A New Way of Looking at Information Sharing in Supply & Demand Chains

The Internet is achieved via layered protocols. Transmitted data, flowing through these layers are enriched with metadata necessary for the correct interpretation of the data presented to users of the Web. Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web says, “The Web was originally conceived as a tool for researchers who trusted one another implicitly …. We have been living with the consequences ever since ….” “[We need] to provide Web users with better ways of determining whether material on a site can be trusted ….”

Our lives have nonetheless become better as a result of Web service providers like Google and Facebook. Consumers are now conditioned to believe that they can – or should be able to - search and find information about anything, anytime. But the service providers dictate their quality of service in a one-way conversation that exploits the advantages of the Web as it exists. What may be considered trustworthy content is limited to that which is dictated by the service providers. The result is that consumers cannot find real-time, trustworthy information about much of anything.

Despite all the work in academic research there is still no industry solution that fully supports the sharing of proprietary supply chain product information between “data silos”. Industry remains in the throes of one-up/one down information sharing when what is needed is real-time “whole chain” interoperability. The Web needs to provide two-way, real-time interoperability in the content provided by information producers. Immutable objects have heretofore been traditionally used to provide more efficient data communications between networked machines, but not between information producers. Now researchers are innovatively coming up with new ways of using immutable objects in interoperable, two-way communications between information content providers.

A New Way of Looking at Information Sharing in Supply & Demand chains

Pardalis’ protocols for immutable informational objects make possible a value chain of two-way, interoperable sharing that makes information more available, trustworthy, and traceable. This, in turn, incentivizes increases in the quality and availability of new information leading to new business models.

Update on Sunday, April 3, 2011 at 3:29PM by Steve Holcombe

Pardalis’ intellectual properties may be strategically compared to Van Jacobson’s impressive research at Xerox PARC (see the CCNx Project) that began in just the last few years. Jacobson's long-range goal is to adjust the architecture of the Internet with immutable named data. Pardalis' IP is focused on sooner commercialization opportunities for changing the Web with immutable, granular named information. But like Jacobson, we view the application of named immutable objects as an absolute prerequisite to authentication in a new world order providing more options for user-centric information sharing.

Update on Friday, April 22, 2011 at 10:14PM by Steve Holcombe

EOF - Freeing Up Level 7
From Issue #203
Apr 30, 2011
By Doc Searls
Linux Journal
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10972

Consortium seeks to holistically address food recalls

The Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering at Oklahoma State University (OSU BAE) is leading a multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary consortium in the preparation of funding applications for two significant coordinated agricultural projects. If successful, up to $25M for 5 years will be provided for each project beginning in 2011 under the USDA’s Agriculture & Food Research Initiative for Food Safety (CFDA Number - 10.310 - AFRI). Other institutions currently involved in this growing consortium include researchers and investigators from Michigan State University, North Dakota State University, University of Arkansas, Texas Tech University and the National Center for Food Protection and Defense, a DHS Center of Excellence. For the purposes of these activities, Pardalis Inc. is embedded within OSU BAE. The applications will be filed in September, 2010. More information can be found on this site at USDA AFRI Stakeholder Solicitations.

The vision of our consortium is to

• advance technologies for the prevention, detection, and control of foodborne microbes and viruses in agricultural and food products,
• manage coordinated agricultural projects with direct input from a stakeholder advisory workgroups, and
• improve upon real-time consumer responses to food safety recalls with innovative sensor, mobile and "whole chain" information traceability technologies.

The members of our consortium have been highly influenced in their thinking by the existing data showing that many consumers do not take appropriate protective actions during a foodborne illness outbreak or food recall. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that every year at least 2000 Americans are hospitalized, and about 60 die as a direct result of E. coli infections. A recent study estimated the annual cost of E. coli O157:H7 illnesses to be $405M (in ‘03 dollars), which included $370M for premature deaths, $30M for medical care, and $5M for lost productivity. And that doesn’t include the costs of lost sales from consumers fearful of purchasing tainted meat due to the lack of real-time, reliable information.

Furthermore, 41 percent of U.S. consumers say they have never looked for any recalled product in their home. Conversely, some consumers overreact to the announcement of a foodborne illness outbreak or food recall. In response to the 2006 fresh, bagged spinach recall which followed a multistate outbreak of Escherichia coli O157: H7 infections, 18 percent of consumers said they stopped buying other bagged, fresh produce because of the spinach recall.

