MeshForum hosted collections of Network Data for researchers

MeshForum's mission is to foster research into Networks. One vital part of this mission is our annual MeshForum conferences and our monthly MeshWalk events. With this post I am announcing another way MeshForum will the community of researchers, companies and organizations who are working with and within Networks. MeshForum will be working with sponsoring companies to make large, real-world data sets available to researchers. These data sets will be drawn from a wide range of industries and types of networks, likewise the data is intended for researchers working in many fields and with a variety of tools and techniques for the analysis and study of Networks.

In the light of the ongoing complications around AOL's release of search data for researchers, a major aspect of MeshForum's service offering to sponsoring organizations and companies will be to work closely with the source of each data set to ensure that no personal data or propriatary information is released as part of the data collections, while also working to ensure that any necessary modifications to the data do not impact the network analysis of the data collection. In many cases this may mean that certain collections of data can not be released, or can only be released in forms suitable for some types of analysis (aggregate but not specific individuals for example).

MeshForum will seek to make these data collections as widely available as possible and will be working with all organizations and tools vendors to help define interoperable standards for the exchange of network data collections. We will work with other data repositories and research organizations. Our mission is to work in an open and interdisciplinary manner, so we will be seeking data collections from a very wide spectrum of types of networks - biological systems, transportation networks, supply chains, economic/business transactional records, data sets derived from social art projects, social network data collections and many more.

Data sets may also be of any size, though we will actively seek large, "real-world" scale data collections to make the largest and richest collections of network data available for research.

We will be exploring a variety of funding mechanisms for these data collections and related services. Our intent will be to balance the desire to make these data collections as widely available as possible, while covering the costs of collecting, storing, preserving, sharing and wherever possible updating these data collections. We will ask corporate providers of data to help cover many of the costs associated with their datasets. We will seek to make this data available both to academic institutions and corporate (or government) researchers equally.

If you are interested in working with MeshForum to make one or more collections of data available please contact us either via the contact us page on our website, via leaving a comment here, or by calling MeshForum at 1.800.454.4929.

If you are interested in researching networks and would be interested in any data sets we collect (or have specific types of data sets you would be interested in working with) please also contact us. We will add you to a mailing list for ongoing discussions, as well as to receive notifications as new data sets become available.

If you are a firm offering applications for studying or visualizing network data we are very interested in working closely with you to ensure that any data sets we collect that would be relevent to your users are made available in a format easily useable by your applications, either directly or through well documented (and ideally open source) translators.

Anil Dash on IT Conversations

Anil Dash's talk at MeshForum 2006 has just been published to IT Conversations as part of their series from MeshForum 2006. In his talk Anil covers social scale conversations building on the example of LiveJournal.com. In person the presentation was an excellent one and we are proud to share it widely via our partnership with IT Conversations.

Verna Allee on IT Conversations

Verna Allee talk on Value Networks at MeshForum 2006 has just be posted to IT Conversations. "A value network is a way at looking at any purposeful organization, company, or network. It is any web of relationships that creates value through complex, dynamic exchanges of tangible and intangible value." In this May 2006 session from MeshForum in San Francisco, Verna Allee talks about the new idea of trying to identify, measure, and encourage, intangible business practices which don't show up on traditional balance-sheets and income-statements.

Robert Scoble and Shel Israel on IT Conversations

My interview with Robert Scoble and Shel Israel has just been posted to IT Conversations. I would recommend that everyone go, take a listen, blog about it (and register at IT Conversations and rank it!) Thanks to IT Conversations and LimeLight Networks for their making these sessions available!.

Manuel Lima keynote on IT Conversations

Manuel Lima's keynote presentation at MeshForum 2006 is now available online at IT Conversations. In upcoming weeks most of the sessions from MeshForum 2006 will be posted to IT Conversations.

You can subscribe to the whole series of MeshForum podcasts, including four sessions from MeshForum 2005 at IT Conversations.

WalkMesh - call for guides

For WalkMesh on June 15th I am putting out a call for guides.

A guide will have three responsibilities.

Pick a place where WalkMesh should stop - a city park, a public lobby, a great cafe, an interesting company.

