Thursday, June 21, 2012

Standards and quality rating agencies for Knowledge Networks

How to guarantee the good quality of knowledge networks? was a question posed in the recent Mobilizing Knowledge Networks for Development at the World Bank.


At our table we conversed about the need for a Quality Standard, a sort of an ISO 9000, so that each participant was able to better identify what knowledge network he was getting involved with, so as not to lose his valuable time and efforts, or end up unwillingly exploited.

We also conversed about the possibility of having knowledge-network-quality rating agencies, rate the networks, initially based on some few but important variables, like the following:

Clarity of purpose

Clarity of rules of engagement

How it complies with the above (A network Ombudsman?)

True diversity (and respect for differing opinions)

If there is an interest out there in this community to further the discussions on this issue, at least I would be glad to participate, but someone else would have to manage that process, since because of other engagements I would not be able to get a good quality rating doing so.

perkurowski@gmail.com     

Sunday, June 10, 2012

We might need a Global Web Constitution, and Inspection Panels, to get along well with the Googles and Facebooks of this world

The role of a Constitution is foremost to defend the citizens from government abuses. In this respect, and since one of the most important issues of our time is how to guarantee acceptable relations between us, the small users, and they, the gigantic information and or knowledge dissemination machines that govern so much of how we communicate, and handle so much of private information on us, like Google and Facebook, one could say that we are in a dire need of a Web Constitution. 

Also, “Don’t be evil”, is for instance, a company motto of Google and which supposedly precludes them from manipulating rankings to put their advertising or content partners higher in their search results. That sounds great… exactly how it should be… but, how can we make certain that the supposedly is for real and that a company follows its motto and declared principles, and that we can trust it as much as we should, for ours and theirs benefit? Perhaps Google and Facebook should establish something like the Inspection Panel of the World Bank, which is there to guarantee, to the rest of the world, that the World Bank follows the rules and principles it has itself declared to follow. 

The last thing we citizens need is for these tech-giants to enter into joint venture agreements with Big Brother.

PS. This is a speculation which resulted from a conversation with my daughter Alexandra Kurowski

PS. And, for me, when managing knowledge, it is also extremely important to make sure that does not pose any treat to the biodiversity of knowledge development… as we can never know where the next world saving idea can come from.

PS. Below more comments related to this theme!

https://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2019/05/i-have-some-ideas-about-what-could.html
http://teawithft.blogspot.com/2014/07/facebook-i-want-to-be-happy-so-if-you.html

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