We envision the model implementation of a "whole chain" product traceability system (call it a "Food Recall Data Bank") to help solve the serious cry wolf problem experienced by consumers. The Food Recall Data Bank model would place a premium on privacy and loyalty. It would provide granular recall notices to pre-retailers, retailers and consumers. Each would centrally populate their accounts in the Food Recall Data Bank with GTIN or UPC product identifiers of relevance to their operations or consumption habits.

For instance, consumers could opt for retailers to automatically populate their accounts from their actual POS retail purchases. Consumers could additionally populate accounts using mobile image capturing applications (e.g., Microsoft Tag Mobile Barcode app). Supplemented by cross-reference to an Industry GTIN/GLN database, the product identifiers would be associated with company names, time stamps, location and similar metadata. Consumers would also be provided with a one-stop shop for confidentially reporting suspicious food to Recalls.gov.

This consortium is only just getting started. Other funding opportunities are being targeted. Let’s talk if you have a commercial or research interest in:

• the effects of financial damages suffered by enterprises - directly or indirectly - from food safety recalls,
• mining and analyzing the real-time data of agricultural product supply chains - including the real-time data of consumers purchasing habits, or
• the applicability of these issues to non-agricultural product supply chains.

Update on Monday, October 17, 2011 at 8:32AM by Steve Holcombe

The consortium identified above is now known as the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium™. The WCTC is comprised at its core of researchers and collaborators from Oklahoma State University, North Dakota State University, Michigan State University, the University of Arkansas, and Pardalis, Inc., an Oklahoma advanced technology company. Whole Chain Traceability Consortium™ is a trademark of Pardalis, Inc. For more information, see http://pardalis.squarespace.com/blog/2011/10/29/the-whole-chain-traceability-consortium.html

Top 12 Discussions - Data Ownership in the Cloud

Over the first 12 months of the Data Ownership in the Cloud group on LinkedIn, the following are the top 12 discussions as rated in descending order by the number of comments:

“Give Me My Data Back!” or “I want to SEE My SELF, so give me my data back, please.”
Posted by John Brian Hennessy, Entrepreneur, Start-up & Early Stage Management Consultant
54 comments

Why does data ownership matter to you?
Posted by Steve Holcombe, CEO at Pardalis Inc.
20 comments

Project VRM
Posted by Steve Holcombe, CEO at Pardalis Inc.
16 comments

The about tag is immutable
Posted by Steve Holcombe, CEO at Pardalis Inc.
13 comments

What are the security issues regarding cloud computing?
Posted by John Mooney, Information Technology and Security Solution Sales Specialist
12 comments

9th Internet Identity Workshop - Nov 3-5 - Mountain View, CA
Posted by Steve Holcombe, CEO at Pardalis Inc.
11 comments 

Firebombs & sacred cows...
Posted by Joe Andrieu, President, SwitchBook
11 comments 

Google in China - What is Going On?
Posted by Al Macintyre, Volunteer Consultant at Haiti Earthquake Disaster Relief & News
11 comments

Why Not One Big Database?
Posted by Steve Holcombe, CEO at Pardalis Inc.
10 comments

Will the next 'Google' be a traceability portal?
Posted by Steve Holcombe, CEO at Pardalis Inc.
9 comments

Is it the methods or the targets that make a hacker unethical?
From Anthony M. Freed, Director of Business Development, Managing Editor at Infosec Island Network
8 comments

Who owns supply chain visibility data?
Posted by Dirk Rodgers, Sr. Consultant, Serialization & Pedigree at Cardinal Health
7 comments

Thank you Brian, John, Joe, Al, Anthony and Dirk for posting very relevant and interesting discussions, indeed!

Networking in Data Ownership in the Cloud

Data Ownership in the Cloud is an open networking group on LinkedIn created in April, 2009. At publication of this blog entry, there are more than 500 members who are loosely networked together under the group's current profile:

Recently the top identity management officer of a major data mining and analytics company said "that ... giving individuals control over the data that is shared ... increases the quality of the data and opens up new business models".

That's an impressive statement coming from a BigCo. But what about going even further? For instance, what about increasing the availability of new, quality data for opening up new, profitable models of data management?

