A “Computing Futures” Blog?
I didn’t really understand blogs. I first started this blog to communicate to the members of the CMU Computer Science Department. But in time, as the number of external readers became more obvious, I realized that a blog could be an important way to communicate ideas and points of view.
Because of this experience, I’ve come to the conclusion that the computing research community might find it both interesting and useful to have a group weblog, on the “goings-on” in the computing research. Such a blog would provide (a) introductions and analyses of some of the emerging new concepts or initiatives in computing research, (b) analysis of major developments at research institutions or in governments, and (c) general news (gossip, if you will) of interest to the research community.
Now, working with Andrew McCallum and Andy Bernat in the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), it looks like the CCC Council will actually take this on. While the exact form of the blog hasn’t been fully defined, here are a few of my thoughts (and Andrew and I have been asked to spearhead this for now):
- This should be a group weblog, with the group’s members being leaders in the computing research community. To make things simple, I suggest we start with a dozen or so CS department heads (or their counterparts in industrial labs), plus the CCC Council Chair. Starting with department heads makes the membership question a bit simpler for now.
- The group’s members should organize themselves so as to provide, at a minimum, one article per week. Two would be even better. So, for example, if there are 12 group members, then this would mean at least 4 articles per year, per member.
- The articles should try to focus on “unabashed” analysis of emerging or proposed ideas for new research initiatives and challenges for the community, but in keeping with the need to maintain reader interest, other news/developments/gossip should also be encouraged.
- The blog should invite comments from the community, even anonymously.
What kinds of articles would we want? Well, here are a few examples:
- We would want many of the articles to be about major directions in research. For example, see an article on my blog about “big cycles, big data” computing.
- While the above article had the dual purposes of conveying a research idea and promoting a particular department’s activities, some articles (maybe the best ones) would simply push a particular idea in new research. An example, from Dan Reed’s blog, is his article on HPC clouds.
- Another type of article might provide critical analysis of current or emerging research directions. See, for example, this commentary on security research, from Gene Spafford’s blog.
- I think it is important to include some technologists. They are a window into real-world problems and directions for solving them. See, for example, this missive on distributed computing issues at Amazon, by Amazon’s CTO, Werner Vogels. Or this thought-piece on throughput computing, from Intel. An always entertaining one from Microsoft is Jon Pincus’ blog. See, for example, his article on a serious computing security problem on the new Boeing airplanes.
- Another major area of analysis is in computing research policy. It may make sense to invite someone like Peter Harsha. His research computing policy blog is very interesting to many of us.
- Perhaps one of the most successful science group weblogs is CosmicVariance, in the Physics community.
- Finally, we should consider interesting “personal” stories. See, for example, my article on attending the DARPA Urban Challenge event.
I am hopeful that we’ll see the CCC blog start soon. I think it would have a good chance to be a “must-read” by anyone in the computing research community. Your comments/feedback can help guide how it turns out!
Peter Lee @ January 22, 2008
Thanks for the tip of the hat, Peter. A minor clarification: I left Microsoft, and am currently working with Deborah Pierce on Tales from the Net (a book on social networks) and doing some consulting. Oh, and blogging, too :-)
A CCC “computing futures” discussion seems like a great idea. Has there been much thought as to the goals of this effort? A blog may not the best mechanism for what you want. Two others to consider are a discussion forum (which gives any member not just the moderators, the ability, to start a thread — so you could get beyond one or two topics a week) and a full-fledged social networking site (which brings in the connections between the members — this can be particularly important when trying to broaden participation and to have interdisciplinary discussions). Of course these can all be later evolutions; still, it’s worth thinking up front about which is most likely to succeed.
And I gotta say, I’m skeptical against starting solely with department heads. Will they really have enough time to participate in a meaningful way? If you really expect the community to comment, there will need to be regular participation as peers from the moderators, and that requires a chunk o’ time, especially as the community is getting started. And on top of that, with such a non-diverse group, the blog risks being primarily of interest to department chairs and those who care about how department chairs think; this is very difference from a general research focus.
A different strategy that works well is “look to the marginalized”. People who aren’t in the positions of power in the current system, or those whose ideas are out of favor, will benefit more from participation, and so are likely to have more energy and creativity. So it’s crucial to get a lot of them into the mix from the beginning … which will lead to better results in any case.
Or so it seems to me … at any rate, it’ll be interesting to track this work going forward. Best of luck!
jon
Thanks for the input, Jon. Very interesting and useful.
I think the most important advice you’re giving has to do with the diversity of the group. The main reason I thought of department heads (besides the fact that I am one ;-) is that I had group blogs like Cosmic Variance in mind. It seems to me that those groups are largely homogeneous, and while this is (by definition) not so diverse, it also creates the common peer interests that help get the thing started.
I’m hoping that some of the other CCC Council members might have their own thoughts and opinions about this. Looking at mechanisms other than blogs is also a very, very interesting idea to explore.
Glad to help, Peter!
Looking at blogs you’d like to use as a role model is a great idea … Terranova is another research/community focused blog that seems something like what you’re trying to do.
On Cosmic Variance, the contributors and alumnus include two Senior Research Associates (one of whom is also a Feynman Fellow), an Assistant Professor, an Associate Professor, an Alumni Professor, and two Professors. In terms of seniority, it’s homogeneous only in the very limited sense that “none of them are department heads” :-)
More generally in terms of the value of diversity of cognitive styles and backgrounds, I strongly recommend Scott Page’s recent The Difference.
By the way, I just ran into Blog commenting evolves on Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed, describing the upcoming release of Commentpress, a Wordpress plugin that “allows readers to leave feedback not just on posts as a whole but instead on each individual paragraph in the post.” Seems like it could be very useful for this situation …