WeBooks
conform to W3C ~ XHTML standards
to provide for universal editability currently inadequately supported
by Mozilla Composer. Don't look for anything fancy,
just safely shareable resources
to create.
Because of the simplicity of HTML page
formatting used here, the size of text is easily increased to suit the
reader.
Due to the ubiquity of hyperlinks throughout
this proposal, and because of competing
browsers' inconsistent and often misleading indications of "visited"
targets, links in the other pages of this proposal are normally
uncolored
at the document level to improve readability and understandability,
unless
overridden by the Netscape/Mozilla browser user's preferred link colors.
Links for targets on this Contents with Overview
page will turn black when exercised, but you may have to reload the page
to see that, and the
MS browser will give mis?leading results.
Underlining/coloring links on hover
only in the MS browser may also help to unclutter the text.
Text sections of special interest to the reader will of course underline/color
links and display status bar addresses upon passing the reactive cursor
over the text. The coloringing of links on hover and the proportional
above page display of alternate text for images in the MS browser is good
stuff; either Lunux/Mozilla gets a way to do that, or the WISdom
Prospector will,
along with other "Looking Glass" display innovations.
May I apologize for the long page transfer
times you will encounter - the pages grew over time, and re-pagination
will be a lot of work to avoid disturbing this proposal's "mini section"
modular structure. Besides, once the main page(s) is/are loaded
in memory, page self-referring links, like the ones in the following Overview,
are very fast. You could have your browser not display images,
but then you would miss some of the best stuff this website has to offer.
This is just the imaginary
FAQs - Please
participate and ask real questions
The targets of almost all of the links
in the following FAQs and answers are in the Contents
"Mini
Section" Links on this same HTML page.
The
many links embedded in this Overview are intended to provide a kind of
topical index to the WISdom Proposal Contents Links which are hierarchical
by inclusiveness within page. If
you're linking off this page, may I recommend that you open that
page in a new window.
Q0.What
do you mean by proposing "WISdom"?
This proposal presents a
model of, and a
strategy
to build a "clicks and mortar"
business which will operate in the "CybeRealSpaceTime"
environment created on a private
network by client-resident
"Virtual
Specialties Markets"to order
and deliver
all consumer goods, services and information to cooperating
members.
Somebody
Will
Control the network ~ Be sure it's
you!
The proposed operation of this business
will
result in its eventual domination of this market as an essential
information utility, so be wise
and make it secure and solid as
a self-regulating
cooperative
business. With WISdom's
facilitated pure democracy by
MINEd
reading, the people get the network that they deserve.
WISdom is partly
a source of consumer
"street smarts"
through an avoidance of stuff that doesn't work, and
maybe never did.
For
the technically disinclined: there is an uncertain
amount of technical material throughout this proposal, but not in
this Overview, I promise. In the proposal itself, which requires
a familiarity with IT language typical of the serious reader of IT trade
press publications (eWeek, CIO Insight,
etc.), please ignore unfamiliar
technicalities; Web links to such seemingly unnecessary detail is
left
in this WISdom Proposal, which is intended for the general reader,
mostly because these links are intended to provide the aitectural background
necessary to support the good news for consumers: .the
current technical situation appears completely favorable for the Open Source
development and deployment of...Advancing..
Cooperatively..
Networked..
Consumer..
Services!.
.
Be assured that the technical shortcomings
of this proposal will not materially affect the proposed consumer services
for WISdom Coop members
via
the WISdom Network. The
mistakes and other defficencies will be brought to my attention (please!),
and
revisions
will be made as necessary to correct them.
The software functions
described in this proposal should be seen as descriptions of
Services
Goals and apparent Requirements,
Not as specifications.
The
technology is the easy part, at least as
far as this general readership document is concerned.
This is about instituting
a paradigm shift to functional
Client to server Relationships,
and
Enhancing
Individual Rights
superimposed
upon
what is essentially a peer to peer network, the open internet.
The
server is the provider of Networked
Consumer Services.
The
Member's Client and Co-op link is
the Proprietor!
Q1.
