XPN: Xhtml Professional Network - idea

Dear Microformat-discuss readers,

First, forgive me if I'm screwing this up, I know absolutely
nothing 
about mailing lists.

Secondly, I joined because of XPN, an ‘XHTML Professionals
Network’ 
microformat. I thought this up at the end of December, and
tried to 
contact Eric, Tantek and Matt through e-mail to get their
opinions. I 
haven't had a reply yet, but I saw a little blurp about it
on the 
microformats homepage today. (Seemingly from a couple of
days earlier 
then I blogged about it, funny how these things work.)

My original ideas can be read here:
http://kilianvalkhof.com/2006/web/rel-for-practical-use/


I imagined the XPN as a way to define client/developer
(rel="client", 
rel="developer") relationships, and built from
there. For example, add 
freelancer to it (rel="developer freelancer") or
define what part you 
did on the website (rel="client sliced",
rel="client design")

An XPN could be expanded to other business sectors as well,
but it seems 
smart to start with the web development one.

The direct use for it would be to open the way to a
sitemadeby: search, 
next to the defining relationships part.

I don't know if an XPN should be part of XFN or next to it.
I would say 
next to it, because it's a different thing. But you could
also argue 
that it's a continuation of XFN and as such, should be part
of it.

Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself here, what are your
opinions about 
such a microformat?

Cheers,
Kilian Valkhof
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Hey Killian,

Take a look at XBN -- we brought up this idea awhile back on
Tara's urging...

http://tinyurl.com/2qa5pc

There's also more there generally about the idea of
"professional"
relationships. I favor a moderate advancement of
professional
relationships, especially in the context of hResume...

Let's see if we can advance the topic this time around.

Chris


On 1/25/07, Kilian Valkhof <kiliankilianvalkhof.com>
wrote:
> Dear Microformat-discuss readers,
>
> First, forgive me if I'm screwing this up, I know
absolutely nothing
> about mailing lists.
>
> Secondly, I joined because of XPN, an 'XHTML
Professionals Network'
> microformat. I thought this up at the end of December,
and tried to
> contact Eric, Tantek and Matt through e-mail to get
their opinions. I
> haven't had a reply yet, but I saw a little blurp about
it on the
> microformats homepage today. (Seemingly from a couple
of days earlier
> then I blogged about it, funny how these things work.)
>
> My original ideas can be read here:
> http://kilianvalkhof.com/2006/web/rel-for-practical-use/

>
> I imagined the XPN as a way to define client/developer
(rel="client",
> rel="developer") relationships, and built
from there. For example, add
> freelancer to it (rel="developer freelancer")
or define what part you
> did on the website (rel="client sliced",
rel="client design")
>
> An XPN could be expanded to other business sectors as
well, but it seems
> smart to start with the web development one.
>
> The direct use for it would be to open the way to a
sitemadeby: search,
> next to the defining relationships part.
>
> I don't know if an XPN should be part of XFN or next to
it. I would say
> next to it, because it's a different thing. But you
could also argue
> that it's a continuation of XFN and as such, should be
part of it.
>
> Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself here, what are your
opinions about
> such a microformat?
>
> Cheers,
> Kilian Valkhof
> _______________________________________________
> microformats-discuss mailing list
> microformats-discussmicroformats.org
> http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss
>


-- 
Chris Messina
Citizen Provocateur &
  Open Source Ambassador-at-Large
Work: http://citizenagency.com

Blog: http://factoryjoe.com/blog

Cell: 412 225-1051
Skype: factoryjoe
This email is:   [ ] bloggable    [X] ask first   [ ]
private
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On Thursday, January 25, 2007 5:53 PM Chris Messina wrote:
 
> Take a look at XBN -- we brought up this idea awhile
back on 
> Tara's urging...
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/2qa5pc
> 
> There's also more there generally about the idea of
"professional"
> relationships. I favor a moderate advancement of
professional 
> relationships, especially in the context of hResume...

> Let's see if we can advance the topic this time
around.