Lead us from our previous stop to the new stop (we'll coordinate ahead of time so that the order we stop in makes some sense and no walk is too long without stops)

But most importantly - guide us not just physically but with some questions to discuss, something to look for as we walk, help us see something new (or something old in a new way).

WalkMesh is about the physical walk, the urban hike and exploration.

But it is also intended to be a workshop and conference - a chance to share ideas, get feedback, input, suggestions and have discourse. Discourse in motion, with pens and paper (or small handhelds) not laptops, but still conversations much as we might have at any other conference.

Though I think by being in motion, being outside, and having a shared physical experience, our conversations will be different from a "typical" conference. The city around us can't help but impact what we talk about - as will the spaces we stop in and spend time encountering.

So, if you are interested in join us, rsvp via upcoming, leave comments here, blog about it and invite anyone you want to walk with and spend a day seeing the city while in conversation. Technologists, artists, entrepreneurs - anyone and everyone is welcome.

If you want to be a guide, email me and we're start collaborating on a schedule. I think we'll have at least 5 guides (including myself) but could have a few more depending on where we want to stop.

WalkMesh - Walkabout in San Francisco June 15th

I would like to invite anyone interested in MeshForum, networks, design, and visual thinking to join me on June 15th for an new way to hold a conference, a bit of exercise both mental and physical, and a great way to spend a day in the city of San Francisco.

WalkMesh will be the first of what I hope will be a series of Walkabouts, conferences held in motion, with stops along the way.

If you are interested in helping shape WalkMesh, please join me in planning it, leave comments here and watch this space for links to how to participate. Everything about WalkMesh is open to discussion. A few initial framing plans.

The plan is to walk, but also to stop frequently at a series of engaging spaces. These will be opportunities for new people to join us.

We will likely end the day at the Brainjam's event scheduled for the evening of June 15th, where (and when) we start and where we stop along the way is open to discussion.

I hope that each of you not just attends and participates but also invites others to join us, as a walk outside we can be as small or as large as we want to be, I'd love to have lots of engaging, interesting people join us.

For this first WalkMesh, donations or contributions are optional, but also a matter to discuss, with a little bit of contributions we can help organize and pay for items such as a small gift/token/memento for all who participate, transportation options for anyone who doesn't/can't walk but wants to join us at the stops along the way, and meals and beverages along the way - as well as any admission fees/tickets needed (group rates on trolley tickets for example or for a future WalkMesh a ferry ride).

All I ask, however, for this first WalkMesh is that if you want to join us you bring a pen (or pens), a stack of notecards and a binder clip, good walking shoes, money (and if the weather suggests it a light jacket and/or umbrella - we'll go rain or shine, fog or clear skies, though in the case of rain our schedule might adjust as necessary). Cameras are also welcome. For most people, I'd suggest leaving your computers at home - letting us focus on the experiences in front of and around us. We'll likely use cell phones, flickr and email to note where we are/where we are heading for anyone trying to meet up with us.

If there is sufficient time and funding (sponsors or donations) I'd like to arrange for WalkMesh travel bags and/or t-shirts etc - in no small part so that we can tell who is participating (or at least who contributed).

If your company or organization would like to join us and/or host us as a stop along the way, please post a comment here or contact me directly. As the details firm up I'll update this post and post more details, including a registration page.

Visual Maps of MeshForum 2006

Thanks to Eileen Clegg of Visual Insights the visual maps she created from Monday's sessions at MeshForum 2006 are now available online.

Go take a look at the visual maps of our Monday speakersfrom MeshForum.

In the upcoming weeks we'll be exploring a variety of other ways to share the MeshForum experience. If you have not already signed up for our MeshForum Discussion group at Google, leave a comment or contact me (or reply to the invite if you were an attendee at this year's MeshForum). Later this summer, the audio from MeshForum will be available on IT Conversations.

Thanks Eileen!

Shannon

People writing about MeshForum 2006

Several of the attendees at this year's MeshForum conference in San Francisco have been writing their thoughts.  Have a peak.

• Christopher Carfi at The Social Customer Manifesto
• David Levinson at The Transportationist
• Howard Greenstein at his Random Thoughts from HowardGr
• Dave Davison at Thoughts Illustrated
• Dave Gray at Communication Nation
• Jon Lebkowski at WorldChanging

There were many others with blogs at the event, and I may have missed some others.

