Standards – from Genesis to the WWW #0010

There are reports about an ongoing debate regarding the historical accuracy of some of what is reported early in the Bible. I would argue that from an engineering viewpoint, it just goes to show what a superior project engineer can accomplish with a good, standards based project, abundant resources, and nobody else around to write change orders impacting plans, costs, and scheduling.

As the passages of Genesis unfold, the unidentified Biblical reporter reveals how God applies his creation standards to develop and populate this newly created habitat of the heaven and the earth. In due course, the Garden of Eden is bestowed to end-users Adam and Eve, the serpent arrives in the new Garden to promote end-user deviations from God’s standards, and as it is often said, the rest is Biblical history.

Whatever your views on religion and how we got to where we are today, in just a blink of the eye, for Mother Earth, we find ourselves in modern times, surfing the web, attempting to sift through a huge, standards compliant base of information. This present information base includes essentially the sum total of all human knowledge and experience, and web searchers can find new ideas, old ideas, personal and group opinions, e-commerce malls and portals, sex, casino games, commercial and public information web sites, and listings of things that seem endless.

From the Abstract to a Model Standard

Some of this web information base includes the surviving philosophical writings of Plato (circa 450BC). Plato’s ideas about universal forms, and the imperfect objects manifested as projections of these forms, illuminates how far back in time humans have been looking at standard based concepts. Plato viewed universal forms as abstract plans that would project into any environment. By his reckoning, this projection would result in a tangible implementation of that specific universal form, applicable to the environment the form was projected into. Modern thinking about trends in standards development appears to favor a reverse engineering view of how to get to the abstract form of a standard to use as a model standard. In this view, generic standards concepts are extracted from real world implementation outcomes, and these extractions are used to develop a consensus about what it is in the various extractions that can be agreed upon as the current best in class. The best in class consensus is then documented, formatted as a model standard, and made available to end-user groups as an approved model standard (subject to follow-up efforts to provide for ongoing review and update).

With the approved model standard in hand, end-users are now able to develop their own, end-user specific implementations of the standard. These end-user specific standards eventually are evaluated through an end-user consensual review and approval process. Once the end-user specific standard set is approved, the standard is disseminated to the end-user community, outcomes resulting from applying the standard are monitored, measured, audited, and adjusted. The periodic evaluation of end-user specific outcomes, as measured against the current best-in-class model standard ideas, continues until a new consensual model standard is developed. The newer model standard is released to the standard end-users, whereupon the new model is mapped into an updated set of best-in-class end-user specific standards, and the process described above is repeated.

Standards and the Great Ideas

Early standards, and the history of standard ideas, are linked to the basic human instinct to survive, and has led humanity into many areas. All of these areas have some sort of standards base. A topical listing is shown below. This listing is extracted from the Great Books and Great Ideas website (http://www.thegreatideas.org/index.html). These general topics are derived from works of the late Mortimer Adler, University of Chicago (also Chairman of the Board of Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, and Editor of Great Books, et al). These ideas are developed by he and his colleagues into hardcopy, web data, and various other media. The following tabular list is extracted directly from the Great Ideas website without modification of the data, and is presented alphabetically:

