@David Lang
Standards are underrated. The simple rules that shape our human-made world are dynamic and malleable. Studying the history of technical standards provides a better contextual lens for understanding what they are and how they work. They’re tools.
This project is an ode to standards. It’s also a personal experience. I was part of a small team that helped create a new ocean connectivity standard. The process gave me a new appreciation for the role that standards play in our lives, as well as a desire to help more standards entrepreneurs succeed.
More about me: davidtlang.com
More about the ocean connectivity standard: Bristlemouth.org
<aside> 💡 Ideas for working together:
1) Help gather protocol histories. During my research process, I found the oral histories of standards to be a valuable resource. I wish more existed, so I’m creating one for Bristlemouth. It’s styled on the USB and Willow Garage stories.
Let's make more of these! They’re great.
2) Help build on the Bristlemouth standard. Have an ocean tech project on the back burner? We can start that! Bristlemouth is now shipping dev kits to project creators: scientists, students, entrepreneurs, whatever. I’ve got a few ideas of things I’d like to build, but happy to talk through your project ideas, too.
3) Help develop a new market-shaping protocol for advancing standards. We used a combination of advanced market commitments (AMCs) and a patent buyout (not quite, but close enough) to get Bristlemouth off the ground. The potential for using market shaping to advance new, disruptive standards is wide open.
4) Read and comment on the essay. I have a draft essay titled “Standards Make the World”. It’s rough and needs help. I’m going to open it up to waves of reviewers and editors. You can check out the introduction below and request access if you want to dive in further.
5) Something else? You tell me! 👉 [email protected]
</aside>
Introduction: Everything in the built environment is touched and shaped by standards. These nearly invisible rules establish trust between engineers and give rise to commerce, industry, and possibilities. Even now, just by reading these words, you are relying on dozens, if not hundreds, of guiding technical standards. Some of them might be familiar, like the World Wide Web (WWW) or the Internet Protocol (IP) that delivers packets of information to your device. What about the standards that went into manufacturing it, like the allowable Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) and Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) limits for that device? What about the shipping and transportation standards that brought it across oceans? Would you know where to find the spec? What about the group that created them? Or who maintains them?
The rabbit hole of questioning extends to almost every object in our lives. Technical standards form the foundation of our modern world. They're often mistaken as limits or boundaries to creativity, which can happen when they're poorly implemented. But if they're well designed by engineers on the front lines, standards can become enabling technologies: the internet, shipping containers, time.
Techno-competition—startups, companies, and new products—get all the attention, but techno-cooperation—standards and protocols—drives an equal measure of civilizational progress.
Despite their importance, standards get little attention or appreciation. Most people, if they're aware of them at all, think they’re boring and overly bureaucratic. This is partially due to the word itself—standard. It sounds basic and is broad enough to cause constant confusion. A "standard" could refer to anything from the Unicode system that approves new emojis to the bacteria levels allowed in pasteurized milk. The name is just a small part of the problem. Another issue is first impressions.
For many, the first and only exposure they have to standards is as a cursory hurdle. They encounter them as a constraint on the way to some other goal. For example, a product designer runs into several safety and interoperability standards through the course of making a new product. An architect is bound by building codes in designing a new home. Even managers are guided by standards—ISO 9000—when they try to add quality assurance measures to company processes. Then, when they peek behind the curtain—when they start asking why that standard is the way it is—they find a committee or a consortium or some other process that seems impenetrable.
Understandably, this is where most people stop thinking about standards. They adhere to their basic legal obligations and they move on.
This is unfortunate. A deeper understanding of standards-making—and how that process has evolved over time—creates a healthy respect for the scale of influence. Standards are some of the most powerful tools we have to affect our world. And here’s the kicker: you can make them.
I tried it. And the experience changed what I thought was possible with technology. I played a small role on a team that made a new ocean connectivity standard. The process was surprising in many ways, perhaps mostly in how it provided us with an entirely new canvas for creative invention.
Standards are not divine rights. They are made and remade by (usually small) groups of people and projected into the world through various means and with varying effectiveness. And that process is dynamic. Standards are something that anyone can engage in, even though almost no one thinks to do it. But they should. You should.
Too often, better societal outcomes —overcoming technological bottlenecks or ensuring new tools are safely deployed—are held back through poorly-designed or missing standards.
Shedding light on the gritty process of standards-making is a promising first step, but more could be done. There are new philosophies and approaches emerging about how better to support and sustain this important work: tending and mending the technological commons.
Read the full draft (request access): https://docs.google.com/document/d/14WLMq1BnJQX9cDOamo0fIEHqzY8XUPcRhHT4ZTVy3VY/edit?usp=sharing