CHANGE of Venue - Open Space at Adaptive Path

The Tuesday sessions at MeshForum - in Open Space format have MOVED.

We will be at the offices of Adaptive Path.

363 Brannan St.
San Francisco, CA 94107

We will start the open space sessions at 9am.

See you there (if you haven't registered and would like to support MeshForum financially you can at http;//meshforum2006.mollyguard.com)

Food at MeshForum 2006

At MeshForum 2006 we will enjoy food from a variety of local restaurants, farms and companies.

Breakfast on Sunday and Monday (light - fruits, cereals and yogurt) will be provided by Ruby Red Labs an innovative new firm in San Francisco building Web 2.0 and Mobile applications.

Lunch on Sunday and Monday will be catered by Mistral, a Rotisserie Provencale whose food is local, organic and fresh. On Sunday lunch will include a selection of sandwhichs featuring rolls from San Francisco's Acme Bakery with sides of beets, yams, and fresh fruit. On Monday lunch will be a selection of roast meats with a variety of sides and green salad.

For snacks in the afternoon we will have a selection of organic fresh fruis, as well as local nuts and dried fruits from Capay Farms. We also hope to feature a selection of organic chocolates one afternoon.

In addition to the standard bottled waters and sodas, MeshForum 2006 will feature juices from Adina World Beat Beverages.

Sunday evening MeshForum will have a group dinner at Canton Seafood. The 10 course menu includes: Dim Sum, Canton Style Filet Mignon, Peking Duck, Garlic Spicy Chicken, Calimari and Scallops in Birds Nest, shitake mushrooms and snap peas, and more.

Monday evening MeshForum attendees will dine in small groups, to prepare for Tuesday's open space sessions.

Tuesday's Open Space sessions will be held at Canton Seafood, with a light Chinese style breakfast and a simple lunch. Canton's 2nd floor banquet facility offers MeshForum a large, open space well suited to group discussions and conversations.

Eileen Clegg - Visual Insights at MeshForum

Attending MeshForum and covering Monday's sessions visually will be Eileen Clegg. Arrangements will be made for future access and liikely prints of the murals that result for all attendees and interested parties.

Eileen Clegg is a visual journalist, futurist, and founder of the company Visual Insight (www.visualinsight.net ), creating large-scale, real-time visual language murals to help organizations capture emergent knowledge. Her clients have included IBM, Federated Department Stores, Thomson Learning and the Gates Foundation. She has been a research affiliate for Institute for the Future (www.iftf.org ), in Palo Alto, California since 1999. Before that, Eileen was a daily newspaper journalist for many years with special emphasis on education and environment. She has published and/or illustrated numerous articles and books including: The 21st Century Corporate University (Jossey Bass Pfeiffer, 2005), a chapter in Creating a Learning Culture (Cambridge University Press 2004), Claiming Your Creative Self (New Harbinger, 1999), Goodbye Good Girl (New Harbinger, 1998), Becoming a Wise Parent for your Grown Child (New Harbinger, 1997). She developed a practice using visual language for storymaps in 2001. She has a B.A. degree in Philosophy from University of California, Berkeley.

Schedule for MeshForum 2006

MeshForum 2006 will be May 7-9 in San Francisco, at the Commonwealth Club on May 7th and 8th and at Canton Seafood on May 9th.

Our schedule is:

Saturday May 6th

3pm - 6pm Registration table will be available (location TBA) to pick up badges and conference materials.
6pm - 8pm Opening night informal reception - suggestions at MeshForum wiki

Sunday May 7th

9 am Registration opens at Commonwealth Club
9 am Light breakfast (fruits) and coffee available at Commonwealth Club
9:30 am Opening remarks by Shannon Clark, founder of MeshForum
10:00 am Opening Keynote - Manuel Lima, founder of VisualComplexity.com
11:00 am First Interstitial - Art of Networks - Rachel Beth Egenhoefer
11:15 am Naked Conversations, the corporation in a blogging world - Robert Scoble and Shel Israel
12:30 pm Lunch workshop on storytelling with Heather Gold
2 pmLarge Scale Social Networks, the members - presentations and discussion with Anil Dash of Six Apart and Aaron Burcell, PodShow
3 pm Second Interstitial - Art of Networks - Spot Draves, ElectricSheep
3:15 pm Afternoon break - Global Chocolate Tasting
3:45 pm Large Scale Social Networks, multiple networks - presentations and discussion with Mike Jones, Userplane and Marc Senasac, Broadband Mechanics
4:45 pm Third Interstitial - Art of Networks - Dicky Davies, The Dicky Box
5 pm Walk to group dinner
5:30 pm Group dinner at Canton Seafood, 655 Folsom St.

