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How SGML can Support a Dynamic Public Affairs and Communication Policy

 
Nick   Arnold
  Head, Production and Development Sections, Directorate for Public Affairs and Communication
  OECD
2, rue André-Pascal
Paris     France  75775 CEDEX 16
Phone: +33 1 49.10.42.53
Fax: +33 1 49.10.43.11
Email: nick.arnold@oecd.org Web: www.oecd.org
 
Biographical notice:
 
Nick Arnold
 
Nick Arnold manages the production, research and development sections for the OECD's publishing activities. Prior to joining the OECD in 1990, Nick worked in New York in a variety of positions within the information management field.
 
ABSTRACT:
 
This paper discusses how SGML can assist in the creation and production processes for multiple media output, thereby reducing time to market and adding value throughout the publishing cycle.
 
 

Historical Overview
Shannon
 information 
 
In July and October 1948 Claude Shannon published two papers in the Bell System Technical Journal. These papers dealt essentially with the problem of sending messages from one place to another quickly, economically and efficiently. In doing so, he was able to make the concept of information so logical and precise that it could be placed in a formal framework of ideas.
error
uncertainty
 
Without going into to the details -- especially since I can't do the math -- of what Shannon's work implied in matters such as order and disorder, error and the control of error, possibilities and the actualizing of possibilities, uncertainty and the limits of uncertainty, the key point for us today is that he demonstrated that information
 
 
"without structure, without a code, a system is useless. It is perfectly free, but the freedom is indistinguishable from noise. There is no intelligibility and no protection against error. It is unable to become complex. The system is useless, as a thermodynamic system is useless at equilibrium."Campbell, Grammatical Man, page 264.
free
noise
 search 
 
Perfectly free but indistinguisable from noise. Sounds like a description of the results of a full text search request on the Web.
 
 

Are we living the information age and what does that mean?
 
The press, both professional and popular, began heralding the advent of the information age in the early 80s. They based this on the first wave of cable and satellite transmission of images and sound, on the realisation that the PC had some sort of potential to affect the way people worked, on this new network that was developing within the military and university communities. Everything seemed to be going electronic, if not digital. This was it! The new era had dawned. It was an exciting prospect and a hopeful message.
 
If one can say the information age began in the early 80s, then it is now a teenager. Maybe that's why Bill Gates said that thanks to XML we will soon live the "Web lifestyle". Certainly sounds to me like he's talking to teenagers and young adults, characterising this "breakthrough technology" as a new lifestyle.
 
I don't want to do any Bill bashing. He's had enough recently with the Senate and regulatory agencies around the world. Nevertheless, his statement does reflect that the information age is maturing and that finally, people are coming to terms with the nature of information.
 
Of the two great "system" ideas of the 20th century, ideas that everyone has heard about, has been affected by and has an opinion of -- communism, Freudian psychiatry and psychology -- I believe we need to add a third, information theory. And I believe that information theory promises the longest and most useful life expectancy.
 
For what it's worth, a few more remarks on Freudian thought and modernism, and about Internet and the progression from HTML to XML.
 
Modernism is
 
 
"an abrupt break with all tradition... The aim of five centuries of European effort is openly abandoned." Herbert Read (Art Now, 1933) .
 
The paradox of modernism, of which Freud was a key figure, is the following:
  1. A break with the past means discontinuity, uncertainty. Can we rely at all on what we knew yesterday?
  2. Concentration on individual consciousness leads to the inevitable isolation of the individual. Can we share anything with others? Are there any public values, or just internal ones?
  3. Stream of consciousness -- a neverending blitz of momentary impressions -- leads to sensory overload and miscommunication.
  4. So, the Paradox: a break with an inhuman past and a concentration on the externalization of the individual self leads to -- isolation, miscommunication, hopelessness.
 
 
No wonder the Web was so popular so fast. It's the biggest expression of modernism we have ever seen. The externalisation of the internal, what -- documentation, individual thoughts, family pictures, chat rooms. And it's all acceptable. In fact, it's great, and no organisation, institution or government had better mess with it.
 
The Web embodies both poles of the contradiction: the isolation, miscommunication and hopelessness (especially searching) with the need for community, a sharing of values and views. But contradiction tends towards resolution and now the invisible hand of the marketplace and Microsoft intervene and information takes primacy and structure overcomes noise.
 
 

General comments
 
 

How do SGML and XML relate
 
This is the Abstract from the W3C Recommendation of 10 February, 1998:
 
 
"The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a subset of SGML that is completely described in this document. Its goal is to enable generic SGML to be served, received, and processed on the Web in the way that is now possible with HTML. XML has been designed for ease of implementation and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML."
 
Then there's a view presented in the January 1998 issue of TAG:
 
 
"W3C Working Group member Eve Maler explained that just as XML was designed to be a simpler version of SGML, the eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) is being designed to be a simpler version of DSSL style sheet language and the eXtensible Linking Language (XLL) is a pared-down linking specification owing much to HyTime."
 
XML promises to be a better way to deliver information, either highly structured at the source or not. XML in the near term will be found primarily as an output on the Web, whether from SGML, Word or as the result of a conversion process.
 
But the big question is: why is Microsoft so hot on XML? In the Road Ahead, Mr. Gates did not mention this breakthrough technology. Pretty amazing the difference two years can make. I think everyone takes Microsoft at their word that they will do everything to protect their core product Windows/NT, that is, the operating system. I think everyone believes that Microsoft sees the Internet and Web technologies as the building block of the next generation operating system. They're defending their bifteck, as we say in France. No one disputes their right to do this, just the manner in which they do it.
 
