Dataportability, Traceability and Data Ownership - Part III

[Return to Part II]

The Value Proposition of Data Ownership

Thanks to Henry Story for stopping by to comment on the XML object examples offered in Part II.

"Yes, unique identifiers are very helpful. But numbers rarely uniquely identify anything. Replace your numbers above with URIs (Universal Resource Identifiers) and you have not only a proven system of unique IDs, you also have (especially with http URIs) a well understood way of dereferencing the information. Then you no longer need a specialised name server. This is what the web part of the semantic web is about [which I wrote about in the Sun Bablefish blog entitled hyperdata posted September 20, 2007]. You then move out of supply chains, into supply networks, which I wrote up in another blog [entitled Supply Networks posted April 19, 2007]." (emphasis added)

The end-game goal of the emerging Semantic Web is to interconnect data so that it becomes a ‘hyperdata’ machine. Nonetheless, as Story has previously propounded, there is more to it than technology. There is also the need for policies or other non-technological means that address “who should see what data, who should be able to copy that data, and what they should be able to do with it.”

For some people the Semantic Web will be a technological wonder to behold. Others will be scared stiff by it. Many will feel both awe and trepidation. But not to be forgotten is that people matter more than the Web, itself. A Semantic Web that people view as outside of their control will be a machine that can only become a shadow of its full potential because people, businesses and, yes, even governments will not fully participate.

Previously, in Banking on Granular Information Ownership I offered this.

"People are comfortable and familiar with monetary banks. That’s a good thing because without people willingly depositing their money into banks, there would be no banking system as we know it. Banks need access to people’s money into order to make profits. Without a healthy monetary banking system our economies would be comparatively dysfunctional, and our personal lives would be critically deficient in opportunities."

The same thing can be said about the emerging Semantic Web. People will need to be made comfortable and familiar with the Semantic Web. Without people willingly depositing their information to this new Web, it will fall far short of its inherent capacity for growth.

Moreover, the Semantic Web will need access to people’s information in order make profits, no matter what the business model is. The opportunities for the Semantic Web to enrich our economies and our personal lives will be diminished without ‘buy in’ by the people whom it is envisioned to serve. The value proposition of data ownership is that it provides the most acceptable technological and socio-political pathway for adoption by ordinary people of the emerging Semantic Web.

It is because people matter more than the Web that ‘specialized name servers’ will play a large role. Using the hypothetical domain name ‘www.toydatabank.org’ I have added the following A-XML example to the continuum of examples begun in Part II. I have wrapped some of the following lines of code, and inserted spacing, for easier reading.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<Pedigree>

<PedigreeID UniquePointer =
" http://www.toydatabank.org/toymfg/Object_IDs/99087 "/>

<ManufacturerID UniquePointer =
" http://www.toydatabank.org/toymfg/mfg_IDs/00372 "/>

<ProductSerialNumber UniquePointer =
" http://www.toydatabank.org/toymfg/element_IDs/43229 "/>

<ProductDescription UniquePointer =
" http://www.toydatabank.org/toymfg/element_IDs/23444 "/>

<ProductInfoToSupplyChain UniquePointer =
" http://www.toydatabank.org/toymfg/element_IDs/66221 "/>

<ProductInfoToGovtRegulator UniquePointer =
" http://www.toydatabank.org/toymfg/element_IDs/66333 "/>

<Permissions UniquePointer =
" http://www.toydatabank.org/toymfg/Permissions_IDs/37911 "/>

<!-- Manufacturer information sharing permissions -->
<OtherData>Document Type Definitions</OtherData>
</Pedigree>

Combine a specialized name server with a centralized dictionary of uniquely identified (and standardized) data elements, a centralized registry of A-XML informational objects, an author-controlled permissions database, a distributed A-XML editor/reader and you have the essential components of what I call a supply chain ‘data bank’.

What does a data bank do? It depends on the supply chain, the social network or, as Henry Story has very neatly coined, the ‘supply network’. The white paper, Banking on Granular Information Ownership, covers much of this territory in a less technological manner with examples applicable to personal health records, food safety, product tracking, people tracking, and transactional tracking.