Why do consumers need to cooperatively
share the ownership of a nation wide
private network?
A well-founded lack of
trust in the
open internet marketspace, whether consumers suspect unsafe open
internet technology or unscrupulous merchants (see Q. 3 below), is the
biggest problem for consumers and the most pervasive reason why e-commerce
is not being accepted on a much larger scale...Legitimate
member control through shared ownership of the
WISdom Network permits non-governmental
enforcement of privacy and security standards that are binding
on all network users, and it enables the development and maintenance
of network facilities that protect members from malicious
crackers and from abusive
producers and providers.
Consumers of the World,
Unite!
You have
Problems Only You Can Solve
and
Everything to Gain!
Member control of the localized WISdom
Network permits members to set uniform
standards for information posting by category, enabling the organization
and construction of Virtual
Specialties Markets in CybeRealSpaceTime in which the producers
(of goods, services, and information), and providers (the retailers of
same) compete
for the members' money and/or attention on level and demanding playing
fields that are both
familiar to, and controlled in the interest of, the members. The
WISdom Network is a natural monopoly;
it puts consumers in charge and provides
compelling reasons to join the WISdom
Co-op.
Spam is the currently
reigning king of communications snarl and producer of consumer grief and
disempowerment. It can be eliminated at
the sources on a private network. Take email back!
Advertising is member
requested
information in WISdom
Network standard formats only, requiring readily understood truth
in advertising (currently an oxymoron) supplemented by online
access to consumer specialist
and/or averaged member item quality/value ratings.
Enabled by information
and facilities available only to WISdom Central Services and Local
Area consumer cooperatives or franchisees, vulnerable players are systematically
disintermediated
for the benefit of all members.
A VPN
Intranet/Extranet enables secure purchasing cooperative Extranet connections
with providers' and producers' networks, and with WISdom Networks
deployed in other countries, partly to support cooperating producers everywhere.
This private network service is a "natural
monopoly" utility that will become as essential as other utilities,
requiring government or cooperative
regulation. The WISdom Newtwork's democratic member
governance, with individualizable voting decision delegation capabilities
by type of issue, assures maximum member control with minimum member effort
required. All WISdom Network software could be provided
free to PC manufacturers, helping
to break the monopoly of consumer desktops. A strong
WISdom
Co-op lobby in Washington and elsewhere is seen as a
major check to governmental "Big Brotherism", and it must
protect
the rights of consumers everywhere, even when this means opposing
the reigning government! Big Brothers everywhere must be
prevented from entering our MINEs
at their "discretion".
Q2.
Who is going to build this network?
The WISdom
Foundation will be responsible for the development the software
and other tangible network facilities. The WISdom Network
development project would be kept on course for the benefit of consumers
by a board composed largely of reputable consumer advocates interested
in advancing individual
rights and privileges, and effectively enforcing individual responsibilities
for the common good in cyberspace cum cyberealspacetime.
WISdom Foundation content developers
and its outsourcers will probably use Eclipse
or BEA WebLogic SOA
tools to build portals by type of goods, services and information,
and producers
and providers will use templates for Intranet Web posting.
The world
wide consumers cooperative (the WISdom Co-op) would assume network
and software ownership and controlled
software evolution responsibilities when the cooperative's leadership
and membership feel ready to assume these responsibilities. Resaleable
Franchises (actual market values determined by auctions after "critical
mass") and/or franchise fees would be used (in
lieu of patent royalties) to donate to the WISdom Foundation
for software development in an amount deemed fair and accepted by vote
of the WISdom Co-op members.
Subscription
Open Source services is recommended as the best course for WISdom Network
development for about the first 10 years that it always takes to
mature a network's services structure. Sun and/or Oracle could
probably also best handle the coordination
and connections required with local area mechants. The
network can be maintained best in house after 10 years or so.
Q3.
How would the administration of this private network be organized?
The WISdom
Co-op, with
national branches and membership of all consumers that receive this network's
services, would grant network access and assistance to local (zip code)
area consumers cooperatives or franchisees to administer network services
locally. National branches must intermix WISdom Network
standardized content of their own creation at the national, language-regional,
and local area levels. International consumer commerce should
be promoted and facilitated when possible and practical.
