- I have started a collaboration with an American, who would like to install and try out KIX. We will start by creating and refining an installation instruction at the KixFw website at SourceForge.
- I have presented KIX to a wider group of software developers at EFDA-JET.
- As a result a colleague suggested the DocReview plugin would be of benefit when reviewing new and existing JET Operating Instructions (machine safety critical instructions to the Engineer-in-Charge when operating the JET plant).
- Similarly, another colleague would like to use the DocReview plugin for his source code reviews. However, he would like the DocReview plugin to be configured with a syntax highlighter for the programming language he is using. This can be accommodated with a small enhancement.
- I have demonstrated KIX relatively comprehensively to another control engineer at JET. He would like to use KIX for collaborations around JET enhancement projects and major JET maintenance modifications. However, he would like to wait until KixFw handles unknown binary files gracefully i.e. Windows Office files and similar proprietary formats.
- I have used KIX to create a JET intranet website to manage the JET Spectrometer Room Project. Many pages are still missing in particular the pages which will hold formal representations of the detailed requirements for each of the 18 subprojects.
Friday 19 December 2008
KIX may finally take off - or at least hover
The last two weeks I have been involved in many different activities related to Kix and KixFw:
Sunday 7 December 2008
High precision feedback from stake-holders
When discussing kixfw with other professionals there is one feature of the kixfw collaboration tool which seems to attract more interest than anything else:
My experience with this detailed level of feedback is that the quality of the documents are raised dramatically. Review comments are firmly connected to the relevent context and kept for as long as the documents remains on-line. This provides excellent organisational memory.
The above screen shoot is an extract from the preparation of The Kix White Paper.
High precision feedback.This strictly not a property of kixfw itself, but the mainly of the plugins which are used to view different types of documents. For example the DocReview plugin enables one threaded web conference per document line.
My experience with this detailed level of feedback is that the quality of the documents are raised dramatically. Review comments are firmly connected to the relevent context and kept for as long as the documents remains on-line. This provides excellent organisational memory.
The above screen shoot is an extract from the preparation of The Kix White Paper.
Monday 1 December 2008
Much activity but no break through
Today I proposed KixFw as an internal collaboration tool to define the formal requirements for the interface software in the Spectrometer Room Project at EFDA-JET. The main idea is to define the various software requirements as formal documents expressed in CCL - the CODAS Configuration Language (a serialisation of RDF). A KIX plugin will be developed such that the software requirements can be viewed as hierarchical tables. The tables will have numerous HTML links, which will allow detailed threaded web conferences on any interface specification issue.
The same requirements documents can also be used to automatically generate software interface implementations following the principles of MDA (Model Driven Architecture).
As a similar example I demonstrated the operation of the KIX document review plugin and got positive feedback from the meeting. Someone suggested this should be announced to a wider audience.
Last Wednesday during a startup investment meeting I discussed the role of KIX in document reviews for the Semantic Web. In the semantic web context there is a pressing need to develop many different domain vocabolaries. This is an ideal application for KIX.
The same requirements documents can also be used to automatically generate software interface implementations following the principles of MDA (Model Driven Architecture).
As a similar example I demonstrated the operation of the KIX document review plugin and got positive feedback from the meeting. Someone suggested this should be announced to a wider audience.
Last Wednesday during a startup investment meeting I discussed the role of KIX in document reviews for the Semantic Web. In the semantic web context there is a pressing need to develop many different domain vocabolaries. This is an ideal application for KIX.
Tuesday 18 November 2008
KixFw seems to be a very hard sell...
Yesterday I visited an IT consultancy seminar in London. The subject for the evening was
The focus was on SOA and business modelling. There were three high power speakers:
One seminar participant was, however, relatively enthusiastic when I described KixFw and its present state. He promised to check out KixFw on the web.
Today I demonstrated KixFw to a colleague at work. He was very impressed. He suggested several names in our research organisation who might be very interested. This included the director.
To be continued...
The Next Revolution in Productivity - The Plug-and-Play Business
The focus was on SOA and business modelling. There were three high power speakers:
- Ian Graham, Principle Consultant at trireme.com
- Brett McCall, Business Process Management Systems, Ford European Region
- Ian Dalby, Enterprise Strategy Consultant, Microsoft
One seminar participant was, however, relatively enthusiastic when I described KixFw and its present state. He promised to check out KixFw on the web.
Today I demonstrated KixFw to a colleague at work. He was very impressed. He suggested several names in our research organisation who might be very interested. This included the director.
To be continued...
Sunday 16 November 2008
Something very difficult
This blog is going to be about something very difficult, i.e. a huge challenge: the attempt to reach global recognition for KIX as a de facto standard for collaborative support during integrated decision making.
Right. We are talking IT here - although not necessarily high tech IT. KIX depends on lots of high tech IT, but KIX itself has been designed to be as simple as possible given a very complex task.
If you haven't stopped reading by now you are invited to take part in the story - maybe just as a watcher - maybe as a participant, i.e. comments are most welcome.
Praise is not a break through...
Every demonstration of the workings of KIX has so far resulted in the recognition that KIX represents a potential technical break through. But none of those watching has dared to take the plunge and installed KIX for evaluation or, let alone, for production use. Obviously, there are some big hurdles to overcome.
The KIX story didn't begin today...
In fact the original KIX idea goes back to the early eighties when I was working in the periphery of the telecom hot-house of Sweden (where many of the core ideas behind the mobile telecom revolution were born). However, I soon realised that at the time KIX was a far too big idea to even attempt to get off the ground, given the current state of the software and the computer communication technology.
In 2003 I changed my mind. Since then I have spent most of my spare time prototyping and implementing a working version of KIX. I have also had most valuable help from a friend of mine.
The first prototype was working in 2004. It was then able to serve as a web-based content management system for my website www.MetaAgility.com.
This summer KIX was mature enough to go into production at my place of work - JET-EFDA. There KIX is so far only used in a noddy application - collaborative reviews of software (requirements, sources and documentation). This application only exploits minimal aspects of the functionality of KIX.
Read more on KixFw at SourceForge.
Right. We are talking IT here - although not necessarily high tech IT. KIX depends on lots of high tech IT, but KIX itself has been designed to be as simple as possible given a very complex task.
If you haven't stopped reading by now you are invited to take part in the story - maybe just as a watcher - maybe as a participant, i.e. comments are most welcome.
Praise is not a break through...
Every demonstration of the workings of KIX has so far resulted in the recognition that KIX represents a potential technical break through. But none of those watching has dared to take the plunge and installed KIX for evaluation or, let alone, for production use. Obviously, there are some big hurdles to overcome.
The KIX story didn't begin today...
In fact the original KIX idea goes back to the early eighties when I was working in the periphery of the telecom hot-house of Sweden (where many of the core ideas behind the mobile telecom revolution were born). However, I soon realised that at the time KIX was a far too big idea to even attempt to get off the ground, given the current state of the software and the computer communication technology.
In 2003 I changed my mind. Since then I have spent most of my spare time prototyping and implementing a working version of KIX. I have also had most valuable help from a friend of mine.
The first prototype was working in 2004. It was then able to serve as a web-based content management system for my website www.MetaAgility.com.
This summer KIX was mature enough to go into production at my place of work - JET-EFDA. There KIX is so far only used in a noddy application - collaborative reviews of software (requirements, sources and documentation). This application only exploits minimal aspects of the functionality of KIX.
Read more on KixFw at SourceForge.
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