MP-SOFI-SD Project

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MP-SOFI-SD Project
WorldFuture 2003 the Annual Conference of the
World Future Society San Francisco, CA, USA.
(July 19, 2003)
Futures Research Around the World - Part 1

• A Full-Scale Implementation of SOFI

AC/UNU Millennium Project, Silicon Valley
Node Peter P. Yim ltpeter.yim_at_cim3.comgt (v 3.01)
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Outline

• The Mission
• MP-SOFI-SD Project Phases
• Core Concepts and Values
• A Look at the System
• Who are the users
• What can one do with it
• Looking at the Big Picture

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Mission

• To build on the previous research of the
  Millennium Project, including the spreadsheet
  model, algorithm and collection of data, and
  progressively develop it into an Internet based
  futures study and analysis tool supported over an
  open knowledge system.

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MP-SOFI-SD Project Phases

• Phase 0 Strategizing, planning, staging
  requirements gathering.
• Phase 1 Initial software tool implementation and
  the launch of a community of practice around
  SOFI.
• Subsequent Phases Continuous development and
  improvement of the SOFI system, content and
  knowledge through the collaboration of open
  communities that are augmented by the Internet
  and other technologies.

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Core Concepts Values driving this work

• The SOFI Methodology
• The "Bootstrap" Paradigm
• Serving a wide variety of applications
• Collaboration among participants and stakeholders
  in the form of virtual communities
• The notion of "Openness"

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The System (1/3) Design Criteria

• Interoperability
• Openness
• Standards Compliance
• Enterprise-class Robustness
• Scalability
• Reliability
• Security

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Architecture
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The User Interface
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The Users (1) SOFI Developers

• Global, national, regional, NGO and corporate
  policymakers
• Professionals, scholars, academics
• Economists, political scientists, social
  scientists, etc., and
• The Millennium Project and its Nodes

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The Classes of Users (2)

• General public
• Researchers, journalists, trend watchers
• Policy makers (government, NGO, corporate, )
• SOFI developers, modelers, futures researchers
• Data owners (those who own and maintain databases
  whose data is used to construct the SOFIs)
• System developers (those who will contribute to
  the software)
• System Administrators (those who administer the
  SOFI system)

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What can we do on the System?

• Viewing/reading up
• Comparisons
• Drill-downs and searches on related information
• Asking what-if questions by tweaking the SOFI
  parameters, or exercising alternate Scenarios
• Developing new SOFI's
• SOFIs for different Countries, Regions,
  Municipalities, etc. (e.g. a USA-SOFI,
  France-SOFI, Russia-SOFI, China-SOFI or a
  EU-SOFI, Middle-East SOFI, Greater-China SOFI,
  Latin-America SOFI etc.)
• SOFIs for different government or industrial
  sectors (e.g. E-Government SOFI Petroleum and
  Oil industry SOFI Automotive Industry SOFI
  Aerospace industry SOFI Science Technology
  SOFI Nanotechnology SOFI Tertiary Education
  SOFI etc.)
• SOFI for Corporations individual Organizations
  Programs, Initiatives or Product Lines etc.
• Collaboration and Collaborative Development
• Interaction and accessing data, information and
  knowledge
• Human-to-machine
• Human-to-human
• Machine-to-machine
• Building up the systems database and
  knowledgebase

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The Big Picture (1)

• this was not simply a software to calculate an
  index,
• but a framework for people to systematically
  think together
• about what is important to the future,
• how to measure it,
• what is the best bang for the buck to get the
  whole index up,
• alternatives to the approaches systematically
  vetted,
• generation of an improvement community to make
  better SOFIs,
• method to keep all this organized,
• allowing for group and private use,
• on the web and stand alone, etc.

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The Big Picture (2)

• it's not just software, but rather, it is about
  the co-evolution of tool systems and human
  systems
• this is not even about technology, but about how
  people can handle change and ever increasing
  complexities in the world we live in improving
  our ability to systematically measure, analyze,
  manage, be ready, be responsiveness, and
• be able to make informed decisions and cope with
  the ever more urgent and complex challenges
• We are creating the environment for distributed
  collaborative development and innovation
• We have building an infrastructure to harness
  collective intelligence
• expecting emergent patterns and behaviors

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References

• The Chapters (Ch. 22 Ch. 23) on SOFI and its
  Full Implementation on Futures Research
  Methodology v2.0
• Copy of this presentation is available at
  http//mp.cim3.net/file/project/mp-sofi-sd/present
  ation/mp-sofi-sd-P3.htm
• MP-SOFI-SD Project Documents are accessible
  from http//mp.cim3.net/file/project/mp-sofi-sd/h
  ome.html

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Q A and Discussion