The Tipping Point Has Arrived: Market Incentives for Selective Sharing in Web Communications

By Steve Holcombe (@steve_holcombe) and Clive Boulton (@iC)

A Glimmer of Market Validation for Selective Sharing

In late 2005 Pardalis deployed a multi-tenant, enterprise-class SaaS to a Texas livestock market. The web-connected service provided for the selective sharing of data assets in the U.S. beef livestock supply chain.  Promising revenues were generated from a backdrop of industry incentives being provided for sourced livestock. The industry incentives themselves were driven by the specter of mandatory livestock identification promised by the USDA in the wake of the 2003 "mad cow" case.

At the livestock market thousands of calves were processed over several sessions. Small livestock producers brought their calves into the auction for weekly sales where they were RFID tagged. An affordable fee per calf was charged to the producers which included the cost of a RFID tag. The tags identifiers were automatically captured, a seller code was entered, and affidavit information was also entered as to the country of origin (USA) of each calf. Buyers paid premium prices for the tagged calves over and above untagged calves. The buyers made money over and above the affordable fee per calf.  After each sale, and at the speed of commerce, all seller, buyer and sales information was uploaded into an information tenancy in the SaaS that was controlled by the livestock market. For the first time ever in the industry, the livestock auction selectively authorized access to this information to the buyers via their own individual tenancies in the SaaS.

That any calves were processed at all was not possible without directly addressing the fear of information sharing that was held by both the calf sellers and the livestock market. The calf sellers liked that their respective identities were selectively withheld from the calf buyers. And they liked that a commercial entity they trusted – the livestock market – could stand as a kind of trustee between them and governmental regulators in case an auctioned calf later turned out to be the next ‘mad cow’. In turn the livestock market liked the selectiveness in information sharing because it did not have to share its confidential client list in an “all or nothing” manner to potential competitors on down the supply chain. At that moment in time, the immediate future of selective sharing with the SaaS looked very bright. The selective sharing design deployed by Pardalis in its SaaS fixed data elements at a single location with authorizations controlled by the tenants. Unfortunately, the model could not be continued and scaled at that time to other livestock markets. In 2006 the USDA bowed to political realities and terminated its efforts to introduce national mandatory livestock identification.

And so, too, went the regulatory-driven industry incentives. But … hold that thought.

Talking in Circles: Selective Sharing in Google+

Google+ is now 1 year old. In conjunction with Google, researchers Sanjay Kairam, Michael J. Brzozowski, David Huffaker, and Ed H. Chi have published Talking in Circles: Selective Sharing in Google+, the first empirical study of behavior in a network designed to facilitate selective sharing:

"Online social networks have become indispensable tools for information sharing, but existing ‘all-or-nothing’ models for sharing have made it difficult for users to target information to specific parts of their networks. In this paper, we study Google+, which enables users to selectively share content with specific ‘Circles’ of people. Through a combination of log analysis with surveys and interviews, we investigate how active users organize and select audiences for shared content. We find that these users frequently engaged in selective sharing, creating circles to manage content across particular life facets, ties of varying strength, and interest-based groups. Motivations to share spanned personal and informational reasons, and users frequently weighed ‘limiting’ factors (e.g. privacy, relevance, and social norms) against the desire to reach a large audience. Our work identifies implications for the design of selective sharing mechanisms in social networks."

While selective sharing may be characterized as being available on other networks (e.g. ‘Lists’ on Facebook), Google is sending signals that making the design of selective sharing controls central to the sharing model offers a great opportunity to help users manage their self-presentations to multiple audiences in the multi-tenancies we call online social networks. Or, put more simply, selective sharing multiplies opportunities for online engagement.

For the purposes of this blog post, we adopt Google’s definition of "selective sharing" to mean providing information producers with controls for overcoming both over-sharing and fear of sharing. Furthermore, we agree with Google that that the design of tools for such selective sharing controls must allow users to balance sender and receiver needs, and to adapt these controls to different types of content. So defined, we believe that almost seven years since the Texas livestock market project, a tipping point has been reached that militates in favor of selective sharing from within supply chains and on to consumers. Now, there have been a lot of things happen over the last seven years that bring us to this point (e.g., the rise of social media, CRM in the Cloud, the explosion of mobile technologies, etc.). But the tipping point we are referencing "follows the money", as they say. We believe that the tipping point toward selective sharing is to be found in the incentives provided by affiliate networks like Google Affiliate Networks.

