Peers in 5 questions: Interview with the founders

Interview with the founders of Peers: Job Timmermans & Gerrit Jan van 't Veen

You started in 2006, what was your vision to start this company?

In 2006, Web 2.0 technologies were becoming very popular. We liked the idea of empowering people and democratization, but we thought that in certain contexts, the egalitarian characteristic of these technologies is not desired. Sometimes, not everyone is equal, and should not have an equal vote, especially in information-rich environments. We saw a growing need for a new type of hierarchy to be able to cope with the ever-expanding body of information and knowledge online. We wanted to create a system that enables people to easily judge quality of people and information in a dynamic fashion: creating dynamic hierarchies. Something can be valuable and of high quality in one context, and of no value in another.

So, how do you create a dynamic hierarchy?

We think that quality can be determined by the activities or production of a knowledge worker in combination with the evaluation of his or her peers. For instance, someone writes a blogpost, which is read by a number of readers, some of which are knowledgeable about the content of the blogpost. In current web-environments, rating and evaluating is sometimes possible, but equally divided amongst the readers or selected group of people. Within the Peers Interaction Framework, the vote, evaluation, or link of an expert within a certain context is worth more than the vote, evaluation, or link of an amateur within that context. In another context, this hierarchy can be turned upside down, and the amateur can suddenly be the expert, and the expert the amateur. Many different attributes or elements are connected to a user profile that determine the authority of this user within certain contexts. We think that this can form the basis for the creation of more efficient and agile network organization structures.

If I get it right, Peers creates profiles based on the online activities of a user? Could you make this a bit clearer?

Correct, profiles are created based on the metadata generated from the online activities of users, and the way these online activities are evaluated by other people in the network. You could say that a profile consists of different profile elements (metadata): static elements concern the elements that can be entered by the user, such as date of birth, location, and other personal info, and dynamic information, which happens with Peers algorithms and interaction with users. The latter depends on the User Interface we build around it, but you can imagine data about users, usage, ratings, recommendations, links, and more.
By the way… it is possible to give people a jump-start, when they already possess a fair amount of authority, by including their existing resources (papers, reports, blogposts, etc.) and ranking a profile.

What is the ultimate objective of Peers?

Our main objective is the creation of software products that does 2 things: on the one hand it stimulates and rewards the sharing of knowledge (within networks), and on the other it increases the likelihood of objects (people, information, problems) being connected correctly. These two objectives are linked: through sharing and being active in a network, a better profile is created, which increases your presence and authority. Our ultimate goal is the creation of a global network of open and closed communities with millions of knowledge workers.

Which problems does Peers solve/address?

In an economy that is increasingly dynamic and changing, with shorter lifecycles of products and services, the classical organization or hierarchy of information does not function anymore. The value of people/expertise and information objects always relates to its context. Peers creates more transparency, because it improves the (contextual) evaluation of people and information objects. This is done through adding metadata automatically, and, clearly, by peers. Besides transparency for organization, network and individual, Peers also increases effectiveness, since people are allocated to solve problems within their own domain, and are connected to the right persons and information resources. Some possible uses could be:

• Rapidly creating a team of experts to solve a problem or address an issue;
• Communicate and collaborate efficiently (small search effort).

The possibilities of Peers are numerous, but the most important advantage it gives it that it creates rapid insight into quality of people and information within the right context.