“Imagine the Rockefeller Center ice rink. There are no rules, regulations, signs, segregation or other devices that try to control people's movements, but it works. People see and react to others. Human nature reigns, and people are free to move about however they like. No one kind of ice skater has priority over anyone else and collisions are low speed and very rare.”
The example of the ice rink, mentioned here by Sam Goater writing in the Hartford Courant, is a story associated with the “shared space” approach to traffic planning. The idea is you take away complex street design, and let road users negotiate their own paths.
What does this mean for standards? On the face of it, it might suggest that if we leave businesses to interact with each other, they'll do a decent enough job, and we can forget about directing their efforts.
Three things. First, shared space solutions don't suspend all the rules of the road, but only those additional design features originally implemented to improve flow. You still have to drive on the correct side of the road and if you're on foot you still need to look out for vehicles. The all-directions crosswalk introduced at the Oxford Circus junction in the heart of London is often described as a shared space project, but it's also strictly controlled by countdown lights. It's not a free-for-all.
Second, business to business processes are aspects of relationships, but cars aren't. The vehicles flowing through a road system are not analogous to data. They don't mean anything. They don't have anything to do with each other apart from their brief competition for road space. It's not as if the final destination of a car trip has to interpret the car. And consume the car. And take action based on the car. And justify its action to a regulator.
Finally, ice skaters are intelligent agents, as are drivers. Each player involved in one of these shared spaces has a stake in surviving in one piece. Not so with data, which is inert.
I think what's going on with shared space solutions is a return of responsibility to the individual. People can negotiate their own circuit of the rink – and it's more fun than being marshalled. De-cluttered road junctions force drivers to be more alert and aware of other road users, which can only be a good thing. But shared space principles don't translate to business communications. In business, lack of appropriate standards leads either to a plethora of expensive, rigid point solutions, or anarchy.
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