Google Affiliate Networks

Google Affiliate networks provide a means for affiliates to monetize websites. Here’s a recent video presentation by Google, Automating the Use of Google Affiliate Links to Monetize Your Web Site:


Presented by Ali Pasha & Shaun Cox | Published 2 July 2012 | 47m 11s

The Google Affiliate Network provides incentives for affiliates to monetize their websites based upon actual sales conversions instead of indirectly based upon the number of ad clicks. These are web sites (e.g., http://www.savings.com/) where ads are the raison d'etre of the web site. High value consumers are increasingly scouring promotional, comparison, and customer loyalty sites like savings.com for deals and generally more information about products. Compare that with websites where ads are peripheral to other content (e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/) and where ad clicks are measured using Web 2.0 identity and privacy sharing models.

In our opinion the incentives of affiliate networks have huge potential for matching up with an unmet need in the Cloud for all participants - large and small - of enterprise supply chains to selectively monetize their data assets. For example, data assets pertaining to product traceability, source, sustainability, identity, authenticity, process verification and even compliance with human rights laws, among others, are there to be monetized.

Want to avoid buying blood diamonds? Go to a website that promotes human rights and click on a diamond product link that has been approved by that site. Want to purchase only “Made in USA” products? There’s not a chamber of commerce in the U.S. that won’t want to provide a link to their members’ websites who are also affiliates of an incentive network. Etc.

Unfortunately, these data assets are commonly not shared because of the complete lack of tools for selective sharing, and the fear of sharing (or understandable apathy) engendered under “all or nothing” sharing models. As published back in 1993 by the MIT Sloan School in Why Not One Big Database? Ownership Principles for Database Design: "When it is impossible to provide an explicit contract that rewards those who create and maintain data, ‘ownership’ will be the best way to provide incentives." Data ownership matters. And selective sharing – appropriately designed for enterprises – will match data ownership up with available incentives.

Remember that thought we asked you to hold?

In our opinion the Google Affiliate Network is already providing incentives that are a sustainable, market-driven substitute for what turned out to be unsustainable, USDA-driven incentives. We presume that Google is well aware of potential synergies between Google+ and the Google Affiliate Network. We also presume that Google is well aware that "[w]hile business-critical information is often already gathered in integrated information systems, such as ERP, CRM and SCM systems, the integration of these systems itself (as well as the integration with the abundance of other information sources) is still a major challenge."

We know this is a "big idea" but in our opinion the dynamic blending of Google+ and the Google Affiliate Network could over time bring within reach a holy grail in web communications – the cracking of the data silos of enterprise class supply chains for increased sharing with consumers of what to-date has been "off limits" proprietary product information.

A glimpse of the future may be found for example in the adoption of Google+ by Cadbury UK, but the design for selective sharing of Google+ is currently far from what it needs to attract broad enterprise usage. Sharing in Circles brings to mind Eve Maler’s blog post, Venn and the Art of Data Sharing.  That’s really cool for personal sharing (or empowering consumers as is the intent of VRM) but for enterprises Google+ will need to evolve its selective sharing functionalities. Sure, data silos of commercial supply chains are holding personal identities close to their chest (e.g., CRM customer lists) but they’re also walling off product identities with every bit as much zeal, if not more. That creates a different dynamic that, again, typical Web 2.0 "all or nothing" sharing (designed, by the way, around personal identities) does not address.

It should be specially noted, however, that Eve Maler and the User-Managed Access (UMA) group at the Kantara Initiative are providing selective sharing web protocols that place "the emphasis on user visibility into and control over access by others".  And Eve in her capacity at Forrester has more recently provided a wonderful update of her earlier blog post, this one entitled A New Venn of Access Control for the API Economy.

But in our opinion before Google+, UMA or any other companies or groups working on selective sharing can have any reasonable chance of addressing "data ownership" in enterprises and their supply chains, they will need to take a careful look at incorporating fixed data elements at a single location with authorizations. It is in regard to this point that we seek to augment the current status of selective sharing. More about that line of thinking (and activities within the WikiData Project) in our earlier “tipping point” blog post, The Tipping Has Arrived: Trust and Provenance in Web Communications.

What do you think? Share your conclusions and opinions by joining us at @WholeChainCom on LinkedIn at http://tinyurl.com/WholeChainCom.

Update on Saturday, July 14, 2012 at 6:26AM by Steve Holcombe

@NZN: @Steve_Holcombe well-stated.I'd like more on undrlined element,last paragraph:"fixed data elements at a single location with authorizations"

@Steve_Holcombe: @NZN Foundational #OO design - http://tinyurl.com/76a4jtm  | Livestock project model - http://tinyurl.com/7sb9x37  | Also see #Wikidata project.