Monday May 8th

8:00 am Registration opens at Commonwealth Club
8:00 am Breakfast at Commonwealth Club
8:30 am The Economics of Transportation Networks, Dr. David Levinson, University of Minnisota
9:30 am Fourth Interstitial - Art of Networks
9:45 am Political Networks, managing large scale Social Networks, Jon Lebkowsky, worldchanging.com, Zack Rosen, CivicSpace Labs
10:45 am Fifth Interstitial - Art of Networks
11:00 am Value Networks, Verna Allee
12:00 pm Visual Thinking lunch workshop led by Dave Gray and Dana Smith of Xplane
2:00 pm Breaking old Networks, Jamais Cascio, Howard Greenstein, and Christopher Allen
3:00 pm Social Network Analysis, Dr. Karen Stephenson, Netform
4:00 pm Continuing the conversation, moderated by Heather Gold a short presentation of topics to discuss over small group dinners and on Tuesday.
4:30 pm Walk to group dinners, leave Commonwealth Club.
5:30 pm Group dinners at private rooms reserved at area restaurants. Speakers and other surprise guests will be available to continue the conversation and start new ones.
8:00 pm Conversations continue at location TBA

Tuesday May 9th
Canton Seafood, 655 Folsom St., San Francisco

On Tuesday the format is Open Space (or unconference format) with multiple small group discussions and workshops. As topics and session organizers come forward, we will post the topics here and on the wiki but sessions are open to all attendees and anyone may propose a session to open.

8:30 am Breakfast available
9:00 am Opening of the Space, Michael Herman
9:30 am First workshop sessions
10:45 am Morning Break
11:00 am Second workshop sessions
12:30 am Lunch, small group discussions continue
2:00 pm First Afternoon Sessions
3:30 pm Afternoon break
3:45 pm Second Afternoon Sessions
4:15 pm Closing of the space
4:30 pm End of MeshForum 2006

Later that night the Organizers and others will meet for drinks and dinner in San Francisco, all attendees who are staying in town are welcome to join us to give feedback and suggestions for the next MeshForum.

make your net work - Join me at MeshForum 2006

As we lead up to MeshForum, I find myself talking, emailing and chatting with lots of people, explaining to each of them why they should join me at MeshForum 2006. I talk about the great speakers, the lunch workshops, the Tuesday Open Space, the experiment in conference format to make a conference that is highly interactive, focused, but also extremely diverse, on the record and open to contributions across disciplines, industries and backgrounds.

But that is all too wordy.

My good friend Jerry Michalski in response to one such explanation I was sharing with him this evening suggested a far better explanation of why you should attend MeshForum, and what you will experience once here.

make your net work

In four short words it captures what MeshForum 2006 will be about.

It is about the tools needed to make your net work - visualizations, visual thinking, analysis techniques.

It is about what you have to think about to make your net work - the issues of scaling, what happens as things change, the impact of technologies.

It is about the power of a net - to create beauty, to entertain us

Join me and see what will make your net work

Special offers for Tuesday and Academics

A reminder, register today for MeshForum 2006. Discounts for academics and non-profit professionals are now formally available via our regular registration. As always, contact me directly if even these discount rates are outside of your budge, MeshForum's mission is to be open to all. We have also opened up the Tuesday Open Space sessions for separate registration, if you can only attend one day, this is a way for you to participate and engage, all registered attendees will receive directions and all other details, your registration includes breakfast and lunch.

MeshForum 2006 - Podcast One, Shannon Clark and Howard Greenstein

Howard Greenstein interviewed me recently about MeshForum 2006, who will be there, why I started MeshForum, and why you should join us May 7-9 in San Francisco. Listen to the first MeshForum podcast at OurMedia!

