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Big Data gives us access to deeper and broader analytical results that offer exciting new opportunities. With those opportunities come unique challenges to interpret and understand the consequences of our decisions. System Dynamics provides a methodology for describing complex environments and ecosystems and then simulating the impact of Policy on those environments. Using an explicit vocabulary in stock and flow diagrams, System Dynamics helps decision makers understand the unintended consequences of their Big Data strategies and plans.

Members of the OASIS open standards consortium, including IBM and isee systems, are starting an initiative to standardize an XML Interchange Language (XMILE) for System Dynamics. The standard will enable organizations to generate complex cause and effect models for Big Data Analytics. XMILE has the potential to revolutionize the way organizations consume Big Data, analyze options, and evaluate decisions.

An open Call for Participation in XMILE has been issued; the first XMILE Technical Committee meeting will be held at the Int’l System Dynamics Conference on 24 July.

We invite you to attend this webinar and learn about System Dynamics, XMILE, and the exciting opportunities for Big Data Policy Simulation.

Who should attend:
Anyone with an interest in Big Data, process models, simulations, and policy management.

Speakers:
Steve Adler, IBM Information Strategist
Karim Chichakly, isee systems Chief Architect

Title:
Understanding Big Data Using System Dynamics and XMILE
Date:
Monday, June 24, 2013
Time:
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Mac®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.6 or newer

Mobile attendees
Required: iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phone or Android tablet

Call for Participation: OASIS XML Interchange Language (XMILE) for System Dynamics Technical Committee

A new OASIS technical committee is being formed. The OASIS XML Interchange Language (XMILE) for System Dynamics Technical Committee has been proposed by the members of OASIS listed in the charter below. The TC name, statement of purpose, scope, list of deliverables, audience, IPR mode and language specified in the proposal will constitute the TCs official charter. Submissions of technology for consideration by the TC and the beginning of technical discussions may occur no sooner than the TCs first meeting.

Why should you care?  Because Big Data can produce many variables and ambiguous recommendations.  You can model your Big Data analytical results and Simulate Policy impacts and Decisions with System Dynamics and XMILE is a machine language for doing that.

The eligibility requirements for becoming a participant in the TC at the first meeting are:

(a) you must be an employee or designee of an OASIS member organization or an individual member of OASIS, and?
(b) you must join the Technical Committee, which members may do by using the Roster “join group” link on the TCs web page [a].

To be considered a voting member at the first meeting:

(a) you must join the Technical Committee at least 7 days prior to the first meeting (on or before 17 July 2013); and?
(b) you must attend the first meeting of the TC, at the time and date fixed below (24 July 2013).

Participants also may join the TC at a later time. OASIS and the TC welcomes all interested parties.

Non-OASIS members who wish to participate may contact us about joining OASIS [b]. In addition, the public may access the information resources maintained for each TC: a mail list archive, document repository and public comments facility, which will be linked from the TCs public home page at [c].

Please feel free to forward this announcement to any other appropriate lists. OASIS is an open standards organization; we encourage your participation.
———-
[a] https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/xmile/

[b] http://www.oasis-open.org/join/

[c] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xmile/

—

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

The charter for this TC is as follows:

?1) Charter for OASIS XML Interchange Language (XMILE) for System Dynamics Technical Committee

(1) (a) Name of the TC

OASIS XML Interchange Language (XMILE) for System Dynamics Technical Committee

(1) (b) Statement of Purpose

The purpose of the XML Interchange Language (XMILE) for System Dynamics (SD) Technical Committee (TC) is to define an open XML protocol for the sharing, interoperability, and reuse of SD models and simulations. System Dynamics is an interactive environment for simulating the impact of policy on complex ecosystems. The benefits of this standard are:

- SD models can be re-used with Big Data sets to show how different policies produce different outcomes in complex environments.
- Models can be stored in cloud-based libraries, shared within and between organizations, and used to communicate different outcomes with common vocabulary.
- Model components can be re-used and plugged into other simulations.
- It will allow the creation of online repositories modeling many common business decisions.
- It will increase acceptance and use of System Dynamics as a discipline
- It will help ISVs make new tools that help businesses to develop and understand models and simulations.
- It will enable vendors to develop standards-based applications for new markets such as mobile and social media.