Update on Monday, July 16, 2012 at 11:07AM by Steve Holcombe

Coincidentally, see:

WebCollage Takes Ad Copy Mobile for Top Retailers
[WebCollage posts consistent ad copy on multiple retailers’ sites]
Arlene Weintraub | 7/16/12 | Xconomy.com
http://www.xconomy.com/new-york/2012/07/16/webcollage-takes-ad-copy-mobile-for-top-retailers/

http:

Pardalis announces issuance of Canadian patent

April 20, 2012 — Pardalis, Inc. announced today the issuance of the following patent by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office:

• Informational Object Authoring and Distribution System, Patent No. CA 2457936 issued February 28, 2012.

The issuance of this patent represents another milestone in the continued, global expansion of Pardalis' same-named parent patent, U.S. Patent No. 6,671,696, and its continuation patents and applications.

The Pardalis 696 Patent was issued by the United States in 2003 and is also entitled Informational object authoring and distribution system. Pardalis' 696 patent is the parent patent for the Common Point Authoring™ system.

The critical means and functions of the Common Point Authoring™ system are directed to a system in which a creator can create data which is then fixed (immutable) and users can access that immutable data but cannot change it. They provide for user-centric authoring and registration of radically identified, immutable objects for further granular publication, by the choice of each author, among networked systems. The benefits of CPA include minimal, precise disclosures of personal and product identity data to networks fragmented by information silos and concerns over 'data ownership'.

“Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, New Zealand and, of course, the United States are the countries that have so far issued one or more patents to Pardalis,” said Steve Holcombe, Pardalis’ CEO. “We also have high expectations for similar actions on our applications pending in Brazil, Europe and Japan.”

About Pardalis, Inc.

Pardalis' Common Point Authoring™ system provides an object-oriented solution for introducing trust and provenance in web communications. For more information, see Pardalis' Global IP.

Whole Chain Traceability: A Successful Research Funding Strategy

The following work product represents a critical part of the first successful strategy for obtaining funding from the USDA relative to "whole chain" traceability. It is the work of this author as weaved into a USDA National Integrated Food Safety Initiative (NIFSI) funding submission of the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium™ led by Oklahoma State University and filed in June 2011. This work highlights the usefulness of Pardalis' U.S. patents and patents pending to "whole chain" traceability. It highlights the efficacy of employing granular information objects in the Cloud for providing consumer accessibility to any agricultural supply chain. In August 2011 notification was received of an award ($543,000 for 3 years) under the USDA NIFSI for a project entitled Advancement of a whole-chain, stakeholder driven traceability system for agricultural commodities: beef cattle pilot demonstration (Funding Opportunity Number: USDA-NIFSI RFA (FY 2011), Award Number: 2011-51110-31044).

With the funding of the NIFSI project, the USDA has funded a food safety project that is distinguishable from the Food Safety Modernization Act projects being funded by the FDA and conducted by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). Unlike the IFT/FDA projects, the scope of the funded NIFSI project uniquely encompasses consumer accessibility to supply chain information.

A useful explanation of the benefits of a “whole chain” traceability system may be made with critical traceability identifiers (CTIDs), critical tracking events (CTEs) and Nodes as described in the IFT/FDA Traceability in Food Systems Report. CTEs are those events that must be recorded in order to allow for effective traceability of products in the supply chain. A Node refers to a point in the supply chain when an item is produced, process, shipped or sold. CTEs may be loosely defined as a transaction. Every transaction involves a process that may be separated into a beginning, middle and end.

While important and relevant data exists in any of the phases of a CTE transaction, the entire transaction may be uniquely identified and referenced by a code referred to as a critical tracking identifier (CTID). For example, with the emergence of biosensor development for the real-time detection of foodborne contamination, one may also envision adding associated real-time environmental sampling data from each node.

What is not described or envisioned in the IFT/FDA Traceability in Food Systems Report is the challenge of using even top of the line “one up/one down” product traceability systems that, notwithstanding the use of a single CTID, are inherently limiting in the data sharing options provided to both stakeholders and government regulators. Pause for a moment and compare the foregoing drawing with the next drawing. Compare CTID2 in both drawings with CTID2A, CTID2B, etc. in the next drawing. The IFT/FDA food safety projects described above are at best implementing top of the line "one up/one down" product traceability systems with the use of a single CTID. But with “whole chain” product traceability, in which CTID2 is essentially assigned down to the datum level, transactional and environmental sampling data may in real-time be granularly placed into the hands of supply chain partners, food safety regulators, or even retail customers.

The scope of “whole chain” chain information sharing within the funded USDA NIFSI project goes well beyond the “one up/one down” information sharing of the IFT/FDA projects. The NIFSI project addresses a new way of looking at information sharing for connecting supply chains with consumers. This is essentially accomplished with a system in which a content provider creates data which is then fixed (i.e., made immutable) and users can access that immutable data but cannot change it.

