User:BBallou

Resume:

Brendan Ballou is a research assistant at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, focusing on the Institutional Cooperation Project. Previously he has worked on the Open Net Initiative and Jonathan Zittrain's Future of the Internet blog. Beyond the Berkman Center, Brendan has been involved with Public Knowledge, Free Culture, and One Laptop Per Child. Brendan is also an avid runner, a terrible cook, and an okay stand-up comic.

Contact data:

• Brendan Ballou - brendan.ballou(at)gmail.com
• Phone - 917 684 3900

Role in the team:

• Primarily assist Carol shaping the methodology and finding and cataloging relevant bibliography.

Weekly tasks and results:

week of 2/16/09:

• minor revisions to the wiki, upload old bibliography
  • result: completed.
    • Carol feedback 02/24: please, insert links for papers or its abstracts
• write blog post on defining the commons
  • result: completed.
    • Carol feedback 02/24: Thank you. For now the blog is not a priority anymore.

week of 2/23/09:

• read up on Neil Fligstein, Pierre Bourdieu, and Actor Network Theory.
  • result: completed.
    • Carol feedback 02/24: I had a meeting with Yochai today and we will focus exclusively for the next month on field study. Thus, the follow-up task here is develop a skeleton in the wiki to be addressed by the RAs in each field. This skeleton will guide the RAs and me in our field-research. Neil Fligstein and Pierre Bourdieu may be helpful in this activity. We should schedule a call to discuss this. My agenda allow a call tomorrow afternoon afternoon. You should call me as soon as you can, after 2pm.
• send comments on Case Coding system
  • status: completed
• Build a site map for our wiki, since it is expanding a lot.
  • status: completed
• transfer site contents to public wiki, once it is established
  • status: completed. If everyone can check to make sure that the content they wrote was transferred correctly, it would be most appreciated
• clean up the wiki
  • in process. I've tried different formats for the front page to increase readability. Feedback is most appreciated - I'd hate to design something that no one else finds readable
• add links to the Economics of IP bilbiography
  • status: long-term ongoing
• Create a "Google documents" accessible by our group, where we can share and see documents that are being produced and are too complex (in terms of formatting) to insert in our wiki. Send link, user and password for ICP working team participants. Create a "neutral" user with "neutral" password that we can give to Yochai or visitors.
  • status: completed. It turns out that our google groups already has a file-upload featre. http://groups.google.com/group/icp-team/files?upload=1. It does not look like we can create blind user-ids for visitors (you need to log in using an email address), but we can either lend them our emails/passwords, or invite them to join directly: http://groups.google.com/group/icp-team/members_invite

week of 3/2/09

• biotech related links - organize them into the categories you find appropriate and write 2 lines on what they are about: https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/team/wiki/Links_on_Bio
  • status: completed
• Master list from the peer-production group - go through it and list the projects that may be interesting for us to treat as entities in our work: https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/team/wiki/Biotechnology_-_Genomic_and_Proteomics#Possible_Cases_of_Study
  • status: in process
• begin working on biotech project:
  • define entities: ongoing
  • develop list of links: completed
  • begin working on bibliography: completed
  • perform technorati search - find list of blogs to watch: completed. Blogs_to_watch_in_BGP
• Read Biotechnology: Essays from its heartland, "Intellectual property institutions and the panda's thumb", and the chapters to get up to speed on IP law and concepts
  • status: completed

week of 03/09/2009

• Task: Answer questions in the Field Research Methodology outlined in BGP Field Research by referring to bibliography - offer prose and bullet points relevant to each item, citing each source carefully
  • deadline: Friday, 03/13/2009 (initial results) / this will be an ongoing task
  • status: First push completed. Now focusing on finding instances of cooperation in private companies, universities, and non-profits
    • Carol feedback:

• task: Document and Expand on initial bibliography for BGP field study on appropriate page - submit them to Carol and decide with her which ones are relevant and need to be summarized in AcaWiki.org - this task should develop in tandem with task of answering questions in the Study of the field (this will be an ongoing task)
  • deadline: Friday, 03/13/2009 (initial results) / this will be an ongoing task
  • status: resources added and formatted. References for most frequently used resources copied in BGP_Akawiki_Sources
    • Carol feedback:

• task: Start reading and redistributing bibliography under https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Links_in_BGP

Into the bibliography links here https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Biotechnology_-_Genomic_and_Proteomics#Bibliography_addressing_research_outline

• • Deadline: Friday, 03/13/2009
  • status: completed. Most links sent to the Give an overall picture of the BGP field
    • Carol feedback:

week of 03/16/2009

• Further develop answers to the questions in Field Research Methodology
  • Barriers to entry/exit: completed
  • Collaboration in Private Companies: Brendan to Carol: do you have easy access to HBS articles? Columbia has only some of the articles. I am thinking specifically of the articles in Bibliography_for_Item_12_in_BGP
  • Commons Based Approaches in BCG: completed

week of 3/22/2009

• Begin answering Field Research Questions for Narrative producers. our focus is to find relevant information to complete the IP profile of the main entities that are the constituencies of the BGP field, and how this evolve in time towards openness or closeness. Any additional investigation or case need to be seen in this framework. As explained, the main objective is to map these entities in our mapping device (the quadrant that portraits participation and regulation). Thus, by understanding how entities treat their knowledge outputs (data, narratives and tools), what are the business models that emerged and how/why they evolve, we will understand "who", "what", "where", "how" and "why" questions. The Field Research Methodology provides the structure to find this kind of information and help us to structure our findings.
  • status: completed for narrative producers BGP Company Profiles - Narratives

week of 4/6/2009

• Begin to answer Field Research Questions for Data and Tools producers
  • status: On-going. Available here: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/BGP_Company_Profiles_-_Data. New data for Biogen Idec, Gilead Sciences, Genzyme
• Find Merck Annual Report for 2000
  • status: completed. available at: http://www.anrpt2000.com/
• Download and read Wesley Cohen articles