(1) (c) Scope of Work

The TC will accept as input the following SMILE and XMILE specifications published on 7 June 2013:

http://www.iseesystems.com/community/support/SMILEv4.pdf

http://www.iseesystems.com/community/support/XMILEv4.pdf

SMILE is a descriptive language based on Dynamo that allows people to create System Dynamic models
and components. XMILE is a specification that encodes SMILE in XML.

Features of SMILE include:

- A language for simulation of SD models
- A core feature set for representing stock-flow diagrams of SD models

Features of XMILE include:

- A representation for simulation of SD models, in accordance with SMILE, including macro capabilities to both describe and implement vendor-unique language features (level 1)
- A representation of the stock-flow diagrams of SD models, in accordance with SMILE (level 2)
- A representation (level 3) of:
- Output devices for displaying data, such as graphs and tables,
- Input devices to allow the building of management flight simulators, and
- Model and flight simulator annotations such as text boxes and pictures

The TC will refine these initial contributions to produce OASIS Standard versions of the SMILE and
XMILE specifications, including necessary supporting documentation.

The scope of the TC’s work is limited to technical refinements to the features defined in the input contributions. Modest extensions to the SMILE language that substantively increase the
interoperability of SD models between vendors, together with their renderings in XMILE, will also be considered. However, the TC’s main focus is to refine the functionality presented in the input
documents. Other contributions will be collected and can be considered in subsequent versions of the standard.

Out of scope: Any work not reasonably covered by the Scope of Work is deemed to be out of scope.  Renderings of SMILE that do not use XML are deemed to be out of scope.

(1) (d) Deliverables

The TC will produce OASIS Standard versions of both the SMILE and XMILE specifications within 12 to 16 months of the first meeting. The TC may optionally deliver white papers, orientation materials, tutorials, and such other non-normative content as may be useful to the community.

Maintenance

Once the TC has successfully produced the deliverables, the TC will enter into a maintenance mode.  The purpose of the maintenance mode is to provide minor revisions to previously adopted
deliverables, to clarify ambiguities, inconsistencies, and obvious errors. The maintenance mode will not functionally enhance a previously adopted deliverable, or extend its functionality.

(1) (e) IPR Mode

The committee will operate under the Non-Assertion IPR mode as defined in the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy effective 21 June 2012.

(1) (f) Anticipated Audience

The anticipated audience for this work includes:

- Vendors of SD software, Big Data, cloud, mobile, and social media solutions.

- End users of and of the above who implement solutions that require interoperability between SD
models and other systems.

- Consultants, educators, and interested parties.

(1) (g) Language

The TC will conduct its business in English. The output documents will be written in (US) English.

(2) Non-normative information regarding the startup of the TC

(2) (a) Similar or Applicable Work

XMILE is the XML representation of system dynamics models, as defined in the SMILE language. As
such, it has some overlap with the Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML). XMILE, however, is
specifically tailored to System Dynamics models which are not explicitly represented in SBML.

(2) (b) Date, Time, and Location of First Meeting

The first meeting of the XMILE TC will be a face-to-face meeting to be held at the International System Dynamics Conference, July 24, 2013 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

(2) (c) On-Going Meeting Plans & Sponsors

It is anticipated that the XMILE TC will meet by teleconference every other week for an hour at a time determined by the TC members during the first TC meeting. It is anticipated that the XMILE TC
will meet face-to-face every 3 months at a time and location to be determined by the TC members. The actual pace of face-to-face and teleconference meetings will be determined by TC members. Meetings will be hosted by member companies on a rotating basis.

(2) (d) Proposers of the TC

Karim Chichakly, kchichakly@iseesystems.com, isee systems, inc.
Joanne Egner, jegner@iseesystems.com, isee systems, inc.

Steve Adler, adler1@us.ibm.com, IBM
Eleni Pratsini, pra@us.ibm.com, IBM
Lianjun An, alianjun@us.ibm.com, IBM
Soumyadip Ghosh, ghoshs@us.ibm.com, IBM

(2) (e) Statements of Support

Joanne Egner, jegner@iseesystems.com
Managing Director, isee systems, inc.
As isee systems primary OASIS representative, I approve the OASIS XML Interchange Language (XMILE)
for System Dynamics TC Charter and endorse our proposers (listed above) as named co-proposers.