The granularity of Pardalis' Common Point Authoring (CPA) system (as is necessary for a “whole chain” product traceability system) is characterized by the following patent drawing of an informational object (e.g., a document, report or XML object) whose immutable data elements are radically and uniquely identified. The similarities between the foregoing object containing CTID2A, CTID2B, etc., and the immutable data element identifiers of the following drawing, should be self-evident.

For the purposes of the NIFSI funding opportunity, the Pardalis CPA system invention was appropriately characterized as a “whole chain” product traceability system.  A further, high-altitude drawing, characterized the application of the invention to a major U.S. agricultural supply chain:

Several questions were required in the USDA's NIFSI "Review Package" to be addressed before actual funding. The responses to two of those questions were crafted by this author. They are worth inserting here ....

Question 1: A reviewer was skeptical that the system would be capable of handling different levels of data (consumer, producer, RFID, bar code) seamlessly.

There is an assumption in the reviewer’s opinion that data is different because it is consumer, producer, RFID, bar code, etc. The proposed pilot project is based on a premise that data is data. The difference in data that is perceived by the reviewer is not in its categorization per se but in its proprietary nature. That is, it is perceived to be different because it is locked up (often in categories of consumer, producer, RFID, bar code, etc.) in proprietary data silos along the supply and demand chains. It is reasonable to have this viewpoint given the prevalence of "one-up/one-down" data sharing in supply chains. As stated in the Positive Aspects of the Proposal, “[t]he use of open source software and the ability to add consumer access to the tracability (sic) system set this proposal apart from other similar proposals.” The proposed pilot project will demonstrate how an open source approach to increasing interoperability between enterprise data silos (buttressed by metadata permissions and security controls in the hands of the actual data producers) will provide new "whole chain" ways of looking at information sharing in enterprise supply and consumer demand chains. For instance, consumers could opt for retailers to automatically populate their accounts from their actual point-of-sale retail purchases. Consumers could additionally populate accounts in a multi-tenancy social network (like Facebook) using smartphone bar code image capturing applications. 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. This could empower consumers with a one-stop shop for confidentially reporting suspicious food to FoodSafety.gov. Likewise, consumers could be provided with real-time, relevant food recall information in their multi-tenancy, social networking accounts, and their connected smartphone applications.

Question 2: A member of the panel was skeptical that the consumer accessibility would be largely attractive as this capability currently has limited appeal among consumers.

We recognize this viewpoint to be a highly prevalent opinion within an ag and food industry predominantly sharing data in a “one-up/one-down” manner. When one uses a smartphone today to scan an item in a grocery store, the probability of being able to retrieve any data from the typical ag and food supply chain is very low. However, we have been highly influenced in our thinking by the existing data showing that many consumers do not take appropriate protective actions during a foodborne illness outbreak or food recall. 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 by not purchasing safe foods. We have been further influenced by how producers of organic and natural products are adopting rapidly evolving smartphone and mobile technologies as a way of communicating directly with consumers, and increasing their market share. We contend that by increasing supply chain transparency with real-time, whole chain technologies, “consumer accessibility” will become more and more appealing.  We contend this to be especially true when there is a product recall and the products are already in the home. And so, again, our high interest in working with FoodSafety.gov.

The foregoing strategy and comments may be freely cited with attribution to this author as CEO of Pardalis, Inc. It is offered in the spirit of the "sharing is winning" principles of the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium™ (now being rebranded as @WholeChainTrace™). However, no right to use Pardalis' patent or patents pending is conveyed thereby. If you wish to be a research collaborator with Pardalis, or to license or use Pardalis' patented innovations, please contact the author.

Go to Part II

Update on Sunday, April 15, 2012 at 11:16PM by Steve Holcombe

All indications are that the emerging Wikidata Project, the next iteration of Wikipedia, will authorize end-users to centrally register immutable data elements (e.g., someone's birth date). It is no surprise that the primary benefactors of the Wikidata Project include Paul Allen's Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Google because from these immutable data elements will be created trustworthy informational objects for supporting varying semantic relationships (i.e., ontologies).

"The overall project will have three phases, the first of which involves creating one Wikidata page for each Wikipedia entry across Wikipedia’s over 280 supported languages. This will provide the online encyclopedia with one common source of structured data that can be used in all articles, no matter which language they’re in. For example, the date of someone’s birth would be recorded and maintained in one place: Wikidata. Phase one will also involve centralizing the links between the different language versions of Wikipedia. This part of the work will be finished by August 2012."

