Why Has Unidata Been Successful?

1. Why Has Unidata Been Successful? Celebration of Unidata’s 25th Year October 15-16, 2009 Clifford A. Jacobs National Science Foundation

2. Themes • The conversation • The premise • The intangibles • The unanticipated • The burden of success

3. 25 years of dialog among UPC, NSF, UCAR management, & the community The Conversation

4. A cacophony to a symphony • A cacophony - 1983 • A patron and a conductor • Stability and reflection • The nagging question

5. “Information is the currency of democracy.” – Thomas Jefferson The Premise

6. Key Elements WORK • Purpose • National Character of relating to one another“Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations. …In democratic countries the science of associations is the mother of science; the progress of all the rest depends on the progress it has made.” -- Alexis DeTocqueville's DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 1835 • Trustworthy execution • Governance • Software • Communications • “Reputation system” broker WORK Organization Convention

7. Social Anthropology Factor The Intangibles

8. Virtual Communities and Social Capital • Unidata as a virtual community? - • “Virtual communities are social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace.” - Rheingold, Howard (1993). The Virtual Community • Unidata fostering Social Capital – • “features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.” - Robert Putman (1995) America’s Declining Social Capital. Journal of Democracy • Unidata as a synthesis of a virtual community that fosters social capital – • “….social capital and civic engagement will increase when virtual communities develop around physically based communities and when these virtual communities foster additional communities of interest.” - Anita Blanchard and Tom Horan (2000) Virtual Communities and Social Capital

9. The Incubator and a Frontier Outpost The unanticipated

10. An Unanticipated Shared Purpose • Shared values that lead to greater impact than originally anticipated • Unidata as an “Incubator” • “…organizing processes to accelerate shared discovery, maturation, and validation of community-based capabilities. Common understanding of scenarios • Greater foresight and discernment • Improved collaboration • Sustainable “life-cycle” • Unidata as “A Frontier Outpost” • “…to open a quality conversations, augmented by “light-weight tools, to leverage collaborative capacity of united, but diverse sectors of society, seeking to discover, frame, and act on national potentials” Courtesy of Susan Turnbull, GSA

11. “I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders.” -- Jewish Proverb The burden of success

12. NetCDF 320,000 | UPC 24 • The increasing reach and influence of Unidata demands a thoughtful response • Developing a ancillary support community and a coalitions of the willing • Strategic decisions about engagement - ROI • Defining the community will become increasing difficult • Stovepipes to Wind chimes