The Data Ownership in the Cloud group on LinkedIn is a global venue for multi-disciplinary networking between technologists and non-technologists interested in providing thought leadership on this critical issue.

What technologies and standards (Cloud Computing, Web 2.0, Semantic Web, Enterprise 2.0, Health 2.0, Privacy 2.0, Manufacturing 2.0, Social Networking, SaaS, Security 2.0, RFID 2.0, microformat standards, identification standards, minimal disclosures, identity management) will enable data ownership in the Cloud?

What are the non-technological factors (sociological, political, psychological, legal)?

Members are heartily encouraged to post, share and discuss stories (including relevant journal entries from their own blogs) that touch upon new and emerging models for user-centric data management.

I've emphasized "between technologists and non-technologists", above, because this is a raison d'etre for the group. It has been my distinct impression that an over-emphasis on technology (primarily 'security') has precluded the free-thinking from which new and emerging models for user-centric data management must come. And though the majority of group members may be defined as 'technologists', the discussions and postings have revealed a wonderful sensitivity to an approach balancing security with risk and opportunity.

Here are some examples.

Luk Vervenne, CEO and founder, Synergetics NV, just posted to the group a link regarding work on a manifesto for the "Internet of Subjects".

The central role individuals now play in the Internet, calls for a radical rethinking of its organisation, in particular, the way the ever-increasing flow of personal data is being created, stored, connected, accessed, protected, tracked, exploited and managed. There is a need to create the foundations of an Internet where the architecture creates the conditions for the free association of self-conscious individuals, beyond the pre-defined boundaries of current information systems and social networks.

Lest you think the group to be a bit too abstract, consider this excerpt from the discussion begun by Dirk Rodgers, Sr. Consultant, Serialization & Pedigree at Cardinal Health, entitled "Who owns supply chain visibility data?"

Who owns supply chain visibility data? Does the manufacturer of a product retain any rights to track that product after it enters the supply chain? What if the product is a pharmaceutical and it is found to have a life-threatening defect? Should technology or standards availability play any role in answering these questions? These kinds of questions come up occasionally in discussions of track and trace systems design when people talk about the future of "full supply chain visibility" ....

And a very active commenter within the Data Ownership group - Eve Maler, Distinguished Engineer, Identity Services at PayPal - has been chairing seminal activities of the User-Managed Access (UMA) working group of the Kantara Initiative:

The purpose of the UMA Work Group (charter) is to develop specs that let an individual control the authorization of data sharing and service access made between online services on the individual's behalf, and to facilitate interoperable implementations of the specs.

I'd be remiss in not mentioning other highly active commenters within the group to include Brian Hennessey, Jack Repenning, Joe Andrieu, Anthony Freed, Julian Goh, and Al Macintyre. Thanks to you guys and all of the other contributors!

But is the group having any affect on the real world being lived by any of its members? Well, that's another critical reason for the existence of the Data Ownership group - "to post, share and discuss stories that touch upon new and emerging models for user-centric data management".

One day last fall, John Bailey, the Executive Direct of Top 10 Produce LLC, came wandering into the group. One thing led to another and now our two companies - Pardalis and Top 10 Produce - have joined with Oklahoma State University (Biosystems and Ag Engineering), North Dakota State University (School of Food Systems) and Michigan State University (Institute for Food and Agricultural Standards) in recently filing for two significant funding opportunities offered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Speciality Crops Research Initiative was filed for with OSU, NDSU and MSU in January, 2010 for $4M over 5 years. The USDA Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative was filed for with OSU for $3M over 4 years. Next up is the USDA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative providing funding opportunities of up to $25M over 5 years. That'll be filed later this spring.

So I can unreservedly say that, yes, when it comes to Pardalis and Top 10 Produce, networking in Data Ownership in the Cloud is having a very positive affect.

Check out the group at http://tinyurl.com/datacloud and see why Dirk Rodgers says, "I believe this group could become the best source for information about the implications [of data ownership in the cloud]."