See http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/30/wikipedias-next-big-thing-wikidata-a-machine-readable-user-editable-database-funded-by-google-paul-allen-and-others/

I will be speaking about the Wikidata Project in my keynote presentation "Data objects and information exchange for whole chain traceability" at the Smart AgriMatics Conference in Paris in mid-June, 2012. For more information see http://www.smartagrimatics.eu/ConferenceInformation/Program.aspx#PlenaryOpeningSession.

Update on Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 10:25AM by Steve Holcombe

ADVANCEMENT OF A WHOLE-CHAIN, STAKEHOLDER DRIVEN TRACEABILITY SYSTEM FOR AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES: BEEF CATTLE PILOT DEMONSTRATION

Sponsoring Institution: USDA NIFA

Grant No. 2011-51110-31044

Project Timeline: Sep 1, 2011 to Aug 31, 2014

Recipient Organization: OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY, BIOSYSTEMS & AG ENGINEERING, STILLWATER,OK 74078

Project Director: Buser, Michael | 405-744-5288 | buser@okstate.edu

Project Methods: The software development for a working, scalable stakeholder-driven "whole chain" agricultural commodity traceability system is broken down into four categories: 1) system architecture, 2) system software, 3) content-centric networking and 4) stakeholder feedback.

System Architecture: We propose to implement the distributed system using a content-centric networking (CCN) data framework such as the CCNx framework currently under development by Xerox PARC, (sic)

System Software: The proposed WCTS system will extend the existing supply chain software of Pardalis, Inc. As multiple stakeholders may be generating and accessing shared data, we will develop algorithms for data synchronization, reconciliation and certification. The system must provide reports such as supply chain traceability reports. A browser-based version of the user interface will be designed and implemented. A critical subset of these will be implemented as applications in mobile Android based smart phones.

Content-Centric Networking for Food Traceability: Initially, CCNx will be applied for commodity traceability to determine system performance characteristics such as bandwidth, caching requirements, delays, throughput, etc. CCNx's performance will be compared to the Internet Protocol. The security of CCNx for commodity traceability will be analyzed. In the second phase we will seek to alleviate the bottlenecks and weaknesses identified in the first phase, particularly the security vulnerabilities and trust implementation in the whole chain. We will first identify the security goals for a whole chain commodity traceability system to define security policies. These policies, which will include access rights, for example, will be enforced by credentials. Second, we will analyze the different levels of protection and privacy required by the different types of content. Third, we will implement trust in the whole supply chain within the CCNx framework by integrating credentials (Blaze et. al. 1996) with reputation-based trust management (Zacharia 2000) and policy-based trust management. We propose to create and discover by content the distributed credentials, reputations, users and data and thereby create a trust chain that is content-centric. Sanitation algorithms (Dilys 2007)) to filter content will be explored with a view to incorporating them within CCNx to ensure privacy.

The above information was found at the following link on 4 September 2012: http://www.reeis.usda.gov/web/crisprojectpages/0226992-advancement-of-a-whole-chain-stakeholder-driven-traceability-system-for-agricultural-commodities-beef-cattle-pilot-demonstration.html. However since that time the foregoing information has been substituted with other language including the following:

Non Technical Summary: Traceability is a key component in developing a safe food supply, as evidenced by the recent outbreak of foodborne illnesses attributed to spinach, peppers, and tomatoes in the United States and the ongoing e-coli outbreak in Europe with 27 deaths reported to date. The European Union has agreed to pay over $300 million to farmers who suffered losses. The Centers for Disease Control reported that salmonella infection rates are increasing with one million people sickened by food-borne pathogens each year. Unfortunately, the current approach to product traceability is one-up, one-back information sharing at the GTIN (global trade item number) lot level. This type of traceability system has many disadvantages, including lack of privacy, and fails to maximize system benefits such as efficiency and more complete or "whole-chain" information sharing. This approach is fraught with inherent delays, limiting consumers' and regulators' ability to identify the contaminant source and limiting mitigation efforts in the event of outbreaks or bioterrorism. This lack of critical information can cause significant economic losses to multiple industries resulting from public uncertainty on the potential for human hazard, affecting even those not connected with outbreaks. Conversely, research suggests that whole-chain traceability can substantially limit the economic loss of food safety events.

Clive Boulton: Whole Chain Traceability, pulling a Kobayshi Maru

Whole Chain Traceability, pulling a Kobayshi Maru.

A little background information about how this presentation came to be ....

Clive Boulton made this timely, impressive presentation at a luncheon held in Stillwater, Oklahoma on 6 January 2012. Stillwater is where Oklahoma State University - lead research institution of the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium - is located. The pathway to Stillwater from the Seattle area began with the CCNx conference held at the Palo Alto Research Center in September, 2011. I attended CCNxCon to make one or more connections relevant to the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium. Clive wasn't physically at the conference but he was looking in from north of Seattle via a live audio/video stream. Clive heard me asking a question from the audience about possibly applying CCN to supply chain traceability needs in food safety. Like me, Cliive has a passion for food traceability and so he tweeted "Who's that?" to one of the CCNxCon managers. A Twitter introduction was made.

