Self-Referential Upgrading of Obsolete Internet Conference Processes Inhibiting Emergence of Integrative Knowledge<\/i><\/p>\n
Paper originally envisaged for the 1st International Conference on Internet Science<\/a> (10-13 April 2013, Brussels) held under the aegis of the European Commission, by the EINS project, the FP7 European Network of Excellence in Internet Science.<\/p>\n Introduction<\/b><\/p>\n Exploration of the justification and possibility of applying the organizational and conceptual framework of a conference on Internet science to the conference processes in order to enable emergence of more integrative knowledge on the occasion of future conferences and in anticipation of the semantic web.<\/p>\n The exploration derives from early concerns with Knowledge-Representation in a Computer-Supported Environment<\/i><\/a> (International Classification<\/i>. 4, 1977, 2, pp. 76-81), and from the initiative of Stafford Beer<\/a> and Gordon Pask<\/a> in applying network analysis techniques to a conference of the Society for General Systems Research<\/a> (SGSR) on Improving the Human Condition: Quality and Stability in Social Systems<\/i> (London, 1979). This experiment was documented in Metaconferencing: Discovering people \/ viewpoint networks in conferences<\/i><\/a> (Transnational Associations<\/i>, 32, 1980, 10, pp. 411-420). It contributed to the elaboration of the syntegration process<\/a> by Beer (Beyond Dispute: the invention of Team Syntegrity<\/i>, 1994).<\/p>\n Related techniques, with which the author was associated, were subsequently employed in the development of a multimedia knowledge management capacity, with funding from the EU Information Society Programme<\/a> from 1997-2000 (Ecolynx: Information Context for Biodiversity Conservation<\/i><\/a>). This enabled a successful proposal to the World Bank info<\/a><\/i>Dev<\/a> programme (Interactive Conceptual Environmental Planning Tool for Developing Countries<\/i><\/a>, 1999). This work enabled collaboration with Verisign in a proposal to ICANN<\/a> (2002) to become the successor operator of the registry for the .ORG top-level web domain. Consideration of further knowledge visualization possibilities, of relevance to conference processes, was enabled through collaboration with the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence<\/a> (DFKI) in relation to the Living Library<\/a> project of Dropping Knowledge (Complementary Knowledge Analysis \/ Mapping Process<\/i><\/a>, 2006).<\/p>\n The case for self-referential application of such techniques follows from the work of Douglas Hofstadter<\/a> (G\u00f6del, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid<\/i><\/a>, 1979) as discussed in Consciously Self-reflexive Global Initiatives: Renaissance zones, complex adaptive systems, and third order organizations<\/i><\/a> (2007). Related development of the aesthetic dimension was discussed in Enacting Transformative Integral Thinking through Playful Elegance<\/i><\/a> (2010).<\/p>\n