Update on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at 11:43PM by Steve Holcombe

See also Top 12 Discussions - Data Ownership in the Cloud at http://pardalis.squarespace.com/blog/2010/4/28/top-12-discussions-data-ownership-in-the-cloud.html

Data Identity & Supply Chains

I attended the Internet Identity Workshop #9 (IIW9) in early November at the suggestion of Silona Bonewald. She read Banking on Granular Information Ownership and we made a connection regarding her mutual data ownership approach to 'open banking'.

My attendance at IIW9 was strange and familiar. Surreal and real. It was like 'coming home' to a home I'd never seen before. A kind of deja vu.

My experiences with 'identity' have been in the registration of radically serialized data objects (i.e., data elements with GUIs) that are authored, published and distributed by supply chain participants to supply chains. The focus has been about giving product supply chains the opportunity to know more about the products by providing more permissions control over the shared data. This was first theoretically applied to supply chains for chemical products, and then actually engineered and deployed in 2003-06 to the U.S. beef livestock supply chain following the 2003 'mad cow' case. The developed system was - and is - in the form of a multi-tenant, enterprise class system (we marketed it as a 'data bank') that appears to fit well into the cross-section of the Venn diagram in the September, 2008 blog Venn and the art of data sharing by Eve Maler. That is, with one significant exception. The 'identity movement' was essentially non-existent in 2003-06 (IIW #1 was held in October, 2005) and so we did not at that time have the benefit of client-side or browser-side or smartphone-side means, functions and standards related to data identity.

In lieu of identity standards what we did was bake in our own patented business rules for shifting the capabilities of a relational SQL server toward the registration of objects; objects that would then be granularly revealed, traceable, and controllable to the nth degree of sharing among the tenants of the data bank. Then we thought we would be in a good position to tackle integration with other data silo's driving standards for universal data tags. But then a funny thing happened on the way to the coliseum - the USDA's efforts for introducing mandatory animal identification to agriculture collapsed in late 2006 predictably affecting every supply chain company who had bet that the USDA would do what they said they would do. Since then my company, Pardalis, has essentially been anchored in a 'safe harbor' called North Dakota State University.

Earlier this year I had discussions with Microsoft-Fargo, and then Microsoft-Redmond, that led up to Microsoft's then Worldwide Director of CRM, ERP and Supply Chain Solutions. What I was saying to Microsoft was that neither Dynamics CRM nor SharePoint were relevant outside of the federated or vertically integrated parts of supply chains. But what was broadly used by SMBs - where CRM and SharePoint were not - was Microsoft Excel. And so the logical next step was to connect supply chains end-to-end with a 'data bank' blah, blah, blah. Honestly, I didn't begin to tune into InfoCards and what Microsoft's Chief Identity Officer, Kim Cameron, had been up to until later in the summer. Cameron is touting the application of transactional "claims" to provide "minimal disclosures" about persons which has now evolved into the Windows Identity Foundation. There's no doubt in my mind that the ERP folks inside of Microsoft should talk to Kim Cameron and the Identity folks in Microsoft but that's something they'll have to figure out on their own, right? :-)

Now traceability is 'sexy' again. Pardalis is moving forward with major land grant institutions (North Dakota State University, Michigan State University, Oklahoma State University) and supply chain participants (like Top 10 Produce) in seeking $5M/5 year USDA funding for a Coordinated Agricultural Project under the Special Crops Research Initiative. This initiative supports research for methods to prevent, detect, monitor, control, and respond to potential food safety hazards in the production and processing of specialty crops, including fresh produce. Central to this research will the development/introduction of item-level means and functions for interoperably connecting agricultural supply chains from 'farm to fork'. The goal is to provide real-time access to the supply chain participants of the total system of data - not just the data presented in GS1 labeling -  relative to product safety, taste, quality, appearance, environmental responses, tolerances, transportation, marketing, storage characteristics , etc.

Like I said, my attendance at IIW9 was strange and familiar, etc. What was missing for me was the application of identity and social networking to supply chains. I suppose one could argue that the term 'supply chain' was there, so to speak, particularly in the IIW9 sessions covering Vendor Relationship Management, but in my opinion it was way in the background waiting to be brought to the forefront. I'm definitely planning on attending IIW #10 in Mountain View in May, 2010, to do my part in helping raise the visibility of supply chains in this mix. I'm really glad to have found my way to the identity movement.

[The foregoing is substantially reprinted from previous contributions made by the author to the Data Ownership in the Cloud group on LinkedIn.]