David Ing, ings@ca.ibm.com
Manager of Emerging Software Standards, IBM
I support the OASIS XML Interchange Language (XMILE) for System Dynamics TC Charter because this
specification will help integrate System Dynamics models and simulations into mainstream analytics
software.

(2) (f) TC Convener

The TC Convener for the first meeting will be Karim Chichakly from isee systems.

(2) (g) Affiliation to Member Section

None

(2) (h) Initial contributions:

SMILE (7 June 2013): http://www.iseesystems.com/community/support/SMILEv4.pdf
XMILE (7 June 2013): http://www.iseesystems.com/community/support/XMILEv4.pdf

 

Last week, we learned that our government is spying on our phone calls and internet activities.  We didn’t learn this from the government itself.  Rather, it was leaked by a brave young man who worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency.  That’s not supposed to happen.  Contractors are paid handsomely to keep secrets and behave like a government employee.  But somehow this young man had a conscience and couldn’t keep quiet about a policy he knew was wrong.  So he told his story to The Guardian newspaper, a UK publication.  The US Corporate media would perhaps not have broken this story and anyway we know the Obama administration is already spying on domestic journalists so that channel isn’t safe.

Just after the story broke, a cadre of US Senators from both parties were quick to defend the program.  Diane Feinstein and Lindsay Graham pointed out that the phone spying has already thwarted over 100 terrorist attacks.  Graham said he was glad that Verizon was reporting his calls to the NSA since he has nothing to hide.  President Obama assured Americans that the government was only collecting “metadata,” about call numbers and not listening to the calls themselves.  I guess the President doesn’t think Americans know what metadata is, and Mr. Graham must think we have amnesia and don’t remember all the abuses of power this government is famous for.

Remember Abu Grahb and Extraordinary Rendition?  Mcarthy show trials during the 1950′s were a lovely example of the government using unlawful means to destroy the lives of Americans who engaged in lawful and constitutionally protected memberships in political parties.  And who can forget how the FBI monitored Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement to the point where African American leaders became completely paranoid in the 1970′s.  Remember how they used domestic wiretapping to monitor the anti-Vietnam war movement, police brigades to break up peaceful protests and violence at Kent State to kill innocent students?  It took an unelected president, Gerald Ford, in 1978 to curtail the spy state our nation had become with the passing of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

But that law has been extended and eviscerated since 9/11.  In 2004, Republicans used provisions in the Patriot Act to spy on liberal protesters organizing for marches in NY City during the Republican Convention.  On the first day of the convention, 3000 protesters were rounded up and held in jail for up to 10 days without charges and without access to counsel.  During the last several years, the FBI has been teaming with local police departments to spy on the Occupy Movement.  Protesters have been arrested on trumped up warrants, sprayed with pepper, beaten with batons.  Muslim Americans are monitored 24/7 and their awareness of this monitoring has caused widespread anxiety and paranoia in their communities.

Beware America.  Metadata spying is not for your good.  If it was for your benefit, politicians would have told you about it.  In America, you can be jailed for hacking into government computers.  You can be arrested for protesting within 200 feet of the President or a member of Congress.  You can be jailed for even publishing a veiled threat to the President or a Member of Congress.

But the government can lawfully read your email, hack into your computer, monitor all your international phone calls, collect metadata about your domestic calls, track your activities in public on video cameras, collect your financial and health data, and swab your cheek to collect DNA samples.  They know who you know and can find out why.

Clearly the government has established laws and powers to protect itself from its citizens.  The surveillance program is not for our benefit.

The constitution was created to protect the people from the despotism of government.  But its just a piece of paper.  Every generation must use the promises contained in the paper to defend Democracy from Domestic Despotism.

Act now before its too late.

Dear Americans,

While you were struggling to survive the last decade’s terrorist attacks, wars, mortgage meltdowns, and credit bubbles, our government has been militarising your local sheriff with armor plated humvees and bullet proof commando teams; videotapping many of your public shopping sprees and walks down your Main Streets, Broadways, and Boulevards; wiretapping all your foreign phone calls and getting daily reports of your domestic calls; reading your tweets and facebook posts; investigating journalists and political committee tax records; outsourcing the management of over 1000 foreign military bases to large corporations; marginalizing, monitoring, and arresting those who protest.  Today, you can be stopped, frisked, and have your DNA collected without ever being charged.  You can be indicted with a National Security Letter and forbidden to speak of it even with counsel.  You can be abducted, flown to a foreign land, tortured and locked up without due process.