Clive is currently a co-organizer of the Seattle Google Technology User Group at GTUG - http://www.meetup.com/seattle-gtug. He has a "finger on the pulse" of technology developments in Seattle and Silicon Valley which he commonly blogs about at http://cliveboulton.com/. And Clive has specially blogged there about Pardalis' Common Point Authoring at http://cliveboulton.com/post/12071791931/pardalis-is-banking-on-granular-information.

Clive is particularly interested in enterprise connected consumer solutions at web scale with polyglot technologies. Clive has opinions on how MSFT SQL Azure (or other "Big Data" databases) may be horizontally sharded (i.e., partitioned) with immutable informational objects for massive scalability. He is also very knowledgeable of the need to balance scalability against inherent latency issues that may result, for instance, in slow consumer access via mobile devices. And he has practical ideas about how to syngergistically leverage the resources and relationships of the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium for fostering an ecosystem of API development.

As a result of his visit to Stillwater, I am pleased announce that Clive will be serving as a consultant to the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium a/k/a @WholeChainTrace. This should make for a potent connection between the #CollabEnt (i.e., collaboration enterprise) of Clive's 20th slide and the increasingly critical need for real-time food traceability. Stay tuned.

Update on Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 10:15PM by Steve Holcombe

 New Slide 19 by @iC - #Cloud Application: Partnership model for a neutral #traceability database | http://www.slideshare.net/clibou/wctcevolution

The Whole Chain Traceability Consortium

The Whole Chain Traceability Consortium™ is currently comprised at its core of researchers, educators, extension specialists and collaborators at Oklahoma State University, North Dakota State University, Michigan State University, the University of Arkansas, and Pardalis, Inc., an Oklahoma advanced  information technology company. These institutions are joined together by "sharing is winning" principles. Steve Holcombe, Pardalis' CEO, serves as a networker and coordinator among, between and beyond these institutions.

The vision of the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium™ is that new strategies for "whole chain" management of agricultural and food data - with a security model - are needed. We believe that these new strategies will increase the availability and quality in supply chains of transparent data. We believe that these new strategies will open up exciting sustainable business models for both large and small agricultural companies. We believe that social networking, the emergence of the "Internet of Things", and mobile technologies are dynamically driving this need. And, for instance, we believe that consumers will significantly benefit from real-time access to new data related to the safety of their food.

Whole Chain Traceability Consortium™ coalesced in preparing food safety proposals for over $50M in 2010 USDA NIFA agricultural funding. In August 2011 notification was received of an award (~$550K/3 YRS) under the USDA National Integrated Food Safety Initiative. Pardalis' enterprise-class, multi-tenancy is at the heart of that project. This project begins a process for a patent-hardened open source licensing strategy for food and ag supply chains branded with Pardalis’ Whole Chain Traceability Consortium™.

The Web was originally conceived as a tool for researchers who trusted one another implicitly. Building in the missing layers of trust and provenance that make possible “whole chain” information sharing is one of the “next Big Things” for the Internet. Global patent portfolios are expensive and time-consuming to obtain and protect. Pardalis has been patiently building a formidable global patent portfolio in the U.S., China, the EU and other countries since 2001. These patents cover critical methods for introducing trust and provenance to whole chain information sharing with information-centric networking.

Other funding activities - both national and international - are in process. That includes a pre-submission seeking funding under the NSF Partnerships in International Research and Education (PIRE). On 19 October 2011 the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium™ - led by Oklahoma State University - filed a pre-submission entitled "Advancement of a whole-chain, stakeholder-driven traceability and supply chain management system to improve food safety and reduce food waste". As well phrased by Leo Bonanni of SourceMap, global trade in agricultural and food products is a series of discrete transactions between buyers and sellers. It is generally difficult – if not impossible – to determine a clear picture of the entire life cycle of such products.

The goals of the proposed NSF PIRE research are epitomized by a vision of consumers able to point a smartphone at a food product bar code, and retrieve a global sourcing map and reliable information about the product. This access may help save peoples lives in a food safety recall, verify sustainable agricultural practices, and learn more from consumers about their personal experiences with food products.

Domestic collaborators with the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium™ in the NSF PIRE pre-submission include Top 10 Produce, LLC and SourceMap. International collaborators include Dr. Sjaak Wolfert, Sr. Scientific Researcher on ICT in Agri-Food Supply Chain Networks at the University of Wageningen, the Netherlands, and Coordinator of the EU funded Smart Agri-Food Project. Also, Prof. Maohua Wang, College of Information and Electrical Engineering, Chinese Agricultural University – Beijing, China. Prof. Wang is Director of Strategic Research on Key Technology of Agricultural Information Technology funded by National Science Foundation of China.