Opening the MeshForum 2006 Wiki

Thanks to one of MeshForum's sponsors, Socialtext we again have a MeshForum Wiki space set up for MeshForum 2006. Please join me at http://www.socialtext.net/meshforum In the upcoming weeks speakers and attendees will be posting their bios, sessions for Tuesday will be discussed, resources will be posted, and multitude of details around MeshForum will be explored and filled out. It is not too late to register for MeshForum please do so today to ensure yourself space at MeshForum 2006 in San Francisco! See you there!

MeshForum 2006 will be 7-9 May in Chicago The Bay Area

UPDATE - MeshForum 2006 will be in the Bay Area, not in Chicago

MeshForum is a conference on Networks - bringing together an interdisciplinary mix of academics, artists, business leaders and government experts for three days of learning and collaboration. Our mission is to foster the overall study of networks - across fields of industry and academia.  Our 2006 main event will be held 7-9 May in Chicago the Bay Area. Registration is open.

Confirmed speakers at MeshForum 2006 include Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, authors of Naked Conversations, and Manuel Lima of VisualComplexity.com, as well as a mix of academics and business people. We also hope to once again have experts from the Pentagon (Office of Force Transformation) and FEMA.

The format of MeshForum is unusual, and we hope it is not a typical conference. Modeled somewhat after PC Forum (Esther Dyson was a speaker at MeshForum 2005, we hope she can join us again in 2006), as well as conferences such as PopTech and TED, our first two days (May 7th and 8th this year) are a single track of speakers or small groups of speakers, each having one hour on stage. Of that hour, at least 15 minutes is open to questions and interaction with the audience. Interspersed with the formal sessions are shorter Interstitial presentations by artists (or other surprise guests) and interactive sessions (often led by a speaker) are planned for lunch and dinner each day.  All of the sessions at MeshForum 2006 will be recorded and made available online at IT Conversations (see our recordings from MeshForum 2005).

On the third day our format changes to Open Space, speakers and audience members get the full day (led by Michael Herman and other experts in Open Space) to break into small groups and work together on the discussions which have arisen out of the previous two days. Our goal is that MeshForum provides more than just a chance to present and hear great content, that it also provides a forum for interaction and collaboration, especially between people in different fields and industries.

Pre-registration at the moment is just $500, inclusive of all meals and conference materials.  And early registrants will receive a copy of Scoble & Israel's Naked Conversations.

We also have opportunities available for sponsorship. MeshForum is a non-profit but we welcome the support of corporations and foundations in furthering our mission of bringing together a fantastic mix of thinkers.

The principal organizer of MeshForum, Shannon Clark, can be reached at 1.800.454.4929 or via our contact form.  He has recently moved from Chicago to Berkeley CA and would welcome the opportunity to meet with anyone interested in MeshForum in person.

Tags: listing events meshforum meshforum2006

Call for speakers at MeshForum 2006

MeshForum 2006 will be held in Chicago the Bay Area on May 7th-9th.  We are looking for speakers.

A major topic we did not cover in detail last year, but which I hope to cover at MeshForum 2006 is the complex mix of telecommunications, wireless, and data networks, ideally bringing together speakers who can offer unique and multifaceted perspectives on these forms of networks. We're interested in the ideas behind and deep, real world based expertise on the complexity of networks, the tools used to manage, grow and analyze them, and the complex effects of the network (and on them) as they of necessity interact with other networks.

We are looking for speakers to participate in the first two days, where there will be a single track of speakers or small groups of speakers, each having one hour on stage. Of that hour, at least 15 minutes is open to questions and interaction with the audience. Interspersed with the formal sessions are shorter Interstitial presentations by artists (or other surprise guests) and interactive sessions (often led by a speaker) are planned for lunch and dinner each day.  All of the sessions at MeshForum 2006 will be recorded and made available online at IT Conversations (see our recordings from MeshForum 2005).

Of course, if you would like to speak at MeshForum your registration is complimentary. 

The principal organizer of MeshForum, Shannon Clark, can be reached at 1.800.454.4929 or via our contact form.  He has recently moved from Chicago to Berkeley, CA and would welcome the opportunity to meet with anyone interested in MeshForum in person.