And you can be shot by a flying robot in the sky without even knowing why.  Over 300 police jurisdictions have applied for permits to fly drones in cities, towns, and over private property.

Wake up America!  You are just inches away from living in the world’s most powerful police state in history.  This is not science fiction fantasy.  It is not a Hollywood movie.  And it is not a Kafka novel.

It is real.  It is happening.  And without action on your part right now to reverse this trend I am afraid for our future.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/us/nsa-verizon-calls.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&hp

If you are a subscriber of Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, or any other domestic carrier, I urge you to do what I did today – call your wireless company and politely complain about this dangerous violation of their privacy policy and let them know that you want this behavior to stop.  Let them know that you make lawful private calls with their devices and its none of the governments business whom you call and what you say.

These carriers are commercial organizations who exist to serve their customers. It is only by letting the companies know of our displeasure that we can hope to effect change and protect our constitutional rights.

Calling or writing your elected representatives would be helpful too.  You have a voice.  Use it.

We are growing again. Not as fast as we want, but our economies and companies are inexorably shifting from a deep recession where risk and cost ruled decisions to renewal, profit, and a hunger for growth.

Today, organizations around the world are looking for new products to sell into new markets. And everyone is sittng on untold Petabytes of hidden value in their data and information that can be turned into new Information Products. Everyone is used to buying Information Products every day in the form of newspapers, analytical reports, music, movies, smartphone apps, and cloud-based services. Old definitions of data and information, security and access, have prevented us from realizing that the vast inland sea of information we collect and process every day could have markets and customers beyond our borders who lack what we take for granted every day.

It its time to exploit this untapped resource, to develop new tools and methods to discover what we have, engage with new ecosystems of partners, suppliers, and customers, and provide Information Products that inspire internal and external innovation, creativity, and growth.

It is the mission of the IBM Information Strategy Council to define the role of Information Strategy and to bring mature Information Product Management and Market Development tools and practices that help its members build and reap new market for Information Products and Services. The Council will encompass past and  current practices of Data and Content Management, Governance, Security and Privacy, Open and Linked Data, Big Data, Analytics and Semantics. It will add Social Networking and Crowdsourcing, Cloud and Mobile, Product Management and Sales.

The Council will look at these functions from a business perspective, with the goal of creating strategic tools, assets, and methods for bringing high quality Information Products and Services to global and national markets that delight customers and drive new revenue and growth.

This Council will be open to members of the Information Governance Community and will meet for the first time in late September. This is one of the most exciting topics in a new industry all of us can have a hand in creating. Im looking for global participation from thought leaders, business practitioners, and pragmatic strategists.

If this Council interests you and you would like to join, please send me a note with the following:

1. Why you want to join

2. What Information Products you are or would like to sell from you organization

3. What you expect the Council to deliver that would benefit your organization

4. What you can contribute to deliver those benefits.

Upon invitation, I will send an IBM Information Strategy Council Agreement for you to countersign. Please feel free to write to me with any questions or comments. I am looking forward to your feedback.

This is the right topic at the right time and working together, we can do great things!

My dog can’t always be trusted.  I came home from an early morning bike ride this morning to discover her slinking under the dining room table.  I heard her jump down from something when I entered the house through the garage door, but the distance was too far for me to make out what she jumped down from.  I ran through the house to check for blanket imprints and warmth on beds and sofas, but couldn’t find anything.  She’s now cowering by the front door, and her entire demeanor suggests she thought the house would be empty long enough for her to do whatever she would only do when we are not home.

Having a dog for 7 years teaches you that all animals are capable of deception and selfish behaviour.  In fact, survival depends on it.  We humans like to tell ourselves that we are superior to beasts because we can reason.  We tell ourselves that dogs and other animals behave without real thinking or a conscience, just via instinct.  This is a vanity.  My dog dreams, anticipates, remembers times, places, people, and behaviours.  She feels emotional pain and disappointment, gets depressed on rainy days, and shows instant joy the moment my father walks in the house.  We attach ourselves to our dogs because we realize we are like them.  We may even envy them.