Check out this and other funding opportunities being discussed and considered by the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium™ at http://pardalis.squarespace.com/funding-opportunities/">http://pardalis.squarespace.com/funding-opportunities/.

There are three social networking sites for the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium™. One is the Whole Chain Traceability Funding Opportunities networking group on LinkedIn. Another is on Facebook at the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium page. There is also a Twitter account at @WholeChainTrace. For more information, visit any of these websites or contact any of the following:

• Dr. Brian Adam, Oklahoma State University Professor of Agricultural Economics - http://agecon.okstate.edu/faculty/profile.asp?id=brian.adam&type=faculty
• Dr. Michael Buser, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering - http://bioenergycenter.okstate.edu/faculty/Buser
• Dr. Deland Myers, Professor and Director, School of Food Systems, North Dakota State University - http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/foodsystems/contactus.html
• Dr. John Stone, Co-Director and Sr. Research Scientist, at the Center for the Study of Standards in Society, Michigan State University - http://cs3.msu.edu/people/profile/stone-john/
• Dr. Jean-Francois Meullenet, Head and Professor, Department of Food Science, University of Arkansas - http://foodscience.uark.edu/2349.htm
• Steve Holcombe, Pardalis, Inc. - http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveholcombe

Update on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 10:06AM by Steve Holcombe

Tracking & Incentivizing Data Sharing: The Whole Chain Traceability Consortium

Beth Hoffman, Managing Editor and Partner, Food+Tech Connect, interviewed Dr. Brian Adam, Oklahoma State University Professor of Agricultural Economics, Dr. Michael Buser, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, and me.

Introductory excerpt -

"Knowing where food comes from and how it was grown is a top priority in an increasing number of American households. But aside from costly technological solutions employed by large, vertically-integrated corporations, very little exists to follow food throughout fragmented food systems from ‘farm to fork.’ The Whole Chain Traceability Consortium ... aims to change that, and make it available on smart phones."

See the full post published on 29 Nov 2011 at:

http://www.foodandtechconnect.com/site/2011/11/29/tracking-and-incentivizing-data-the-whole-chain-traceability-consortium/

Update on Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 10:16PM by Steve Holcombe

Whole Chain Traceability: A Successful Research Funding Strategy
http://pardalis.squarespace.com/blog/2012/1/26/whole-chain-traceability-a-successful-research-funding-strat.html

Update on Saturday, April 28, 2012 at 8:47PM by Steve Holcombe

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Update: National Institute for Whole Chain Traceability
From: "Steve Holcombe"
Date: Thu, January 19, 2012 11:15 am
To:

Dr. Deland Myers
Professor and Director
Great Plains Institute of Food safety
School of Food Systems
North Dakota State University

Dr. Steve Pueppke
Director of Michigan State University AgBioResearch

Dr. Lawrence Busch
Founding Director
Center for the Study of Standards in Society
Michigan State University

Dr. John V. Stone
Co-Director & Senior Research Scientist
Center for the Study of Standards in Society
Michigan State University

Dr. Jean-Francois Meullenet
Head & Professor
Department of Food Science
University of Arkansas

Dr. Sjaak Wolfert
Sr. Scientific Researcher on ICT in Agri-Food Supply Chain Networks
University of Wageningen, the Netherlands

Prof. Maohua Wang
(c/o Dr. Ning Wang)
College of Information and Electrical Engineering
Chinese Agricultural University
Beijing, China

Vladimir Krasojevic
Research Director at Gartner
Zurich, Switzerland

Dr. Sam Saguy
Professor of Food Science, Technology, and Innovation
Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Greetings, All,

Last fall I had the distinct privilege of personally soliciting from each of you a letter of support for the founding of a "National Institute for Whole Chain Traceability and Food Safety Research" at Oklahoma State University. Each of you submitted letters of support to Dr. Brian Adam, Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics at OSU. Your letters were received with great interest, hope and excitement. My final draft of the news release, which was personally submitted to Dr. Stephen McKeever, VP of Research and Technology Transfer at OSU, is attached. [Editors's Note: In fact, Dr. McKeever gave his own letter of support, too].

In your letters you appropriately noted that unfunded, multi-institutional activities do not commonly coalesce and stay together for as long as they had done so (over 2 long years) with the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium (WCTC). And you further noted that the initial funding and founding of the Institute was truly be a milestone achievement for the WCTC.

