ITSME
a new workstation to exploit
the potential of the cyberspace
by Giorgio De Michelis and Marco Loregian
giorgio.demichelis@itsme.it – marco.loregian@itsme.it
© 2008 by Itsme S.r.l.
All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Itsme S.r.l.

Fatti non foste a viver come bruti,
ma per seguir virtute e conoscenza.
Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,
But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.
Dante Alighieri , La Divina Commedia, Inferno,
Canto XXVI, 119-120, Transl. by A. Mandelbaum
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!
The scenario
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During the 1984 Superbowl
Apple launches the Macintosh
! A new personal computer with a graphical user interface
based on the desktop metaphor
! It delivers the ideas developed at Xerox PARC by Alan Kay
(and colleagues) to a large public, at a reasonable price
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And then …
All personal computers adopt the desktop metaphor
There is a dramatic growth of the size of internal and external
(fixed and removable) memories of personal computers
The email becomes a universal medium
Tim Berners-Lee invents the Web
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And then …
The Web, originally a system for publishing documents, grows and
offers a large variety of services:
\" Uploading and downloading files
\" Shared work and information spaces
\" E-commerce
\" Blogs and wikis
\" Chats
\" Social computing (Web 2.0)
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Three main problems
The personal computer has been unable to cope with the evolution
of the Cyberspace:
! information overload (from keys to gigas; more and bigger
objects)
! dispersion of information (in the file system, attachment
folder, e-mail, browser)
! backwardness of the PC file system with respect to the Web
(no tags, hyperlinks, and structure)
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Unforeseen facts
Dispersion of information supports sub-optimal search methods
(from messages to attachments, from documents to urls, …):
a casual and incomplete divide et impera strategy
More efficient and reliable search engines
The Web is constantly evolving to provide all the functions of
personal computers: do we still need them?
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Still some problems remain
On-line computing is not yet ubiquitous
The personal computer lacks some capabilities, compared with the
Web
Different users have different needs and desires: however, personal
computers based on the desktop metaphor are not adequate for
some of them
Who has control?
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! Our idea
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A new workstation
Helping to avoid the dispersion of information
Embodying what we know about knowledge work
Designed for those people who “think what they do has value”
Based on a new metaphor: “stories and venues”
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Avoiding the dispersion of information
A new front-end where:
\" Related objects, messages, urls, people contact details,
information sources, and tools appear together
\" All objects are characterized by tags and links
We are also designing a back-end to deal with the structure problem
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Trying to deal with information overload
A hierarchical file system requires cognitive effort and ultimately
leads to confusion
Gathering everything in the same place does not directly solve the
information overload problem. Worse, it might increase it
Good search engines still do not solve the problem: while performing
an action we need to have everything that may be relevant at
hand
Searching distracts from the action we are performing
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The lessons of ethnographic research on work
What human beings do is embedded in their relations with other
people: actions and interactions
Action and communication are strictly intertwined
Any action is situated in space, time and, often, in the story within
which it has sense
The stories a person lives are not disjoint
Stories are viewpoints on actions and interactions
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The target users of ITSME
High-value users, i.e., all those who have a great number of
interactions with other people, manage loads of information, live a
great number of stories at the same time, but do not have
adequate support to manage the complexity of their life
! Professionals
! Managers
! Intellectuals
! Knowledge workers
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The limits of the desktop metaphor
The desktop metaphor allowed to sort workstation contents in a
simple and intuitive way
But it has not solved any of the problems people encounter while
managing their actions and interactions
Where is the message John sent me about that issue?
Where did Rick tell me that important thing?
Which is the relevant part of this huge document?
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Beyond the desktop metaphor
The desktop metaphor is over thirty years old.
And it shows!
The displays of today’s workstations are either populated with a huge
number of icons or require functional commands to find an object.