However, I want to add that - conceptually - the connatural, non-collaborative disposition of technological data ownership is a perfect compliment to the approach that Wikipedia has taken in fostering the collaborative authoring of encyclopedic entries. I say ‘conceptually’ because Wikipedia’s entries are collaborative though non-structured. But what if Wikipedia’s collaborative processes and methods for approving unstructured information were applied to structured information?

That is, what if the information account holders of a toy data bank were empowered to collaboratively add to their data bank’s dictionary of structured data elements so that all account holders may then draw upon them non-collaboratively for the A-XML objects each account holder authors and controls?

Consider that a supply chain member of the toy data bank wishes to add to our toy product pedigree example in Part II the language in red.

Product Pedigree Document
Manufacturer ID = Safe Toy Company
Product Serial Number = STOY991
Product Description = Painted Toy
Product Info To Supply Chain = 0% lead in paint
Product Info To Govt Regulator = Less than 600ppm of lead in paint by weight
Product Child Labor = No child labor used

The supply chain participant, using the toy data bank’s XML editor, authors a draft of the following XML data object  …

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<ToyDictionary_DraftElements>
<ToyProductChildLabor>No child labor used</ToyProductChildLabor>
</ToyDictionary_DraftElements>

… that - if adopted by the toy data bank – will be deposited into a standardized toy data bank ‘dictionary’ of XML structured data elements. These would then be available for A-XML authoring by any toy supply chain participant who is a member of the toy data bank. Again, I have wrapped some of the following lines of code, etc., for easier reading.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<ToyDictionary_RegisteredElements>

<ToyProductChildLabor UniquePointer =
" http://www.toydatabank.org/toymfg/element_IDs/12637 "/>

</ToyDictionary_RegisteredElements>

And taking the ‘data bank’ analogy one step further. Let’s say that the adoption of the ‘Product Child Labor’ data element by the toy data bank involves the alternative approval of a central ‘product data bank’ overseeing a larger standardized ‘dictionary’ applicable to products of all kinds (e.g., toys, pharmaceuticals, livestock, food, etc.).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<AnyProductDictionary_RegisteredElements>

<AnyProductChildLabor UniquePointer =
" http://www.anyproductdatabank.org/prodmfg/element_IDs/73621 "/>

</AnyProductDictionary_RegisteredElements>

In the world of supply chains, a likely candidate for such a central ‘any product data bank’ would be EPCglobal, the private, standards setting consortium governed by very large organizations like Cisco Systems, Wal-Mart, Hewlett-Packard, DHL, Dow Chemical Company, Lockheed Martin, Novartis Pharma AG, Johnson & Johnson, Sony Corporation and Proctor & Gamble. EPCglobal is architecting essential, core services for tracking physical products identified by unique electronic product codes (including RFID tags) across and within enterprise systems controlled by large organizations.

The crux of this multi-entry blog is that data ownership – that is, technological data ownership – paradoxically provides a non-technological ‘something more’ that will be a necessary ingredient to the emerging Semantic Web. It will do so by empowering supply chain participants with non-collaborative authoring of granular, structured informational objects that may remain within the visibility and control of the author even as they are shared within a complex supply chain.

And with that, I think I have pretty much all the pieces I need for a final Part IV.

[continued in Part IV]

Portability, Traceability and Data Ownership - Part II

[return to Part I]

The Dilemma of Missing Information

Here is a four minute video interview of Chris Saad, Co-founder and CEO of Faraday Media. If you are pressed for time, just catch the first minute and a half. Chris is also Co-founder and Chairperson of Dataportability.org of which Faraday Media is a sponsor. In Part I of this multi-entry blog I began with the video clip called Data Portability – Video that is a promo for Dataportability.org.

Learning from the Future at the Next Web with Chris Saad from Maarten on Vimeo.

Right after the Facebook/Scoble incident, Dataportability.org gained momentum and membership from individuals associated with the likes of Google, Plaxo, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, SixApart and Microsoft. At Chris' suggestion I, too, have just recently joined their DataPortability Policy Action Group.

Henry Story, a staff engineer for Sun Microsystems, made the following interesting comments on the Sun Babelfish blog about Chris Saad’s Data Portability group and the Data Portability – Video.