WISdom
Network Local Area Services restores member trust of their e-commerce providers.
WISdom Network producers
and providers will update their Intranet websites via Macromedia's
Contribute2 (or by methods developed by subscription services providers)
which enables restricted updating using simple word processor tools.
Operating within a member country with
international
extranets, regional and central consumer Goods, Services
and/or Information
evaluation and purchasing cooperatives
would provide inventory and supply chain management services for the WISdom
Network Local Area Services, and GSI
evaluation services for the individual members.
Pure
democracy in cooperative government, providing maximum
member control with minimum member sffort, as well as Supply/Demand
Chain Smoothing are facilitated by MINEd
reading.
Q4.
What services can consumers expect from their network?
Clean
up network information pollution. This is pollution of the
very worst kind for network users. Lies, and other
distortions of truth, along with intrusive
advertising of all kinds must be eliminated on the WISdom Network.
That is its main reason for being, as
a network-wide cultural revolution. WISdom is the
People's network!
Members and PPV
non-members (carefully
watched) can quickly
and easily identify and retrieve those goods, services and/or information
that are most appropriate for their use and the best values for them personally,
whether they pay in money or attention. Consumer goods local
area replenishment is facilitated. The WISdom
Network's Local Area Service freely
delivers the right stuff for you at
the right time and place,
at the right
price, and the entire network user
experience is vastly improved vs. the open internet.
Many consumers
do not trust, and/or are afraid of their own desktop OS, mostly because
they are imperfectly familiar with it. Often it is the case
that they will never be "familiar" with it.
The WISdom Network and WISPER
let the WISdom Prospector rapidly navigate the entire WISdom
Intranet, select options, input text, etc. by easily-tailored
voice~control by any member, regardless of language or dialect.
The
WISdom Prospector is about a transformation of the user/member
experience.
WISdom
Network Guarantees
to "Let the buyer become aware!"
"Securely Personalized WISdom Network Consumer Services"
"Information
Reliability
Guaranteed"!
Responsible
Consumption Facilitated!
Beat
the Software Monopoly!
Beat
the Media Monopoly!
Beat
Amazon.com! Beat
Wal-Mart!
The kids and grandma can simply
and safely use the WISdom Prospector's
extensively personalized and trustable portal to all authorized
WISdom Network information and services.
Members' are quoted cyberealspacetime
prices that include
shipping and handling but not taxes, and that specify simply what,
when and where, for how much, leaving details like coordination for order
aggregation and the payment of state and local taxes to the WISdom
Network's Local Area Service, which can become the sole provider for
those members wanting complete
privacy. Funds transfer for payment is not
done until after the member is given adequate time to approve or reject
the purchase(s).
All of WISdom Network's
content
will be first rate, enabled by the modified..Mozilla
Browser and Eclipse or
BEASOA
tools.
These member services increase in
value as the network
information store grows, and as the delivery
of all of these centrally and locally provided services becomes
more efficient due to economies of scale and scope. All
planned services scale up very smoothly, and rapid
network growth is anticipated. On the other hand,
early members will have to be compensated, probably with free life membership
as a Founding (first 1million?) Member , etc., for the limitation
of services these early members will experience.
The WISdom network's streamlined
cooperative democracy means individual members can have as much shared
control as they want to exert. Valuable services
need not be monetarily profitable for members to decide to offer them on
this network, e.g.., effective consumer
rights advocacy.
Q5.
Can the average consumer afford this?
Lifetime Membership,
including all Free/Open
Source software which is to be continually
improving, should cost $1.00.
After "critical mass",
WISdom Co-op can set fees to whatever the market will bear.
An annual subscription fee for Open Source services would be charged
to cover the costs of network infrastructue and the WISdom Co-op'sNetwork
Services and WISdom Prospector Advancement Project.