All animals, including humans, are capable of emotional behaviour and self-interest regardless of their DNA.  However, we humans now vastly outnumber other animal populations.  We have created complex societies via communication that require governance to balance competing interests.  We have not overcome selfish behaviours.  It  is in fact the purpose of governance to balance them because they will always exist.

Left ungoverned all animals will horde and over-harvest resources and pollute environments.  We know this is true within and between all organizations, institutions, and nations.  Because every human behaviour contains self-interest, we must realize that every human activity contains corruption.  I define corruption as the exercise of of self-interest.  Corruption can benefit individuals, minorities, and even large majorities for short durations and long.  But not forever.

Good governance is dependent on the battles between corrupted individuals and institutions of differing self-interests to arbitrate beneficial outcomes for varying parties over time.  When some parties are disenfranchised from participating in governance decisions, outcomes naturally only benefit enfranchised parties.

Examples:

When women were not allowed to vote by law, government policies benefited men.

When Africans were not able to defend themselves from Europeans, their lands were colonized and their populations enslaved.

When management and boards are compensated in equity without limit, their policies will benefit shareholders at the expense of employees and customers.

When data processors are able to consume information without compensating data subjects and providers, privacy and security will suffer because the interests of subjects are not included in the governance process.

Every process that involves humans has corruption.  Good governance involves endless debates between varying interests to ensure that no one corrupt interest gets all the outcomes all the time.  Human liberty depends on this tension.

The absence of debate can only produce the worst outcomes for the groups not involved in the decisions.  If you are party to this kind of bad governance, complain, get out, or work to change the system.  Waiting for other interests to benefit you without representation when decisions are made is not in your self-interest.

Despite all we have achieved in the thousands of years of “civilization,” we are still all animals.

In the last two years, The Information Governance Community has explored how System Dynamics methodologies could be used to model complex organizational environments and simulate the impact of Data Governance Policy.  We learned about ecosystems, stocks, flows, differential equations, and online simulations.  Models were built and many new skills developed.  We ran workshops at the IBM Information on Demand Conference, Community Meetings, Webinars, and we hosted an IBM Policy Simulation Symposium at IBM’s eGovernment Institute in Washington, DC last December.

One thing we all learned was that while System Dynamics is an important way of thinking and describing the world, its practice is more art than science.  Models developed by one person can not easily be understood or re-used by another.  Few models can be taken apart, modularized, and stored in component libraries for re-use.  Without these attributes the thousands of models created by consultants, business professionals, and academics the world over contain value that can’t be easily communicated.  Open standards are needed to build common methods that describe how models are built, how they work, and how they can be re-used.

Today, we are taking an important first step forward with the submission of a Charter to Oasis, for the formation of a working group to review and standardize the XMILE specification.  This spec has been created by iSeeSystems, a Community Member, and IBM is supporting this working group.  The first XMILE Technical Committee meeting will be held at the System Dynamics Conference in Boston in July.

We invite Community members, and other interested parties, to review the charter, to join the working group, and to help support the important work of advancing System Dynamics with Open Standards.  To learn more about System Dynamics and Governance Policy Simulations, I enclose several links to past blog articles:

http://www.infogovcommunity.com/blog/2012/09/innovation-model-simulate-big-data/

http://www.infogovcommunity.com/blog/2012/08/the-ibm-predictive-governance-forum-928-washington-dc/

http://www.infogovcommunity.com/blog/2012/05/no-data-science-without-simulation/

http://www.infogovcommunity.com/blog/2012/02/the-data-quality-simulation/

 

 

To OASIS Members:

A draft TC charter has been submitted to establish the OASIS XML Interchange Language (XMILE) for System Dynamics Technical Committee. In accordance with the OASIS TC Process Policy section 2.2: (https://www.oasis-open.org/policies-guidelines/tc-process#formation) the proposed charter is hereby submitted for comment. The comment period shall remain open until 6 June 2013 at 23:59 GMT.

OASIS maintains a mailing list for the purpose of submitting comments on proposed charters. Any OASIS member may post to this list by sending email to: oasis-charter-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org. All messages will be publicly archived at: http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oasis-charter-discuss/. Members who wish to receive emails must join the group by selecting “join group” on the group home page: http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/oasis-charter-discuss/. Employees of organizational members do not require primary representative approval to subscribe to the oasis-charter-discuss e-mail.