“Will the Data Portability group [at Dataportability.org] get the best solution together? …. [O]ne wonders whether XML is not the solution to their problem. Won't XML make data portability possible, if everyone agrees on what they want to port? Of course getting that agreement on all the topics in the world is a never ending process....

But the question is also whether portability is the right issue. Well in some ways it is. Currently each web site has information locked up in html formats … [which makes] it difficult to export the data, which each service wants to hold onto as if it was theirs to own.

Another way of looking at this is that the Data Portability group cannot so much be about technology as policy. The general questions it has to address are question of who should see what data, who should be able to copy that data, and what they should be able to do with it. As a result the policy issue of Data Portability does require one to solve the technical problem of distributed identity: how can people maintain the minimum number of identities on the web? (ie not one per site) Another issue that follows right upon the first is that if one wants information to only be visible to a select group of people - the "who sees what" part of the question - then one also needs a distributed way to be able to specify group membership, be it friendship based or other. The [Data Portability – Video] … makes that point very clearly why having to recreate one's social network on every site is impractical.

Story’s comments are a good setup for what I want to address. And what I want to address is how to make a connection between data portability and what I call the ‘frayed ends and laterals’ of complex product supply chains.

Along the way I want to pay attention to those readers (i.e., the vast majority of the regular, non-techie folks in the world) who are hanging back wondering what an XML object is. Let’s weave in a little history with a simple example, shall we?

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. W3C is headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the first web browser and the primary author of the original Uniform Resource Locator (URL), HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and HyperText Markup Language (HTML) specifications. These are the principal technologies that form the basis of the World Wide Web.

For example, consider this product pedigree written in natural language.

Product Pedigree Document
Manufacturer ID = Safe Toy Company
Product Serial Number = STOY991
Product Description = Painted Toy
Product Info To Supply Chain = 0% lead in paint
Product Info To Govt Regulator = Less than 600ppm of lead in paint by weight

A beneficial characteristic of the World Wide Web is that you can read language like the foregoing example in a natural way but ‘behind the scenes’ (i.e., behind the web browser interface) this natural language representation can be constructed in different ways for different purposes.

The same natural language representation written as an HTML information object using an HTML authoring software application (also called an HTML editor) would read behind the scenes as follows.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN">
<body><p>
Product Pedigree Document<br>
Manufacturer ID = Safe Toy Company<br>
Product Serial Number = STOY991<br>
Product Description = Painted Toy<br>
Product Info To Supply Chain = 0% lead in paint<br>
ProductInfo To Govt Regulator = Less than 600ppm of lead in paint by weight
</p></body></html>

Because HTML objects are designed primarily for creating static websites, and not for dynamic information sharing, W3C has further developed standards for structured electronic sharing in the form of Extensible Markup Language (XML) objects for facilitating the emerging Semantic Web.

With gracious assistance from my good friend and collaborator, Dr. Marvin Stone, here’s an example of a granular XML information object created in an XML editor that would be naturally represented through a web browser as above.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<Pedigree>
<ManufacturerID>Safe Toy Company</ManufacturerID>
<ProductSerialNumber>STOY991</ProductSerialNumber>
<ProductDescription>Painted Toy</ProductDescription>
<ProductInfoToSupplyChain>0% lead in paint</ProductInfoToSupplyChain>
<ProductInfoToGovtRegulator>Less than 600ppm of lead in paint by weight</ProductInfoToGovtRegulator>
<OtherData>Document Type Definitions</OtherData>
</Pedigree>

This type of granular XML object works fine for short, vertically integrated supply chains covered by one or two enterprise systems where a small number of supply chain participants agree on what they want to port. But due to prevalent fear factors (and other policies) that prevent or otherwise affect information sharing along lengthy, complex information supply chains, there is a critical need for a more refined XML tool.