ANGEL	ANIMAL	ARISTOCRACY
ART	ASTRONOMY AND COSMOLOGY	BEAUTY
BEING	CAUSE	CHANCE
CHANGE	CITIZEN	CONSTITUTION
COURAGE	CUSTOM AND CONVENTION	DEFINITION
DEMOCRACY	DESIRE	DIALECTIC
DUTY	EDUCATION	ELEMENT
EMOTION	EQUALITY	ETERNITY
EVOLUTION	EXPERIENCE	FAMILY
FATE	FORM	GOD
GOOD AND EVIL	GOVERNMENT	HABIT
HAPPINESS	HISTORY	HONOR
HYPOTHESIS	IDEA	IMMORTALITY
INDUCTION	INFINITY	JUDGMENT
JUSTICE	KNOWLEDGE	LABOR
LANGUAGE	LAW	LIBERTY
LIFE AND DEATH	LOGIC	LOVE
MAN	MATHEMATICS	MATTER
MECHANICS	MEDICINE	MEMORY AND IMAGINATION
METAPHYSICS	MIND	MONARCHY
NATURE	NECESSITY AND CONTINGENCY	OLIGARCHY
ONE AND MANY	OPINION	OPPOSITION
PHILOSOPHY	PHYSICS	PLEASURE AND PAIN
POETRY	PRINCIPLE	PROGRESS
PROPHECY	PRUDENCE	PUNISHMENT
QUALITY	QUANTITY	REASONING
RELATION	RELIGION	REVOLUTION
RHETORIC	SAME AND OTHER	SCIENCE
SENSE	SIGN AND SYMBOL	SIN
SLAVERY	SOUL	SPACE
STATE	TEMPERANCE	THEOLOGY
TIME	TRUTH	TYRANNY AND DESPOTISM
UNIVERSAL AND PARTICULAR	VIRTUE AND VICE	WAR AND PEACE
WEALTH	WILL	WISDOM
WORLD

It is difficult to comprehend how much information comes back from a WWW search using these topic headings. When several topic headings are combined, it gets really big.

For most engineering requirements, this list reduces down to an end-user specific list where Quality is coupled with just about any other topic from the table, plus perhaps Land, Capital, and Technology.

Middle Ages and the Invention of the Printing Press

The situation that makes the WWW Internet unique for information sharing, in the area of standards development, and for any other collaborative group effort, is much like the situation in the Middle Ages after the invention of the printing press. The invention of the first printing press is credited to Johann Gutenberg (circa 1450). Prior to the invention of this press, in the era known as the Middle Ages, books were authored, mostly hand written in Latin. These volumes were typically scribed onto parchment, and were extremely expensive. Duplicate copies could only be made by copy scribes, who laboriously copied each new volume by hand. Because of the limited number of copies of any given book, access to written information was limited to the literate wealthy, the people who had access to the books owned by the wealthy, and monastic groups that provided the scribes who made copies of these books. The concept of knowledge as power was known to the people of this era, but literacy was still based on handwritten text. Imagine a world where most information was passed from speaker to speaker. Factual information was greatly prized, just as today, and written text was considered the best possible source for this factual information. Once written, even if not exactly on the mark by today’s factual standards, the written information did not change because of the bias of the person reporting the information to another person, and so on.

After the introduction of the printing press, barriers to publication of serious text volumes were lowered. Authors could have their works printed in commercial quantities, and new books became commonplace as the number of printers increased. Now it was possible to develop ideas and concepts of extreme complexity, and share these ideas with a literate peer group via mass-produced books. The scale of these efforts was small at first, but grew. As the number of books in print increased, public libraries were established, and the search for new books, to fill new libraries, developed a broader base of authorship. Peer review of an ever-increasing body of important ideas was now eminently possible, and the book author’s ideas remained absolute as presented via the printed volumes. Existing books begot new books. Some new books were written to challenge or refute assertions made in a preceding work, while some supported or augmented the earlier work. Times were good for people attempting to develop an informed consensus. It is no surprise that from the invention of the printing press until this present time, the traditional printed book still remains as the most significant and cost effective (perhaps not as user friendly) direct access information storage device available to mankind. The book provides an end-user with hardcopy printed information, and requires only sufficient available light to read by, or requires the use of the sense of touch, as for a Braille edition.

The WWW Internet becomes the New Media

Lately, in the new era of the WWW Internet, hardcopy printed books are now having to compete for readership with works printed on PCs. These works are published directly onto the WWW Internet. This new publishing forum requires only an Internet browser for the reader, and offers global visibility for the author. It is no surprise to be surfing the web, and to find sites for every major standards development group, trade association, public and private special interest group, college and university, educators, students, political and religious figures, authors, electronic mass media, and sites for traditional, hardcopy press. The new paradigm for an author is to get your work, in whole or in part, on the web for review and comments. Be receptive to specific issues that are raised, particularly by the end-user readership you are hoping to reach with your work, certainly be surprised and alarmed if this readership does not respond to your work as you have anticipated. Most definitely look at whatever readership interest you do have, wherever it appears, and go back to the work and revise it as much as necessary and as often as necessary. You may even discover readership groups you had not anticipated as being interested, and this could lead you into some surprising, new directions for your efforts.