A telephone conference will be held among the Convener, the OASIS TC Administrator, and those proposers who wish to attend within four days of the close of the comment period. The announcement and call-in information will be noted on the OASIS Charter Discuss Group Calendar.

We encourage member comment and ask that you note the name of the proposed TC (XMILE) in the subject line of your email message.

=== Charter

(1) Charter for OASIS XML Interchange Language (XMILE) for System Dynamics Technical Committee

(1) (a) Name of the TC

OASIS XML Interchange Language (XMILE) for System Dynamics Technical Committee

(1) (b) Statement of Purpose

The purpose of the XML Interchange Language (XMILE) for System Dynamics (SD) Technical Committee (TC) is to define an open XML protocol for the sharing, interoperability, and reuse of SD models and simulations.  System Dynamics is an interactive environment for simulating the impact of policy on complex ecosystems.  The benefits of this standard are:

- SD models can be re-used with Big Data sets to show how different policies produce different outcomes in complex environments.
- Models can be stored in cloud-based libraries, shared within and between organizations, and used to communicate different outcomes with common vocabulary.
- Model components can be re-used and plugged into other simulations.
- It will allow the creation of online repositories modeling many common business decisions.
- It will increase acceptance and use of System Dynamics as a discipline
- It will help ISVs make new tools that help businesses to develop and understand models and simulations.
- It will enable vendors to develop standards-based applications for new markets such as mobile and social media.

(1) (c) Scope of Work

The TC will accept as input the following SMILE and XMILE specifications published on 2 April 2013:

http://www.iseesystems.com/community/support/SMILEv4.pdf

http://www.iseesystems.com/community/support/XMILEv4.pdf

SMILE is a descriptive language based on Dynamo that allows people to create System Dynamic models and components.  XMILE is a specification that encodes SMILE in XML.

Features of SMILE include:

- A language for simulation of SD models
- A core feature set for representing stock-flow diagrams of SD models

Features of XMILE include:

- A representation for simulation of SD models, in accordance with SMILE, including macro capabilities to both describe and implement vendor-unique language features (level 1)
- A representation of the stock-flow diagrams of SD models, in accordance with SMILE (level 2)
- A representation (level 3) of:
- Output devices for displaying data, such as graphs and tables,
- Input devices to allow the building of management flight simulators, and
- Model and flight simulator annotations such as text boxes and pictures

The TC will refine these initial contributions to produce OASIS Standard versions of the SMILE and XMILE specifications, including necessary supporting documentation.

The scope of the TC’s work is limited to technical refinements to the features defined in the input contributions.  Modest extensions to the SMILE language that substantively increase the interoperability of SD models between vendors, together with their renderings in XMILE, will also be considered.  However, the TC’s main focus is to refine the functionality presented in the input documents.

Out of scope:  Any work not reasonably covered by the Scope of Work is deemed to be out of scope.  Renderings of SMILE that do not use XML are deemed to be out of scope.

SMILE and XMILE contributions to this TC which are out of scope for this charter may be accumulated and taken into consideration for possible inclusion in future subsequent version of the standard.

(1) (d) Deliverables

The TC will produce OASIS Standard versions of both the SMILE and XMILE specifications within 12 to 16 months of the first meeting.  The TC may optionally deliver white papers, orientation materials, tutorials, and such other non-normative content as may be useful to the community.

Maintenance

Once the TC has successfully produced the deliverables, the TC will enter into a maintenance mode.  The purpose of the maintenance mode is to provide minor revisions to previously adopted deliverables, to clarify ambiguities, inconsistencies, and obvious errors.  The maintenance mode will not functionally enhance a previously adopted deliverable, or extend its functionality.

(1) (e) IPR Mode

The committee will operate under the Non-Assertion IPR mode as defined in the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy effective 21 June 2012.

(1) (f) Anticipated Audience

The anticipated audience for this work includes:

- Vendors of SD software, Big Data, cloud, mobile, and social media solutions.
- End users of and of the above who implement solutions that require interoperability between SD models and other systems.
- Consultants, educators, and interested parties.