Thanks for re-posting this, Chris. I don't know how I missed
it the first
time around. About a year ago, when I was playing with
hResume for the first
time[1], I found the need to extend on XFN and came up with
space seperated
values like: rel="employer former",
rel="employer current".

Now that I'm working at LinkedIn, I can see the need for
other definitions.
For a real-world example, LinkedIn defines the following
relationships (this
is taken directly from what we present to the user for
LinkedIn
recommendations):

#  Colleague: You've worked with Joe at the same company
  - You managed Joe directly
  - You reported directly to Joe 
  - You were senior to Joe, but did not manage directly
  - Abdul was senior to you, but you did not report
directly
  - You worked with Joe in the same group
  - You worked with Joe in different groups

#  Service Provider: You've hired Joe to provide a service
for you or your
company

#  Business Partner: You've worked with Joe, but not as a
client or
colleague
  - You worked with Joe but were at different companies
  - Joe was a client of yours

Obviously, what LinkedIn calls a Colleague in the
description above
translates to "co-worker" in XFN and what we call
a Business Partner
translates to "colleague" in XFN. Right now, we
currently use XFN to markup
a user's contacts as rel="contact". We want to
expand XFN usage in the near
term so that a contact at the same company is marked up as
a
rel="co-worker". But it would be great to have
some additional values to
work with. 

Beyond the professional relationships, a relationship that
we define at
LinkedIn is that of "classmate". I see this in use
at a number of social
networks. I think rel="classmate" with variations
of "former" and "current"
would be very useful.

- Steve

[1] http
://steve.ganz.name/blog/2006/01/hresume.html

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We actually started discussing what we were calling XBN back
last
summer when we started Citizen Agency because of our own
selfish
needs. ;)

LinkedIN is a good place to start thinking as well as
applications
like Salesforce and Zoho and Omni. All of these are great
business
applications that have very social elements.

We were thinking along the lines of:

Vendor (instead of service provider or consultant - kind of
an
industry standard term for service or goods provider)
Client
Employee (denotes a hierarchy beyond coworker, for payroll)
Partner (external business partner)

with an optional:

Lead (changes to client when RFP is won, stays a lead
indefinitely if
lost to maintain a contact)
Employer (for the employee to point back to a company to
create a
validated bond, but could just be a one-way validation?)

But hadn't had much of a chance to work on it since we got
really busy.

Tara



On 1/25/07, Steve Ganz <steveganz.name> wrote:
> On Thursday, January 25, 2007 5:53 PM Chris Messina
wrote:
>
> > Take a look at XBN -- we brought up this idea
awhile back on
> > Tara's urging...
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/2qa5pc
> >
> > There's also more there generally about the idea
of "professional"
> > relationships. I favor a moderate advancement of
professional
> > relationships, especially in the context of
hResume...
>
> > Let's see if we can advance the topic this time
around.
>
> Thanks for re-posting this, Chris. I don't know how I
missed it the first
> time around. About a year ago, when I was playing with
hResume for the first
> time[1], I found the need to extend on XFN and came up
with space seperated
> values like: rel="employer former",
rel="employer current".
>
> Now that I'm working at LinkedIn, I can see the need
for other definitions.
> For a real-world example, LinkedIn defines the
following relationships (this
> is taken directly from what we present to the user for
LinkedIn
> recommendations):
>
> #  Colleague: You've worked with Joe at the same
company
>   - You managed Joe directly
>   - You reported directly to Joe
>   - You were senior to Joe, but did not manage
directly
>   - Abdul was senior to you, but you did not report
directly
>   - You worked with Joe in the same group
>   - You worked with Joe in different groups
>
> #  Service Provider: You've hired Joe to provide a
service for you or your
> company
>
> #  Business Partner: You've worked with Joe, but not as
a client or
> colleague
>   - You worked with Joe but were at different
companies
>   - Joe was a client of yours
>
> Obviously, what LinkedIn calls a Colleague in the
description above
> translates to "co-worker" in XFN and what we
call a Business Partner
> translates to "colleague" in XFN. Right now,
we currently use XFN to markup
> a user's contacts as rel="contact". We want
to expand XFN usage in the near
> term so that a contact at the same company is marked up
as a
> rel="co-worker". But it would be great to
have some additional values to
> work with.
>
> Beyond the professional relationships, a relationship
that we define at
> LinkedIn is that of "classmate". I see this
in use at a number of social
> networks. I think rel="classmate" with
variations of "former" and "current"
> would be very useful.
>
> - Steve
>
> [1] http
://steve.ganz.name/blog/2006/01/hresume.html
>
> _______________________________________________
> microformats-discuss mailing list
> microformats-discussmicroformats.org
> http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss
>