This last week I was informed by Drs. Buser and Adam that the National Institute will come into existence sometime later in 2012 but that neither the efforts of the "Whole Chain Traceability Consortium" nor "Pardalis Inc." will be specifically identified. At best I imagine there will be some reference to the activities of a "consortium" or something to that effect. Furthermore, I was informed that henceforth there would be no further, specific reference to the Whole Chain Traceability Consortium nor Pardalis Inc. in future, OSU-led traceability funding submissions. As to the reasons for these decisions, I would refer you to Drs. McKeever, Buser or Adam. But I will say that I was invited to continue my participation - at the same level of energy and interest - in current and future OSU-led traceability funding activities.

I regret to inform you that Pardalis will no longer be participating in the formation of the National Institute. Nor will Pardalis be participating any further in conjunction with OSU-led funding activities or funding submissions. This includes the currently funded USDA National Integrated Food Safety Initiative project, the NSF Partnerships in International Research and Education (PIRE) and the USDA Specialty Crops Research Initiative submission.

I want to again thank you for your letters of support. I was walking on “Cloud Nine”, as they say. And I want you to know that I had the very, very best of intentions in soliciting your support in a manner that was inextricably connected to the "sharing is winning" principles of the WCTC. Those principles remain unaltered and unaffected.

The WCTC will evolve. In fact, Pardalis Inc is already in the process of rebranding its trademark under the moniker of @WholeChainTrace™. Furthermore, Clive Boulton, co-organizer of the significant Seattle-area Google Technology User Group, has come on board as a technical advisor to Pardalis Inc., @WholeChainTrace™ and an even broader brand, @WholeChainCom™ (for Whole Chain Communications).

Thanks again for your support letters. I mean that. I sincerely hope that I have not lost an opportunity to again solicit your support for the future activities of @WholeChainTrace.

Cheers,

Steve

----
Steve Holcombe
CEO - Pardalis, Inc.
    
Cc:
Dr. Stephen McKeever, VP of Research and Technology Transfer
Dr. Brian Adam, Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics
Dr. Michael Buser, Assistant Professor, Department of BAE

Update on Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 12:25PM by Steve Holcombe

ADVANCEMENT OF A WHOLE-CHAIN, STAKEHOLDER DRIVEN TRACEABILITY SYSTEM FOR AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES: BEEF CATTLE PILOT DEMONSTRATION

Sponsoring Institution: USDA NIFA

Grant No. 2011-51110-31044

Project Timeline: Sep 1, 2011 to Aug 31, 2014

Recipient Organization: OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY, BIOSYSTEMS & AG ENGINEERING, STILLWATER,OK 74078

Project Director: Buser, Michael | 405-744-5288 | buser@okstate.edu

Project Methods: The software development for a working, scalable stakeholder-driven "whole chain" agricultural commodity traceability system is broken down into four categories: 1) system architecture, 2) system software, 3) content-centric networking and 4) stakeholder feedback.

System Architecture: We propose to implement the distributed system using a content-centric networking (CCN) data framework such as the CCNx framework currently under development by Xerox PARC, (sic)

System Software: The proposed WCTS system will extend the existing supply chain software of Pardalis, Inc. As multiple stakeholders may be generating and accessing shared data, we will develop algorithms for data synchronization, reconciliation and certification. The system must provide reports such as supply chain traceability reports. A browser-based version of the user interface will be designed and implemented. A critical subset of these will be implemented as applications in mobile Android based smart phones.

Content-Centric Networking for Food Traceability: Initially, CCNx will be applied for commodity traceability to determine system performance characteristics such as bandwidth, caching requirements, delays, throughput, etc. CCNx's performance will be compared to the Internet Protocol. The security of CCNx for commodity traceability will be analyzed. In the second phase we will seek to alleviate the bottlenecks and weaknesses identified in the first phase, particularly the security vulnerabilities and trust implementation in the whole chain. We will first identify the security goals for a whole chain commodity traceability system to define security policies. These policies, which will include access rights, for example, will be enforced by credentials. Second, we will analyze the different levels of protection and privacy required by the different types of content. Third, we will implement trust in the whole supply chain within the CCNx framework by integrating credentials (Blaze et. al. 1996) with reputation-based trust management (Zacharia 2000) and policy-based trust management. We propose to create and discover by content the distributed credentials, reputations, users and data and thereby create a trust chain that is content-centric. Sanitation algorithms (Dilys 2007)) to filter content will be explored with a view to incorporating them within CCNx to ensure privacy.

More information: http://www.reeis.usda.gov/web/crisprojectpages/0226992-advancement-of-a-whole-chain-stakeholder-driven-traceability-system-for-agricultural-commodities-beef-cattle-pilot-demonstration.html