Standards Creation Followup

               After the Standards Simulation Workshop this week, I felt like a follow-up review and analysis would be a decent blog post. Last Tuesday (11-19) I attended a Standards Simulation workshop in the city. The idea was to be given a brand new technology (in this case, mind-control for computer use, driving and for the disabled) on the spot, and to role-play a given role in the standards committee. There were a few groups: the 2 major players in the computer peripheral industry (one of which was the innovator, the other a copy-cat, of the technology), the 2 major players in the mind-driving industry (the current major company and the underdog who is going out of business), the hybrid industry between these two industries, as well as a spokesperson for the disabled usage of this technology. Among these groups was also the head of the Standards committee who ran the group and kept order, as well as the US Department of Health and Mental Safety (my role) who was advising mainly for safety and market health, with the ability to threaten regulation. The first meeting of the groups was to discern whose thoughts were going where, with some people wanting further innovation room in their industries that would also knock out the weaker competition, as well as other groups that wanted things that would benefit them as well as other industries. For instance, People Car, the major car company, was pushing for standards that would knock out Bandwagon (their failing competitor who is barely holding on with the current lack of standards). On the other hand, the group pushing for disability uses of standards was pushing for things in both the peripheral industry and the car industry that would benefit them in the long run, but garner more votes from both groups.

               The second half of the simulation took place with the government getting pretty much all of the attention during the break, and lots of compromise between the government being able to be a tiebreaker and the other industries making safety compromises with us. There started being an air of cooperation, and most of the companies ended up getting what they wanted (I failed in getting one company getting pushed out too fast by missing a key standard that got voted in without being amended, but was able to work with bandwagon to up their safety standards without killing off their business immediately). The overall outcome seemed to be at least an improvement in almost all industries thoughts on the standards; almost every group got something they wanted, even if it did not completely satisfy them. Compromise is definitely the best bet, but I can easily see how some organizations might instead have tried to stop the standardization process in the committee, forcing it to be regulated by the government, wherein money can be the deciding factor instead of a simple majority of interested parties. There also was an interesting dynamic in which group received an extra vote that People Car bought and had to distribute  between either the disability group or their competitor Band Wagon. Overall, the simulation was an enlightening experience of how such a conference might occur, and what the basic difficulties of writing standards may be, let alone enacting them.