(1) (g) Language

The TC will conduct its business in English.  The output documents will be written in (US) English.

(2) Non-normative information regarding the startup of the TC

(2) (a)  Similar or Applicable Work

XMILE is the XML representation of system dynamics models, as defined in the SMILE language.  As such, it has some overlap with the Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML).  XMILE, however, is specifically tailored to System Dynamics models which are not explicitly represented in SBML.

(2) (b) Date, Time, and Location of First Meeting

The first meeting of the XMILE TC will be a face-to-face meeting to be held at the International System Dynamics Conference, July 24, 2013 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

(2) (c) On-Going Meeting Plans & Sponsors

It is anticipated that the XMILE TC will meet by teleconference every other week for an hour at a time determined by the TC members during the first TC meeting.  It is anticipated that the XMILE TC will meet face-to-face every 3 months at a time and location to be determined by the TC members.  The actual pace of face-to-face and teleconference meetings will be determined by TC members.  Meetings will be hosted by member companies on a rotating basis.

(2) (d) Proposers of the TC

Karim Chichakly, kchichakly@iseesystems.com, isee systems, inc.
Joanne Egner, jegner@iseesystems.com, isee systems, inc.

Steve Adler, adler1@us.ibm.com, IBM
Brenda Dietrich, dietric@us.ibm.com, IBM
Eleni Pratsini, pra@us.ibm.com, IBM

(2) (e) Statements of Support

Joanne Egner, jegner@iseesystems.com
Managing Director, isee systems, inc.
As isee systems’ primary OASIS representative, I approve the OASIS XML Interchange Language (XMILE) for System Dynamics TC Charter and endorse our proposers (listed above) as named co-proposers.

David Ing, ings@ca.ibm.com
Manager of Emerging Software Standards, IBM
I support the OASIS XML Interchange Language (XMILE) for System Dynamics TC Charter because this specification will help integrate System Dynamics models and simulations into mainstream analytics software.

(2) (f) TC Convener

The TC Convener for the first meeting will be Karim Chichakly from isee systems.

(2) (g) Affiliation to Member Section

None

(2) (h) Initial contributions:

SMILE (2 April 2013):  http://www.iseesystems.com/community/support/SMILEv4.pdf
XMILE (2 April 2013):  http://www.iseesystems.com/community/support/XMILEv4.pdf

/chet
—————-
Chet Ensign
Director of Standards Development and TC Administration
OASIS: Advancing open standards for the information society

http://www.oasis-open.org

Primary: +1 973-996-2298
Mobile: +1 201-341-1393

Back in November, I switched my wireless plan from T-Mobile to Verizon.  I like T-Mobile and had been a happy customer for close to 10 years.  But their service failed completely during Hurricane Sandy and it was time to switch to a carrier that has disaster backup plans.  Its been largely pretty smooth since the switch.  My family got new phones, and the coverage has been excellent.

But billing seems to be a real problem for Telecommunications Carriers, and Verizon is no exception.  When we signed on to the new service plan at a local Verizon store, we signed up for electronic bill payment via our bank account.  Somehow, the computer systems the stores use isn’t synchronized well with the billing systems Verizon uses.  Sometime in January, I started getting messages from Verizon that my bill was overdue and my service would soon be terminated.  I took a call in my car in which it was explained that I was not on an electronic payment plan and my bill was two months past due.  We settled up the account on the phone and asked to be signed up, again, for electronic bill paying.  The service rep passed me onto another rep who completed the order.

Or so we thought.

In April, I got another call from Verizon with complaints that my bill was past due.  I said, “how can this be?  I signed up for electronic bill payment.  Don’t you ever execute your customers commands?”  The rep apologized and was very nice, explaining that I would need to go onto the Verizon website and register for electronic bill payment in order for it to be valid.  I settled up the account and on April 18, I logged on to myverizon.com and signed up my account, for the third time, to their electronic bill payment system.

The other day, I got another call from Verizon telling me my phone bill is past due.  Two months past due.  I told them I had signed up for electronic bill payment once in a store in November, once on the phone with a rep in January, and once more on their website.  Don’t any of their systems actually work I asked?  The rep checked the online record and did see that my account was signed up for electronic bill payment on April 18th.