-- 
Sincerely,

Tara
-----------------------
tara 'miss rogue' hunt
agent provocateur
Citizen Agency (www.citizenagency.com)
blog: www.horsepigcow.com
phone: 415-694-1951
fax: 415-727-5335
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ts-discuss

Hi there,

> Secondly, I joined because of XPN, an 'XHTML
Professionals Network'
> microformat. I thought this up at the end of December,
and tried to

Well my immediate question is why not simply extend XFN?
Really XFN
represents a small subset of all possible social
relationships; and I
can think of problems trying to separate friends and
professional
relationships - especially in the web industry.

Case in point: my XFN blogroll includes people who are both
friends
and clients. I'm not going to double up my blogroll 

I'd rather see a single "relationships"
microformat which incorporates
XFN and XPN.

> I imagined the XPN as a way to define client/developer
(rel="client",
> rel="developer") relationships, and built
from there. For example, add
> freelancer to it (rel="developer freelancer")
or define what part you
> did on the website (rel="client sliced",
rel="client design")

In my view, there is no difference in the *business*
relationship
between the designer+client and the developer+client - they
are both
providing a service to the client. Both the designer and
developer
would classify the client as "client" when linking
to them.

To put it another way, you have to be careful about whether
you're
defining the *relationship* or the job title (which would be
better
placed in an hCard).

> An XPN could be expanded to other business sectors as
well, but it seems
> smart to start with the web development one.

I don't see an immediate need to create a microformat
specific to
professional relationships in the web industry. They are
after *just
business relationships*, the subject matter doesn't change
them 
I
suppose it does depend on just how granular you want to get;
but off
the top of my head I can think of: client, partner,
competitor,
employer, employee, boss, worker... none of these roles are
specific
to any business.

I suppose if you ultimately wanted to specify down to
specific job
titles, you'd need to separate industries - but that would
be
impractical to say the least 

> I don't know if an XPN should be part of XFN or next to
it. I would say
> next to it, because it's a different thing. But you
could also argue
> that it's a continuation of XFN and as such, should be
part of it.

My vote is definitely that it should be part of XFN -
possibly
requiring a name change of course, but it should all be part
of one
uf.

Just my humble opinion of course.

cheers,

Ben

-- 
--- <http://www.200ok.com.au/
>
--- The future has arrived; it's just not
--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson
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On Jan 25, 2007, at 1:00 PM, Kilian Valkhof wrote:

> I imagined the XPN as a way to define client/developer 

> (rel="client", rel="developer")
relationships, and built from  
> there. For example, add freelancer to it
(rel="developer  
> freelancer") or define what part you did on the
website  
> (rel="client sliced", rel="client
design")

Hi Kilian,

How would you propose XPN deal with entities (both the
referrer and  
the linked page) that are not singular human beings
(companies,  
departments, etc)? It seems like a group microformat ( see
http:// 
microformats.org/wiki/group-brainstorming ) would be a
prerequisite  
for meaningful XPN. However, all the proposals for a group 

microformat are about the individual-as-member-of-group
relationship  
and don't seem like they would make allow XPN to express  
relationships like "as an employee of Foobar ltd, I
worked on project  
X for Fred's Widgets".

Perhaps this is getting too close to hResume land, but it
seems like  
XPN, as it stands now, may not be as precise as I would
like.

--
Jonathan Williams
NYU Steinhardt
jonathan.williamsnyu.edu
+1 212 998 5308


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