But I think there is more than that. In the December issue of TAG, Bob DuCharme writes:
 
 
"XML seeks to ease SGML delivery over the web, but it is accomplishing something much grander: it simplifies the delivery of structured information from one process to another. On the small scale, this makes it easier to develop applications that exchange data; on the large scale, many see the possibility of entire businesses being transformed ." (emphasis added)
 
It's worth reading the article.
 
 

The OECD Case
 
 

What is the OECD?
 
The OECD, more than any other major international organisation, lives by information. It does not lend money, it does not stabilise currency exchange rates or intervene directly in national or international economic crisis, it does not send troops to keep the peace. The OECD is a meeting place, a peer group where member countries co-operatively try to develop and promote policies designed to:
  • achieve the highest sustainable economic growth and employment and a rising standard of living in Member countries, while maintaining financial stability, and thus to contribute to the development of the world economy;
  • contribute to sound economic expansion in Member as well as non-member countries in the process of economic development; and
  • contribute to the expansion of world trade on a multilateral, non-discriminatory basis in accordance with international obligations.
    •  
     

    Who are its audiences?
     
    The OECD is as credible as its recommendations and the principal role of the Public Affairs and Communication directorate is to communicate effectively the nature of these recommendations to its audiences. These audiences include governments (the political power), administrations (the civil service), and parliaments; non-governmental organisations (NGOs), research institutions, the academic and business communities, and the electorate at large.
     
    As the world economy becomes more interdependent and the work of the organisation more horizontal in nature, that is, drawing on expertise from many parts of the house, the Secretariat itself becomes an ever-increasingly important constituent of PAC. Issues related to ageing populations, trade, sustainable development are all interrelated. More efficient access to and sharing of information is essential.
     
     

    What do we communicate?
     
    To reach these audiences, the OECD disseminates its information in a multitude of formats: documents for internal and external circulation, publications in paper and electronic form and online internally through Intranet and externally through our site and online bookshop, press releases, policy briefs on specific subjects, at conferences and seminars, and in our marketing material. In the following slide, I'm going to try to illustrate one information flow, that of an OECD document.

     
    OECD Information Products

     
     
    Obviously, easy and accurate information re-use is a key to our communication strategy.
     
     

    SGML at the OECD
     
    To evaluate the feasability of using SGML early in the information creation stages, we commissioned a study to determine the costs, and advantages and disadvantages of the current environment based on Microsoft office. The study indicated that it was worth doing a pilot project. This pilot is to be carried out in June in what we call a substantive directorate, where the research and authoring are done. To place this study and pilot project in context, I would like to present two slides from the study we commissioned.
     
    These slides show the consultant's view of how information management based on Word or SGML match up at the OECD.
     
     

    A specific case of how SGML/XML can support a more dynamic communications strategy
     
    Let's take the example of the OECD's flagship publication, the Economic Outlook. The Outlook is the OECD's set of projections for output, employment, prices and current balances over the next two years. In previous years, when the analysis was finished, it was circulated to member governments in document form. Immediately afterwards, the book production started. Advance copies were sent to journalists and our network of book distributors, with the process culminating in a press conference and simultaneous lifting of the press embargo. This process took approximately four weeks.
     
    This cycle is under pressure, as demonstrated by the December 1997 issue, where the analysis was finished mid-November, the press conference held 16 December while in the meantime there was an Asian meltdown. A clear case of needing to increase flexibility and reduce time to market.
     
    Using SGML for information creation, management and re-use, we could imagine a different scenario for the production and diffusion of the Economic Outlook. To do this, let's compare the production process for this issue, which will appear the 25th of May, with what we could imagine if the source information were in SGML.

     
    Economic Outlook Production

     
     
    Beyond the obvious advantages for the production and dissemination of the Economic Outlook itself, creating information in SGML enables other possibilities. All sections of the OECD Economics Department contribute to the Economic Outlook. A large and extremely valuable part of the Economic Outlook consists of the Country Notes. The Country Notes section analyzes economic performance and trends in individual OECD countries, major non-OECD countries and economic regions -- Far East, former Soviet Union, etc. The fundamental analysis for the Country Notes is done by the Country Desks, groups of Secretariat experts specialising in the Country in question. The two processes and products, the Economic Outlook and the annual Country Surveys, are intimately linked.
     
    The ability to create automatic, structural, context-sensitive links between the two would be of great use to researchers, as a powerful aide to their work. It is easy to imagine how our other audiences could benefit from the ability to click from an overview of labor market developments in Germany in the Country Notes to the full discussion and analysis found in the German Country Survey. Not just click from one publication to another, but from a particular point in one publication to the relevant points in other publications. Not full text searching, no matter how sophisticated, but from labor market developments to labor developments.
     
    For the online delivery of our information we need:
     
     
    "XLL offers ways to link anywhere you want within a target document without requiring any point in the target document to be identified as a link target. It describes syntax that lets you say "link to the third bulleted item in the second bulleted list in the fourth chapter element," or even the third letter within that element."TAG, Volume 11, Number 1, January 1998.
     
    SGML/XML aids greatly in building an intelligent, performant and flexible infrastructure in support of a dynamic communications strategy. SGML and high quality, efficient information re-positioning does not substitute for strategy, but flow logically from it.
     
    Acknowledgments
      Thank you and I hope you enjoy the conference.
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