If the description of this process, in the above, resonates as seeming like what was written about the standards review and approval process (at the front of the paper) it actually is. Presenting new ideas, developing a consensual agreement about the importance of these ideas is work, and it is important to have some passion about the ideas and concepts you are representing. Reflecting on the authors of the Middle Ages, it is obvious just how easy we have it in this modern era. No inquisition or torture for viewpoints defined by your local authorities as reflecting heretic values. No quill pens or self made ink, no fabric, parchment, or papyrus sheets (clay or stone tablets, wood planks or metal plates) as the only medium to write on. With reasonably lighting, a good place to work, a PC console to use for data entry, and with an ink jet printer, a word processor with multiple font selections, the completed work can be accurately and conveniently formatted to print as required. You may possibly, on some occasions, feel like an indentured servant, or perhaps have a family member who troubles you while you work. But unless you are obliged to write in a haze of dust and flying insects, soot from candles or lanterns, or possibly smoke from a wood or coal stove somewhere in your abode, with or without air conditioning, it still beats the Middle Ages.

Media Revolution

What the WWW Internet of today offers is significant and revolutionary. Like the changes following the introduction of the printing press, history reminds us of how much that invention directly helped to change the world of the Middle Ages, into the world we know today. Books and knowledge accumulation became the catalyst for a new paradigm shift, some would say a quantum leap, that allowed humans to make giant strides forward in so many areas. With the advent of the WWW Internet, a new paradigm shift is presently being developed to dynamically and globally offer the sum total of human experience to anyone with a PC, cell phone, PDA, PSP, or whatever access device is used. With a wireless device as small as a cell phone, anyone practically anywhere will be able to surf the web, take advantage of new, value added information sources updated in real time (like streaming video, or MP3 music).

Publishing will never quite be the same again. With the capabilities of the WWW Internet that are available to anyone today, imagine collaboratively writing an excruciatingly detailed paper about any research subject in the universe. All the peer review, fact checking, additional new lab research results from confirming lab sources, can be streamed via the WWW Internet to multiple sites globally. It would be possible to draft the book or paper as the work effort of a global work group, saving mixed time zone work products almost in any archival format desired. This data could be made available, both to and from all work group team members around the world, in real time. This same data, now available anywhere in the world from the WWW Internet, could be used by the same work group team of global researchers while attend a conference in another part of the world, where their interim data could be pulled off the WWW Internet and shown to other conference participants, live at the conference. These are actually old ideas, but early on it was necessary for one to have a private earth station, or some other high-speed data source, to get streaming data the last mile to a site, in real time. The richness of the eventual capability for information transfer, and collaboratively sharing is somewhat mind-boggling.

Standards and the WWW Internet

Almost anyone can surf the WWW Internet, and pull information from it. One who can also learn to apply these vast information base resources, and the underlying network communication infrastructure in a collaborative and consensual way, will be able to add value to practically any intellectual project. Standards serve to raise the bar for providing new value to end-user outcomes in a consistent, and predictable way. Standards help in meeting new challenges by providing measurement references to apply to the tasks at hand, and help enrich a person’s private life and time by offering the same standards methodology to use as a reference tool to identify what are useful and worthwhile causes to pursue in one’s personal life. In summary, a quote from Aristotle, extracted from the Great Ideas web site, seems applicable to all matters discussed in this paper:

If there is some end of the things we do...will not knowledge of it, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what we should? If so, we must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is.

