may be measured along a spectrum, and generalizations such as “all consortia are closed groups” or “all accredited organizations have slow processes” are simply not true. All organizations have the same business challenges of financing their work. Recognized bodies are developing processes that allow consortia work to be submitted for national and international approval, and consortia are participating in these programs because the recognize the value that such recognition can give.
I suggested further that many non-accredited standards organizations are not accredited simply because they don’t see the benefit in doing so, but are otherwise qualified to become accredited. Rather than looking at accreditation vs. non as a way to describe an organization, a better way to distinguish standards organizations would be to look at the organization’s emphasis on anticipatory vs. retrospective standards, the levels of satisfying industry and market needs, use of modern infrastructure, their openness to public review and inspection, emphasis on non-sales revenue, and the extent to which they promote adoption.
I’ll mention just one other presentation, the one given by Dr. Laura DeNardis of Yale University on the political implications of open standards. She says “Technologies embody values and, once developed, have political implications.” Standards can define the capabilities of, for example, an electronic balloting system or the availability and openness of public documents. Further, technologies and standards can define what is allowed by law when then they define what is technically possible. Laws and government activities in the areas of individual privacy, property rights, free speech, disaster response, national security, and global trade are all influenced by standards and what is technically possible.
DeNardis also discussed the concept and definition of openness in standards, and referred to work done by Ken Krechmer of the University of Colorado. Just as in my comparison of standards organizations, openness of standards is not a binary yes/no, but rather a spectrum of openness using a variety of criteria during development, implementation, and usage. The question is not how open something is, but whether the level of openness is appropriate for the specific context. I’ll recommend that you take a look at the slides for this presentation.