In both cases, users frequently do not find what they are looking for,
or find the wrong thing
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A new metaphor: stories and venues
Our life interweaves a large number of different stories
Each story has its participants and objects
Each story has its venue, where you can access its participants and
objects
Each person lives in several diverse interweaving venues
The new metaphor is characterized by its being plural and its
reflecting situatedness of human experience
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itsme / a workstation based on the metaphor of “stories
and venues”
At any moment, ITSME presents the venue of the story in which its user
is acting
ITSME users do not need to search for things: they have them at hand
ITSME creates, maintains and updates the venues of its user
ITSME venues can be corrected, modified and organized by its user
ITSME is not intrusive: its behavior is purely reactive
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A metaphor implemented through a light model
Venues do not constitute a hierarchy, e.g., the same file or resource
can appear in different venues
Users can move things between venues, and also copy things to
different venues (so that they appear in all of them)
Venues may have sub-venues that simply define viewpoints on venues
The hierarchical model is only a light support to the metaphor
The metaphor helps users understanding what they see on the screen
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! Creating a new workstation and
communicating it
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ITSME components
A new workstation, with a radically new design
An open-source back-end supporting stories
A front-end embodying the venue metaphor
A service supporting the migration of Microsoft and Apple users to
ITSME
A consistent and reliable plan for further improvements of the system
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ITSME / the back-end
Files can be tagged, linked and have an XML-like structure
An email system supporting conversations, with bi-directional links
between messages and attachments
A browser locating its bookmarks in the file system
Navigation systems within venues
Multiple views of venues
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ITSME / the front-end
Based on consolidated Linux contributions
Coupled with the back-end to performs effectively
Presenting the newly conceived interface design allowing users to
understand effortlessly what is going on, even when changes are
not generated by the user
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ITSME Interaction Identity
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From the concept manual: the interface architecture
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From the concept manual: the home
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From the concept manual: the home
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From the concept manual: a venue
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From the concept manual: the limbo and the transition
panel
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The migration service
Associating Vista or Mac OS applications to Linux alternatives,
allowing users to continue working on their files
Exploiting a Vista emulator to run unsupported applications
Placing by default in the Limbo what cannot be located immediately
in a story
Defining the interaction protocol for creating new venues and placing
objects
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Development milestones
A three - year process
Two years for the development of the front-end
(spring 2008 - spring 2010)
One year and a half for the development of a hardware prototype
(spring 2009 - autumn 2010)
Two years for the development of the migration support system
(autumn 2008 - autumn 2010)
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The help we need
Three active communities, supporting Itsme from the very
beginning:
Research (CSCW, KM, ID)
Open source software (Linux community)
High-Tech industry (particularly in Europe)
Good coverage of Itsme milestones by media and research
community world-wide
Support from public institutions in Italy and Europe
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Next steps in communication
An interactive Web site (Web 2.0)
On line testing of the concept
Presentations in major Universities/cities all around the world
Courses at major Universities and Educational Institutions all around
the world
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Selling an innovation
Proving Itsme with added value with respect to competitors
Proving system and after market - assistance reliability of the Itsme
initiative
Granting small migration costs (moving from Vista or Mac OS to
Itsme is not more costly than moving from one version to another
of those systems)
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! The company
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The ITSME team
A growing multi-disciplinary team organized in three work areas:
Interaction Design
Development and Open Source Software
Communication and Innovation
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The partners of ITSME
Giorgio De Michelis, who is its CEO
A group (!20) of founding partners, subscribing the majority of its
capital
A group of academic institutions (among which, University of Milano -
Bicocca, whose it is a spin-off)
The managers of the company, who will receive warrants, allowing
them to participate in value creation
Venture capitalists, who will provide the financial resources needed
to reach its objectives
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The Scientific Committee
A growing group of senior scholars in the field advising the company
on its activities:
! Alfonso Fuggetta (Politecnico di Milano and Cefriel)
! Patrizia Marti (University of Siena)
! Roberto Polillo (University of Milano – Bicocca)
! Marco Susani (Motorola Corp., Chicago)
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The Advisory Board
A group of senior managers and entrepreneurs advising the
company on its business plans. Among its members:
! Elserino Piol (chair)
! Luca De Michelis
! Roberto Galimberti
! Emanuele Marcianò
! Roberto Polillo
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The ITSME Institute
A non-profit association, called ITSME Institute, will be created to
better access public funding for open source code development
Giorgio De Michelis and Itsme will control the Institute
The Association will be open to research and academic institutions
The Association will allow significant cost reduction, if design and
development will be funded by public institutions
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Thank you for your attention!
giorgio.demichelis@itsme.it
marco.loregian@itsme.it
www.itsme.it