Appendix A

ANSI History (excerpted without change from the ANSI web site – http://www.ansi.org)

For nearly ninety years, ANSI has served as the coordinator of the U.S. voluntary standards system, a unique and diversified federation that includes industry, standards developing organizations, trade associations, professional and technical societies, government, labor and consumer groups. It has provided a forum where the private and public sectors can cooperatively work together towards the development of voluntary national consensus standards. The Institute provides the means for the U.S. to influence global standardization activities and the development of international standards. It is the dues paying member and sole U.S. representative of the two major non-treaty international standards organizations, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), via the U.S. National Committee (USNC).

The history of ANSI and the U.S. voluntary standards system is dynamic. Discussions to coordinate national standards development in an effort to avoid duplication, waste and conflict date back to 1911. In 1916 the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (now IEEE) invited the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers (AIMME) and the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM) to join in establishing a national body to coordinate standards development and to serve as a clearinghouse for the work of standards developing agencies.

Two years later, ANSI, originally founded as the American Engineering Standards Committee (AESC) was formed on October 19,1918 to serve as the national coordinator in the standards development process as well as an impartial organization to approve national consensus standards and halt user confusion on acceptability. The five organizations invited the U.S. Departments of War, Navy and Commerce to join them as founders.

According to Paul G. Agnew, the first permanent secretary and head of staff in 1919, AESC started as an ambitious program and little else. Staff for the first year consisted of one executive, on loan from a founder. He was Clifford B. LePage of ASME. The founding bodies provided an annual budget of $7,500.

A year after AESC was founded it approved its first standard on pipe threads. The organization undertook its first major project in 1920 when it began coordination of national safety codes to replace the many laws and recommended practices that were hampering accident prevention. The first American Standard Safety Code was approved in 1921 and covered the protection of heads and eyes of industrial workers. Today there are over 1,200 ANSI-approved safety standards designed to protect the workforce, consumers and the general public. Overall, there are approximately 10,500 ANSI-approved American National Standards. In its first ten years, AESC also approved national standards in the fields of mining, electrical and mechanical engineering, construction and highway traffic.

AESC was very active in early attempts to promote international cooperation and in 1926 hosted the conference that created the International Standards Association (ISA), an organization that would remain active until World War II. Nongovernmental standardization had started twenty years earlier in 1906 with the formation of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). The IEC’s origins date back to a 1904 international meeting of leading scientists and pioneer industrialists that was held in St. Louis, Mo. IEC is responsible for the development of world standards for the electrical and electronics area and is composed of the national committees from countries around the world. The U.S. National Committee of IEC became affiliated with the American Standards Association’s (ASA) Electrical Standards Committee in 1931.

As its responsibilities and activities evolved, it was decided that AESC had outgrown its committee stature and structure, and in 1928 was reorganized and renamed the American Standards Association (ASA). Three years later, in 1931, the U.S. National Committee of the IEC became affiliated with the ASA’s Electrical Standards Committee. In just under two decades the vision of a coordinated national system had grown to international proportions.

When the United States went to war in 1941, ASA was prepared with a War Standards Procedure that it had adopted nearly a year earlier. It was used to accelerate development and approval of new and revised standards needed to increase industrial efficiency for war production. Under these procedures, 1,300 engineers worked on special committees to produce American War Standards for quality control, safety, photographic supplies and equipment components for military and civilian radio, fasteners and other products.

Shortly after World War II, ASA in 1946 joined with the national standards bodies of 25 countries to form the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). While some attempts were made in the thirties to develop international standards in areas other than in the electrotechnical field, it was not until ISO was created that an international standards organization devoted to standardization as a whole came into existence. Its object was to promote international standards development and to facilitate the international unification of industrial standards. Since its origin, ANSI has been a strong and active leader in ISO and through its U.S. National Committee in IEC.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, ASA helped industry and government anticipate standards needs in such fields as nuclear energy, information technology, material handling and electronics. Interest in international standardization continued to rise in the '50s as ASA hosted the second General Assembly of ISO and the Golden Jubilee meeting of IEC.

