Fwd: Please Vote for XMILE System Dynamics

Anybody want to write a similarly compelling e-mail for DITA?

    

      
Best,

        Kris

        

        Kristen James Eberlein

        Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee

        Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting

        www.eberleinconsulting.com

        +1 919 682-2290; kriseberlein (skype)

        

      

      

      

      -------- Forwarded Message --------
      
        
          

            Subject:
            
            Please Vote for XMILE System Dynamics
          

          

            Date: 
            Mon, 7 Dec 2015 11:16:30 -0500
          

          

            From: 
            Steven Adler <>
          

          

            To: 
            OASIS <>
          

        
      
      

      

      
Dear OASIS,

        

        In the 1950's, an MIT Professor named Jay Forrester, created a
        simple icon-based vocabulary for describing how policy effects
        complex ecosystems. He called it System Dynamics, and in the
        decades since System Dynamics has helped launch the
        environmental movement and urban planning in the late 1960's,
        business strategy, resource planning, and so much more. Systems
        Thinking inspired Donna Meadows to write the landmark book, Limits
          to Growth, in 1972, which was the first to predict that
        unrestrained industrial production and population growth would
        deplete natural resources, destroy the environment, and limit
        human potential.

        

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

        

        Some of you may have studied System Dynamics in business school.
        Many of you may use Systems Thinking without ever realizing
        where the ideas came from. That was true for me until 2011, when
        an IBM colleague introduced me to a Smarter Cities Simulation we
        built for the City of Portland. What I saw there was an
        incredibly complex network of formulas, interactions, and
        feedback loops that mapped the impact of policies in one area of
        city administration to 12 others. It was so fascinating and yet
        so incredibly remote for the average person to understand. When
        I dived down deep and interviewed the model designers, I
        discovered a nuanced world of System Dynamics model development
        that was far more Art than Science.

        

        That's why I sponsored the XMILE System Dynamics Technical
        Committee at OASIS; to transform a highly specialized cottage
        industry into a repeatable, and auditable language of Math and
        Computer Science that everyone can learn to read and write and
        use and reuse. Over the past three years a small team of devoted
        System Dynamics professionals have worked with OASIS and our
        partners in the System Dynamics Society to create XMILE, which
        stands before you today ready for OASIS standards consideration.

        

        On behalf of IBM and everyone that has worked to create an
        industry standard that can transform the world with ubiquitous
        Systems Thinking, I urge you to please vote YES for XMILE before
        December 14th.

      

      
        The member ballot to consider approving XML
          Interchange Language for System Dynamics (XMILE) Version 1.0
          as an OASIS Standard has been set up 

        

          The ballot closes 14 December 2015 at 23:59 UTC. You can
          access the ballot at:

        

          Internal link:

          https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/voting/ballot.php?id=2891

        

          Publicly visible link:

          https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ballot.php?id=2891
      
      

      Thank you.

      

      Best Regards,

      

      Steve

      

      Motto: "Do First, Think, Do it Again"