Unfortunately, he informed me, electronic bill payment orders take 30 days to process.  “30 Days,” I said.  “I’ve been trying to do this for 6 months.”  How can a modern business function if it can’t process bills from customers in six months.  And what kind of convenience is it to sign up for a service on a website in less than 10 seconds if it takes 30 days thereafter to “process?”

Ladies and Gentlemen, we may be on the doorstep of a Digital Economy, but the old economy, with all its ugly inefficiencies is very much alive and well.

Verizon, get your billing act together.

On HBO’s film American Winter, a social worker in Portland, Oregon discusses the minimum wage.  It’s $7.50 nationwide, and $8.40 in Portland, yet economists calculate it requires a wage of $21/hour to feed a family of four and live above the poverty line.  The US minimum wage forces employees to live in poverty.  Yet each time Congress or the States try to raise the minimum wage, employers complain that increases will lead to job cuts as they can’t afford to pay more.

But if feeding a family requires a “minimum wage” of $21/hour and workers are only paid $8.40, who makes up the difference?  That is, these minimum wage workers aren’t dying in our streets.

They are surviving.  Just.  But how?

Well, they get food stamps from the Federal Government, Head Start pays for childcare, State and Local housing assistance gets them, if they are lucky, into subsidized public housing, and Medicaid gets them health insurance.  Which means that when the US government sets a minimum wage for workers, society provides a safety net so they don’t starve, freeze without shelter, or die from illness.  That safety net subsidizes corporations to pay their workers a poverty wage, and those safety net services cost taxpayers far more (because giant government programs have administrative costs) than the cost of directly paying workers a liveable minimum wage.

And every time the minimum wage gets increased 50 cents or a dollar a year, and we continue to force workers to rely on government programs just to survive, we are just optimizing a failed corporate subsidy process.

But how much are those corporate subsidies costing us?

How much should the minimum wage exactly be?

How would a higher minimum wage really effect jobs and inflation?

How do higher wages effect economic competitiveness in other countries?

How many people on minimum wage are not getting the government services they should in order to survive?

And how might our economy function if we transitioned from the safety net to a safe wage above poverty?

These are the kinds of Big Insights I want Big Data to illustrate.  We have it in our grasp to start unravelling all the mysterious inefficiencies of our age with the raw computing power of Big Data.

For far too long, the data was too dispersed to find, too disparate to aggregate, too hard to search and analyse.  But those days are over.  Lets get on with it.

50 million Americans living in Poverty are waiting for those insights.

 

On June 13-14 the Information Governance Community will meet at IBM on 590 Madison Avenue for two
days to explore Information Product Management, Strategy, and enabling Technology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The agenda includes:

1. Making its off-Broadway debut, The IBA Use Case depicts the struggle between competing corporate
factions and ruthless market competition as IBA tries to rescue its information products business
from new competitors, customer flight, internal stovepipes, and antiquated business practices in the
age of Big Data. Watch how CEO Barney Greengrass duels CIO Galia Greener, and COO Milton Friedman
and SVP Nimrod Hacker struggle for legitimacy, as we the company try to design an effective
Information Strategy to save the business.

 

 

2. Ontologies arent just for Knowledge Management geeks! They are key to transforming your
information infrastructure from a collection of industrial data reservoirs into a web of
interconnected information insights and discoveries. Computers process information in linear, binary
form. Humans process information in associative, linked patterns of recognition. For the last few
years IBM has been pioneering new forms of information processing – Quantum Computing, Watson, Big
Data, and Ontologies. Ontologies are tools you can use right now to see and understand associative
links in your structured and unstructured information to help you know what you dont know, see
patterns and relationships hidden by structure, format, and data types, and provide intelligent
search in every corner of your enterprise.

 

3. The Future of Analytics. Analytics are going social. They are going viral. They will be
integrated into every business and IT process. There will be analytics of analytics, models of
models, and our industry needs more data scientists, analytic experts, and Information Strategists
to add meaning and understanding to the ubiquity of analytics that is our future. At IBM, we
understand these issues and are plotting an Information Strategy for the future that we want to
share with you and we look forward to your feedback.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a meeting of peers. The participants are LOB executives, data and information management
professionals, governance and compliance leaders, data scientists and information strategists.

Please bookmark the dates. An agenda with registration information will be distributed next week.