Additional member-selectable services, such as WISdom Network
client "rich
media super pack" with real time updates that integrate network or
CD-distributed VR
environments, etc. with selected consumer products, ISP services,
PPV
content and services,
etc., may be additional. All fees are subject to member
voting, of course, but verifiable total annual cost of membership after
revenue sharing (member dividends) should be distinctly negative.
I believe that low membership fees are justified because each additional
member increases the power and reduces the costs for all existing members,
exhibiting powerful network
effects and efficiencies
of scale and scope.
All goods, services, and informationcan
be delivered to members via this network at
or below market prices. Most if not all transportation,
shopping
pickup and delivery costs can be shared by the local and central network
service, since both Central
and Local WISdom Services get information profitable to other members
by supplying these services.
Q6.
Are there any for-profit business opportunities in this?
Franchises
for Local (zip code) Area WISdom Services (including ISP
services) are a great way to start small
and grow
fast in a locally
respected business. Service mentality and social responsibility
required, and shared learning with other franchisees multiplies successes.
The outlook is become sole member provider of delivered goods, services,
and information in a local area, supported by
WISdom electronic ordering and by cooperative agreements with
local
providersand adjoining area franchisees or consumers cooperatives to
share facilities, and to aggregate orders and deliveries for efficient
supply chain coordination. WISdom Network facilities
for automated
disintermediation of local providers for consumer
commodity replenishment shopping can create a reliable income
base for both WISdom Network Services franchisees and local area
consumer cooperatives. There are many other opportunities
for franchisee income by supplying new member services through the WISdom
Network.
Franchisees must practice Open Book
management, and the local area WISdom service may be appropriated
at any time by local area consumer cooperatives, but "fair price buyout"
formulas in their contract helps protect franchisees' investments of time
and money. The franchisees' best survival strategy is to keep everybody
happy with great service and consistently
low prices on disintermediated items.
Q7.
Does the WISdom Network create jobs and wealth?
The
WISdom Network is positioned to become the premier producer
and provider of consumer oriented information and "new media".
Making this happen will require not only the cooperation of members, but
consumer
information and
purchasing
specialists in all categories of goods, services, and information,
as well as consumer financial services
specialists, journalists,
information
artists, technical leaders and assistants, supply
chain management specialists, educators, etc. This centralized
function of the WISdom Network would be financed by cooperative
funds earned by intelligent and selective disintermediation of central
providers by product.
WISdom Network Local
Area Franchises and support
for "cottage industries" can also create considerable wealth and local
service and production jobs.
The WISdom network creates
a
wealth of conveniently accessible consumer information.
Q8.
What will this mean for our local communities?
What do you
want it to mean? Mostly.
Interested communities should
consider the best, most direct route to local
control of member services by forming local
WISdom consumer's cooperatives, with assistance from the
world wide WISdom Co-op. This may be the only way to
deal with an area dominated by uncooperative local merchants, by the sheer
number of loyal consumers already supplied remotely via the WISdom
Network. Disintermediation of local providers can be quick,
or it can be controlled, depending on the merchant's participation in serving
his community.
The WISdom
Co-op and Network will promote increased
cohesion and self-determination
of our local communities, while it improves
the quality of life of its members.
WISdom
Network Local
Area Services communications enabled Housestores, featuring
Segway and larger conveyance-riding employees picking warehouse slot-sequenced
orders for delivery, with electronic in-store ordering and pickup inspection
by customers in a comfortable, homelike social snack atmosphere,
should become welcome as non-intrusive member energy and time saving assets
to their communities.
WISdom Network's Selective
by Product Disintermediation of Local Providers can be harnessed
cooperatively!
Local
cooperative education, another idea whose time has come, is supported
by the WISdom Network, and hopefully will be implemented by Local
(zip code area) WISdom Co-op consumer cooperatives.
Q9.
Why isn't this being done now?
The relatively recent availability
of adaptable Free/Open
Source software components, tools and Services Oriented Architectures
(SOA)
and secure Open Source
"Web Services"
for consumer, provider and producer interoperability frameworks
makes WISdom
Network development technically and economically feasible for the
first time today (7-20-03). The near-universal direction in
enterprise Information Technology is SOA,
and there is a lot of competition with an expansion of both the numbers
and capabilities of software and services providers in this category, from
the top-tier down to cunsultant/practitioner levels. I can't
think of any software requirements that will not be familiar territory
to many developers, or any software
or active content directory/MINE
architectural questions that can not be answered now.