Week of 4/12/2009

• Finish Data Producers section
  • Status: Completed. Wrote content for the following companies:
    • Amgen
    • Genentech
    • Genzyme
    • Gilead Sciences
    • Biogen Idec
    • Cephalon
    • MedImmune
    • Celgene
    • Abraxis BioScience
    • ImClone Systems
  • Completed bibliography for Data producers (Bibliography_for_Item_6_in_BGP)
• Answer: are there government policies towards secrecy and enclosure?
  • status: draft completed. conclusion: policy towards enclosure, no policy towards secrecy.
  • text available here: https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Give_an_overall_picture_of_the_BGP_field#Are_there_any_specific_public_policies_.28from_agencies.2C_federal_or_state_policies.29_that_give_incentives_for_openness_or_enclosure.3F
  • bibliography available here: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Bibliography_for_Item_2_in_BGP#Government_Policy_Links
• Read the following: Wesley Cohen presentation
  • Status: completed
• Find and format documents on the Economics of IP for Carol
  • Status: completed. Bilbiography available here: Bibliography_for_Item_1_in_BGP, Bibliography_for_Item_8_in_BGP

Week of 4/20/2009

• Research TDI kernal for treating tropical diseases
  • status: completed (Open_Business_models_in_BGP)
• Answer: Is there a tendency towards secrecy? Keep focus on Biotech
  • status: completed. Available at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Overview_of_Economics_of_Intellectual_Property_in_BGP#Is_there_a_tendency_towards_secrecy.3F
• Keep list of questions for Genentech (or other cias) employees
  • status: ongoing. Available at: questions for Genentech
• Answer: Open attitude towards IP - is this still true? Focus on companies' attitudes towards employee publications
  • ongoing. will be at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Overview_of_Economics_of_Intellectual_Property_in_BGP#Openness_and_Publication_outputs
  • question about how to approach this: there aren't really any studies about who contributes quantitatively more to journals (universities vs. companies), and the literature I found about why people join biotech firms said little about the right publish. Perhaps it would worthwhile to ask the genentech employee if the ability to publish had any impact on her joining the firm? Or maybe it would make more sense to look at which company publishes the most articles, and correlate that with job satisfaction or competitiveness to enter the firm. It would only be a rough answer, but it would be a start
• Answer : How does knowledge flow in this field?
  • status. Ongoing: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Give_an_overall_picture_of_the_BGP_field#Factors_Impacting_the_amount_and_speed_of_knowledge_flow
• Compare openness of Biotech and Software and Pharma industries (do not go deep). Focus on comparison with Pharma (if we realize that biotech is copies pharma). Focus on changing patent law - big dispute between software and biotech (just to understand the industry position towards patents)
  • status: ongoing: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/IP_in_BGP#Biotech_And_Software
• under "How many companies?" who are the 8 largest companies. find more recent number on revenue - find as a percentage of GDP - check ORBIS DATABASE
  • status: completed: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Give_an_overall_picture_of_the_BGP_field#How_many_companies.3F
• Research role of universities in innovation. Take a look at AUTM.net organization and data about university patenting in biotech
  • status: completed. have some initial numbers on who patents and how much here: https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/edit/IP_Profile_of_Universities_working_in_BGP. We should try to find how many university patents are successfully commercialized

Week of 4/27/09

• upload business flow chart
  • status: complete http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Biotechnology_-_Genomic_and_Proteomics#Visualization
• Answer: How important is public funding in this field? What is the Obama admin doing? What have previous administrations done?
  • status: in progress Government_in_BGP
• Look at tendencies towards openness or enclosure. Look at textbooks section (I mentioned this related to the policy/law research.....so, you can have a broader understanding on what we are looking for....)
  • what about NCBI
  • status: ongoing - still have to fill in information on NIH open access and other government policies. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Overview_of_Economics_of_Intellectual_Property_in_BGP#Is_there_data_on_.22how_much_of_an_increase_of_the_tendency_towards_enclosur_or_towards_openness.22
• Expand: When IP Doesn't Matter by opening a new subsection
  • look about NIH - open access mandate
  • status: completed (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/BGP_Company_Profiles_-_Data#NIH)
• Revise Dynamics of the Biotech field - add dates, start talking about specific companies:
  • status: completed. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Give_an_overall_picture_of_the_BGP_field#How_was_this_field_born_and_how_is_it_evolving.3F. Additional work: could we find compnaies that did just MAb work? Right now, all I've got is Genentech, which was engaged in a lot of other projects as well
• Expand Who relates to whom in what way? Firms, Universities, government, etc. Try to draw this relations with different types of arrows representing flows of different things (such as technology, money, people)
  • status: draft completed. . If that doesn't upload, I've also placed a copy in the Google Group
• Expand: Patenting by private firms (Check PTO, Google Patents, Andrew - patent lists, NBER - http://www.nber.org/)
• List of bibliographies - check which sources have we read
• Find Ernst and Young Reports
  • status: completed. Uploaded to Google Group
• Expands existing reports - no telegraphing information
• Take a look at: "The role of University technology licensing to address the Access and Research Gap: analysis of some initiatives"
• Examine cost structure of the field. Might have to do this by company (also, check ORBIS database....and anual financial reports of firms...if you find these, just put links to them in the wiki)
• Section 6 (will be changed to section 7 and so on...as a new section 6 in government' institution need to be opened) - change table to have checkbox for data, narratives, and tools (actually no.....do not do that...lets rethink that later....) (just specify what kinds of products this companies are focused on and if they are diversifying their products in time)

ICP Team
Main Page