Thanks Nick for this response. I hope others found that helpful.
I agree that a crucial aspect is the need for a sea change in our view
of value.
There is a lot of work going on by ACE, AHRC, RSA and NESTA about
Cultural Value, and wonder how this work is helping us address
questions of value of cultural assets in a digital age. One report you
might not have seen out there is Towards Plan A: State of the Arts. I
like this critique of it here
http://new.a-n.co.uk/news/single/towards-plan-b-a-different-approach-to-arts-funding/
Thanks again
Bridget
Quoting Nick Poole <[log in to unmask]>:
> Hi Bridget,
>
> Not sure about clever, but I'll give this a go.
>
> As both computation and data become more decentralised and
> distributed, everyone becomes a service for everyone else. My sense
> from what Wolfram Alpha is saying in the post is that in the long
> term, the kinds of computational capability which are currently best
> experienced through their platform will in future be better
> experienced through countless other platforms which make use of
> their capabilities, effectively as source code.
>
> For me, this model (which as Michael points out is really a rebrand
> of cloud computation) raises two opportunities for museums - which
> I'll characterise as read/write.
>
> On the read side, my personal view is that we will be able to treat
> the world of cloud computation and the linked open data that runs
> across it kind of like a utility. Hence if we've got heavy-duty
> applications to run, or we have a body of collections information
> which requires a lot of contextualisation, we will be able to draw
> on the linked open data cloud to help us crunch.
>
> On the write side, we have a hell of a lot of data which could
> equally provide a useful utility for other consumers. If we make
> collections information massively open - so that it can flow across
> any platform that happens to be providing this kind of computation -
> the we could find ourselves with a new kind of relevance to other
> industries.
>
> As things stand at the moment, I think museums are starting to see
> the value of the consumption of what things like a distributed
> Wolfram Alpha is offering, but we are a long way from seeing the
> value of writing to it. The argument I'm trying to make is that a
> successful museum in 2020 will have massively distributed its
> collections data to take advantage of these developments but we're
> having to take small steps toward that aim!
>
> Particularly, we need to have some kind of sea-change in our view of
> value. To over-extend the utility metaphor if you are providing
> electricity into a grid, the end-user doesn't much care which bit of
> electricity is yours and which comes from Powergen. Similarly, if we
> write collections data into the Wolfram Alpha model, then the
> end-user of their computational heft won't (potentially) care that
> it's our data. I'm not sure how comfortable we can get with that, or
> how quickly.
>
> Equally, I may have completely and utterly failed to grasp what
> they're talking about!
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nick Poole
> Chief Executive
> Collections Trust
>
> Tel: 020 7942 6080
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
> LinkedIn
> Join CT's Collections Management Group
>
> Visit Collections Trust online
> www.collectionstrust.org.uk
> www.collectionslink.org.uk
> www.culturegrid.org.uk
>
> Company Registration No: 1300565 Registered Charity No: 273984
> Registered Office: Collections Trust, WC 209, Natural History Museum,
> Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD
>
>> On 21 Nov 2013, at 14:04, "Bridget McKenzie"
>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Clever people, what do you think this will mean for museums?
>>
>> Big new thing coming from Wolfram Alpha
>> http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2013/11/something-very-big-is-coming-our-most-important-technology-project-yet/
>>
>> He says:
>> "inside the Wolfram Language we have a whole computable model of
>> the world. And it becomes trivial to write a program that makes use
>> of the latest stock price, computes the next high tide, generates a
>> street map, shows an image of a type of airplane, or a zillion
>> other things."
>> And it will lead to...
>> "There?ll be the Wolfram Programming Cloud, that allows one to
>> create Wolfram Language programs, then instantly deploy them in the
>> cloud through an instant API, or a form-based app, or whatever. Or
>> deploy them in a private cloud, or, for example, through a Function
>> Call Interface, deploy them standalone in desktop programs and
>> embedded systems. And have a way to go from an idea to a fully
>> deployed realization in an absurdly short time.
>> There?ll be the Wolfram Data Science Platform, that allows one to
>> connect to all sorts of data sources, then use the kind of
>> automation seen in Wolfram|Alpha Pro, then pick out and modify
>> Wolfram Language programs to do data science?and then use CDF to
>> set up reports to generate automatically, on a schedule, through an
>> API, or whatever.
>> There?ll be the Wolfram Publishing Platform that lets you create
>> documents, then insert interactive elements using the Wolfram
>> Language and its free-form linguistics?and then deploy the
>> documents, on the web using technologies like CloudCDF, that
>> instantly support interactivity in any web browser, or on mobile
>> using the Wolfram Cloud App.
>> Yours in bafflement
>> Bridget
>>
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