The vision of computing that we are moving towards is one where computational/informational capability will be around in most of the physical objects and space around us. We shall move from the perspective of computing "in the corner and on the desk" to our being submered in computing. It may be accurate to suggest that we are being embedded in a sea of computation, and it is also embedding itself within us.
The pervasive world challenges our notion of modeling systems, organisations and people. Traditional approaches to modeling systems assume a world where computational/informational space is separate from physical and conceptual space. As computation and information seep into the background of our world, we are starting to realise the importance of integrating the physical and conceptual spaces with the computational/informational. So as devices are becoming smaller, ubiquitous and invisible, it becomes increasingly critical to also integrate these devices and other infrastructure with such things as: culture, social structure, task design, individuals' context, physical environments, cognitive and mental models. Put another way, we will be increasingly challenged to structure and arrange the forces exerted between these elements in physical, conceptual and computational/informational space.
The focus group aims to discuss the following assertions:
Patterns are well-suited to modeling the pervasive world. Patterns are designed as core solutions that resolve the set of forces that converge on a problem. This is precisely the challenge of designing pervasive habitats, resolving the interplay between things in the physical world, conceptual issues, and computational/informational artefacts.
Pervasive habitats need patterns. A fundamental element of pervasive habitats is that interaction between physical devices and humans is more important than the functionality of physical device itself. In other words, if we want to be focused on humans and what they want to achieve, then the pervasive habitat must focus on the interplay of devices rather than the individual behaviour and capability of devices. In fact, the individual behaviour of devices could vary greatly depending on the context of individual people/groups in a pervasive habitat. Patterns are a mechanism for capturing the different kinds of interaction that are possible, as well as describing the emergent properties coming out of the interaction.
Patterns should be explicit elements of the pervasive world. It is easy to see that patterns could be applied to the design aspects of the pervasive world, as if it were another domain. But we can also go beyond such a pattern mining perspective. It could be argued that we should use and talk about patterns explicitly as we work, live and play in the pervasive world (eg "let's get those people in and set up an Ad-Hoc Collaboration Session"). The reason for this is two-fold: (a) pervasive habitats involve a complex interplay of forces and having solutions to resolve these forces will make a significant difference (b) the more quickly we can seed the pervasive world with patterns, the more quickly we can create better pervasive habitats and build a set of best practices. Patterns are crucial to the design of pervasive habitats, but also in the daily use of these habitat - therefore, they should be explicit (rather than a background design element).
The focus group will also explore possible patterns for pervasive habitats, as well as scenarios for the use of these in the pervasive world.
Because of design and use of pervasive habitats is a pioneering activity, this focus group will have an exploratory, brainstorming flavour. To participate, prepare a one page position paper describing your thoughts in response to the assertions about patterns in the pervasive world. Submissions should be directed to: Daniel May (dmay@mip.sdu.dk). Submitted position papers will be made available on the web a week before the workshop.