Here’s an example of a hypothetical, author-controlled XML object that would be created/authored/constructed using an extension to the foregoing XML editor that we could call an A-XML editor extension (i.e., author-controlled XML editor extension).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<Pedigree>
<PedigreeID UniquePointer =" 99087 "/>
<ManufacturerID UniquePointer =" 00372 "/>
<ProductSerialNumber UniquePointer =" 43229 "/>
<ProductDescription UniquePointer =" 23444 "/>
<ProductInfoToSupplyChain UniquePointer =" 66221 "/>
<ProductInfoToGovtRegulator UniquePointer =" 66333 "/>
<Permissions UniquePointer =" 37911 "/>
     <!-- Manufacturer information sharing permissions -->
<OtherData>Document Type Definitions</OtherData>
</Pedigree>

In the process of being authored by the toy manufacturer, this A-XML object would be constructed to point to a central repository of uniquely identified data containing the toy manufacturer's unique ID, the unique identifiers of the painted toy’s pedigree, and a unique identifier of the toy manufacturer's information sharing permissions.

Once distributed by the manufacturer/author to a lengthy supply chain, this A-XML object would provide greater control, visibility and traceability one-share, two-shares, three-shares, etc. away from the author. As other supply chain participants access the A-XML object (using a compatible XML editor) to confirm the toy’s pedigree, the toy manufacturer would be provided with supply chain visibility never before experienced.

For instance, the data element "0% lead in paint" uniquely identified as 66221 would be accessible by any supply chain participant registered with the central repository and using a compatible XML editor. The data element "Less than 600ppm of lead in paint by weight" uniquely identified as 66333 would only be accessible by permitted government regulators also registered with the central repository. (For those of you concerned with the ethics of representing one thing to consumers while reporting something else to the government, check out Are Food Labels Reliable?)

In my first journal entry to this blog I offered this:

“Unscrupulous supply chain participants will always try to hide in the ‘fog’ of their supply chains. The manufacturers of safe products want to differentiate themselves from the manufacturers of unsafe products. But, again, fear factors keep the good manufacturers from posting information online that may put them at a competitive disadvantage to downstream competitors.”

There’s a chicken and egg effect here, isn’t there? That is, which comes first, policy or technology?

Here’s one answer.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Don’t get rid of the supply chain enterprise and legacy systems that are already providing useful information sharing without the data ownership characteristics of a tool like A-XML. But in the context of an emerging Semantic Web that will lean heavily upon software-as-a-service, consider the missing and incomplete information that is not being shared from the frayed ends and laterals of complex product supply chains.

And, ask yourself, could there be both a technological and socio-political connection made between data portability and supply chain traceability?

[continued in Part III]

EPCglobal & Prescription Drug Tracking

Andrew Pollack authored an article in the New York Times on March 26, 2008 entitled California Delays Plan to Track Prescription Drugs.

"In a reprieve for the pharmaceutical industry, California regulators agreed on Tuesday to delay by two years a requirement that all prescription drugs be electronically tracked as a means of thwarting counterfeiting.....

The California plan would require that drugs be tracked electronically from the manufacturer through the wholesaler to the pharmacy. Each bottle of pills sold to a pharmacy would have to have a unique serial number, encoded in a bar code or a radio-frequency identification tag.....

Pharmaceutical manufacturers [said that] putting a unique serial number on each container would require changing their packaging lines, which would cost millions of dollars and take years. […] Pharmacies and wholesalers, meanwhile, said they could not install the software and the equipment needed to read the serial numbers until they knew what systems the drug manufacturers would use."

Though not directly identified in Pollack's article, EPCglobal is a leader in establishing standards in the area of drug tracking. EPCglobal is a private, standards setting consortium governed by very large organizations like Cisco Systems, Wal-Mart, Hewlett-Packard, DHL, Dow Chemical Company, Lockheed Martin, Novartis Pharma AG, Johnson & Johnson, Sony Corporation and Proctor & Gamble. EPCglobal is architecting essential, core services for tracking physical products identified by unique electronic product codes (including RFID tags) across and within enterprise systems controlled by large organizations.

I submitted a comment to EPCglobal on January 22, 2008 about EPCglobal's Architecture Framework. You will see that the comment is addressed to Mark Frey who courteously and immediately responded that he had forwarded it to EPCglobal's Architectural Review Committee.

This is a 10 page comment (including exhibits) about broader data ownership issues than just those relating to electronic pedigree documentation for use by pharmaceutical supply chain. But see the first full paragraph on page 5 where I said:

“[W]hile EPCglobal has begun establishing forward-looking standards relative to electronic pedigree documentation for use by pharmaceutical supply chain participants [see EPCglobal Pedigree Ratified Standard Version 1.0 as of January 5, 2007], it has yet to include these standards within the EPCglobal Architecture Diagram.

