Thanks for the feedback guys!
I'm convinced this is a quick win for us as a community that can
bring
real benefit now, rather than waiting for an Intel, a Microsoft, or
a
Google who over time helped their local communities as tech hubs.
So as to not distract the broader silicon beach community, I think we
should spin this off as a separate mailing list where people who are
interested in developing it, can participate. We already have enough
email on this list I think! Having said that though, lets continue the
discussion a little more here because there is no point pursuing this
if (as of now) the 154 people on this mailing list don't support the
concept. I'd like people to review the idea fleshed out below, before
we pursue anything.
So here's my pitch...
-----------------------
Objective: A means of allowing the Australian ICT (Information,
Communications, Technology) community to
a) Become aware of others in the community
b) Be able to discover expertise in the community
C) Be used to guage the activity of the Australian community
Proposal:
Through the use of open data format standards, with the
SiliconBeachAustralia.org domain as the coordinating server to create
consistency, to allow people to markup information about themselves on
their personal websites or anywhere they desire to host their data,
that will enable the discovery of who exists in the community, what
they can do, where they are located and when are they available for
future collaboration. This method is like us creating a distributed
database whereby anyone can query to generate understanding about
Aussie ICT.
As part of the vision, this is about helping identify the 'dots' of
people on a map who are passionate about contributing to Australian
industry. Reinforced by physical world meetups and other online tools
like this google group, it will allow us to build 'connections'
between those dots - creating a more robust community built on strong
interlinked relationships.
Example of what the ideal outcome would be, would look like this:
- Person A can install a plugin that stores information about
themselves on their blog
- Person B can use a generator to perform a similar function, and
embed the core into an HTML page stored on their server
- Person C can use another third party service that participates, to
store the same data
- Regardless, through the use of open standards like microformats, we
can achieve data portability with the same outcome
- The information people store will include
i/ name
ii/ location
iii/ social network services
iv/ Specific skills, in accordance with an ontology controlled from
the
siliconbeachaustralia.org domain
v/ Companies that have worked at or are currently working at
- Once setup, analytics can be performed on the Australian industry.
For example, people can query this distributed database to ask things
like
"Who exists in Adelaide". Why? So we can organise local events and
know who to contact
"Who is a IP lawyer with expertise in Belarus". Why? People we
effectively have a industry specific 'yellow pages' of skills
"How many start-ups are there in Perth?" Why? Because we can create a
way of measuring startup activity which can be used for a variety of
things helping everyone from journalists, policy makers, investors, or
even new graduates looking for a job
"A list of all startups in Australia". Actually for the first time,
allow us to fully understand what businesses exist.
Of course, over time we could make this 'database' more sophisticated
to anything what the siliconbeach community deems useful. But if we
start small - with simple things like names, locations, employers,
investments - we already have a very useful thing.
Thoughts?
Sent from my iPhone