The management of cooperatives
has been vastly transformed by the fairly recent availability of virtual
private networks with secure facilities for convenient and frequent
member discussion, member questionaire analyis, and voting.
The WISdom Co-op's enablement
of pure democracy requires communications conveniences to promote
maximum member involvement and voice in those issues of interest to them,
and proxy voting when the issues are not seen as deserving of the
member's personal attention; hence, the proposed
software-assisted and/or representative voting. When members
indicate in their MINEs
the areas of special interest to them personally, they are automatically
informed about developments in those areas, and encouraged to actively
participate in the operational decisions of the WISdom Co-op.
Members drive the business best with power steering, cruise/maneuver control,
enhanced long-range visibility, and great brakes.
Why Now?.
Finally, there is almost universal
agreement amongst software developers and business system architects
on the lasting principles and advantages of Services Oriented
Architecture
(SOA).
WISdom starts out right as a member
service business!
Java
for "write once, run anywhere" software is mature,
and Sun's Java Community Process gets all stakeholders on board and heard.
Enterprise
portal development and maintenance architectures and tools availibility
is good now (5-04).
I would do
it before somebody else starts
sewing up local
merchants' free websites of standard format with direct or Web Services-facilitated
connections to local providers' data. There's no serious
competition here at this point, just some big fish that might bite.
Yahoo map services may expand to involve
local merchants in online classified offerings info (12-04).
There will be enough unseating of incumbents without the problems of converting
local merchants to the new WISdom and procedures.
Make WISdom your generation's legacy to the future!
See: OASIS
Business
Process
Execution
Language
efforts
See: Web Services
Interoperability Organization's WS-I Basic Profile 1.0
Why
Not
Now?
What does the
Open Source community get out of this?
Q10.
How long (and how much) before this network can be offered to communities?
A large scale project with
many
divergent and simultaneous development
activities could prepare the WISdom
Network to open in useable beta form in Peoria's (or wherever)
adjoining zip code areas in about 3 years for about
5 million? $ US.
I believe that will be sufficient time for the WISdom Foundation
to identify and deal with "the devil in the details", and to formulate
and initiate the implementation of a strategic
architecture to guide the evolution of the WISdom
Prospector platform and the WISdom Network contents,
in preparation
for rollout by the WISdom Co-op, concentrating first on supporting
WISdom
Network Local Area Services Automatic Consumer Replenishment with Order
and Delivery Aggregation. The fleshing out of the WISdom
Network with first-rate content will be a continuing effort by the WISdom
Co-op.
Initial development costs would be
borne by The WISdom Foundation
via contributions from individuals and corporations that may enter
into contractual
agreements to provide services to this cooperative network, such as
consumer information, transportation and supply chain management services,
network security and other Open Source software and content development
services, etc.
Widespread publicity of this work would
be needed to promote the formation of a
large and varied cooperative discussion group to augment the ivory
tower of WISdom Foundation advocates. A homemade series
of TV and/or internet infomercials depicting many different kinds of consumer
reaction to the WISdom Proposal would help immensely.
Software
and content
engineering development could, and probably should, proceed at
a leisurely pace before a large scale project is started.
Open Source developers and others who contribute
their time to this conceptual and detail design effort will
be rewarded.
More
(or less) FAQs
WISdom.
is
Really .Built
to Last!
Ask a question,
make a comment or suggestion
Can you see this
as a for-profit network service?
They would if
they could, but only You Can
Do It!
I don't see any
negatives here,
just the high
barriers to entry
of a natural
monopoly.
How
about you?
RJA
To
Cover Page..........................................................................................................................................................................................To
Introduction Page
#
Under Scrutiny
~
Solid Gold
!!
Problem or Priority Alert ~ If you think a mini-section needs revision
for clarity or content, please
tell me about it ~ that will be considered a priority change to this
proposal.