With this comment I am proposing, by way of an illustrative example, that the methods developed by Pardalis within its IP may be used to derive essential specifications for connecting the current EPCglobal (EPCIS) Architecture with its ePedigree standards for the pharmaceutical industry."

The illustrative example referred to above is a mock Common Point Authoring (CPA) informational object. This illustrative example has a reference point beginning with a granular EPCglobal ePedigree document. The represented CPA informational object is the EPCglobal ePedgiree document that has been further granularized with mock XML tagging containing unique identifiers pointing to a CPA registered data element database.

My point is that EPCglobal has yet to develop standards for ePedigree document exchange that may be efficiently, flexibly and cost-effectively applied to the pharmaceutical supply chains for helping to reduce counterfeiting. Given the players who comprise EPCglobal, it is reasonable to presume that California regulators have essentially backed off enforcing their anti-counterfeiting regulations because EPCglobal has yet to catch up to the California plan. The plan was to take effect January 1, 2009. Now it has been pushed back to 2011.

Update on Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 1:54PM by Steve Holcombe

From the Economist's Economic & Financial Indicators section:

"Custom seizures of counterfeit goods rose by 17% in the EU last year, according the European Commission."

Source: The Economist crediting European Commission

"The number of cases has grown rapidly since 2003, but fewer fake articles were confiscated last year than in 2006—perhaps because internet sales have boosted the number of small consignments. Indeed, 70% of cases involved air-express courier or mail. Cigarettes and clothing accounted for more than half the sham gear seized. China was the source of almost 60% of dodgy goods. Switzerland and India account for three-quarters of the trade in fake drugs, which rose by 51% last year. Treatments for erectile dysfunction—phoney Viagra pills—were the most common counterfeit medicines." [emphasis added]

Update on Sunday, April 4, 2010 at 9:07PM by Steve Holcombe

"Discovery services" (See the EPCGlobal Standards Overview at http://www.epcglobalinc.org/standards) has been gray in color for the two years since I published this blog entry. And I am informed by a knowledgeable source that it will probably be another two years before they arrive at any definitive standards (if then). 

Granularity & Semantic Trust

I have received, and continue to receive, some quizzical looks and comments when I speak about Common Point Authoring in terms of granularity or granular information ownership.

Here's a wonderful parable about granularity taken from an excerpt of Automated Trust Mechanisms and the One World Market by Greg FitzPatrick. This paper was submitted to XML Europe 2001.

"Granularity .... means the breaking up [of] ideas, processes, products and services into fragments. The makeup of a set of fragments is dynamic and aspectual to ever-changing utility and circumstance. Each set represents new and unique combinations. The backside of granularity is complexity and the costs involved in extending distributed trust. Unlike Humpty-Dumpty, a granular set must be able to function as effectively as any pre-granular whole.

Imagine a group of children in a playroom. Each child has come to the room with a thousand pieces of their privately owned and highly valued collections of Lego. A teacher says to the children. "Put all your Lego pieces in the middle of the floor and build a great city." The children balk, since once the Lego is removed from their immediate possession, they can no longer identify it as their own. The teacher tells them," I will keep track of each piece and remember whose is whose. If the children trust the teacher's ability to do this they will begin to build.

To match their trust the teacher would need almost supernatural powers since Lego is known for the precision modularity of its product, mostly indistinguishable plastic blocks. The value of playing together and having so much Lego to build with is the value of the network, but the effort to maintain trust regarding individual ownership is the transaction cost.

End-to-end markets are capable of creating a considerable amount of complexity. Through Semantic trust they will admit a swarm of participants (fragments) into one and the same transaction. [....] The complexity is further exacerbated by the existence of exploratory negotiation. Agents trying to evaluate their participation in a deal would need the same transaction mechanisms as those of a firm deal. The trust mechanisms must be in place regardless."

The image of a teacher assuring these kids that they will get back 'their' exact Lego pieces is powerful.

Tim Berners-Lee in addressing XML 2000 is said to have described the Semantic test for such trust as being that "... which is passed if, when you give data to a machine, it will do the right thing with it".