Under the name of the United States of America Standards Institute (USASI), ASA was reorganized in 1966 in response to identified needs for a broader use of the consensus principle in developing and approving standards; making the voluntary standards system more responsive to consumer needs; and strengthening U.S. leadership internationally.

ANSI adopted its present name in 1969. Throughout these various reorganizations and name changes, the Institute continued to coordinate national and international standards activities and to approve voluntary national standards, now known as American National Standards. Domestic programs were constantly expanded and modified to meet the changing needs of industry, government and other sectors.

Structural and other modifications were introduced to enhance its performance. Formation of a public review process, via the establishment of ANSI’s Board of Standards Review in 1970 with responsibility for standards approval, was one of the most significant innovations in the Institute’s history. New requirements for approval enhanced the credibility of American National Standards with government agencies, industry and the public. Throughout the 70s, the institute continued to look for ways to strengthen the standards system. In the 1970s, ANSI assisted the Department of Commerce with a metric study and the Institute formed the American National Metric Council to help the private sector plan conversion.

Since the time agencies of the federal government joined the five societies as founders, the ANSI federation has enjoyed a cooperative relationship with various segments of the federal government. An unprecedented increase in federal regulatory legislation calling for use of standards led to increased cooperation with the federal government. In 1976, ANSI and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) established a joint coordinating committee to provide for better private-public sector communication regarding voluntary standards activities that affect safety and health in the workplace. Its success led to the 1982 formation of a similar joint coordinating committee with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) that fostered better cooperation in standards activities relating to consumer products.

The 1980s brought a renewed emphasis on the importance of international standardization activities. Many segments of the business community realized standardization was the key to unlocking markets throughout the world and the U.S. standards system was called on to meet this challenge. While keeping appropriate focus on national standardization activities, ANSI, throughout the ‘80s, emphasized the importance of the international arena. In 1987, the Institute accepted responsibility for the world’s largest technical standards effort and the most significant innovation in international standardization - ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 on Information Technology.

In response to the planned unification of the European markets, ANSI launched a cooperative dialogue with its European counterparts. At the core of this program was the establishment of an office in Brussels that would provide for more timely information on European standards activities. The ANSI federation also initiated an important series of discussions with the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC). These meetings have been successful in achieving mutual cooperation and increased access to the European standards process.

Since 1989, ANSI has also advanced its international relationships within the countries of Eastern Europe, the Far East, the Pacific Rim and South and Central America. In 1991, trilateral discussions between Mexico, Canada and members of the ANSI federation were initiated to complement government negotiations for a North American Free Trade Agreement.

The 1990’s brought standardization into the limelight as a source of strategic and competitive advantage in the ever-expanding global economy. Never before had the importance of standardization been greater. Companies view standards not only as key to impacting product development, quality or environmental compliance, but also as an imperative in competing successfully in the global marketplace. The effective use of strategic standardization in achieving competitiveness, quality, product certification and conformity assessment became critical issues facing the business and the standardization community in this decade.

In late 2000, the first-ever U.S. National Standards Strategy (NSS) was approved. Developed over a two-year period by a diverse group of interested parties, the NSS is a roadmap to developing reliable, market-driven standards in all sectors. It reaffirms that the U.S. is committed to a sector-based approach to voluntary standardization activities, both domestically and globally. It provides an outline of key principles necessary for the development of standards to meet societal and market needs and a strategic vision for implementing these principles nationally and internationally.

During the first years of the 21st Century, those involved in standards-setting activities clearly recognized a growing need for globally relevant standards and related conformity assessment mechanisms. “Market forces” such as global trade and competition; societal issues such as health, safety and the environment; an enhanced focus on consumer needs and involvement and increasing interaction between public-sector and private-sector interests were significantly impacting standardization and conformity assessment programs. Standards themselves had expanded well beyond documents identifying product specifications to instead focus on performance issues and to also include processes, systems and personnel.

The U.S. voluntary standardization system is highly regarded and recognized as one of the most effective and efficient standards systems in the world today. The past 85 years have brought many changes and improvements to the Institute and the voluntary standards system, many of which are not mentioned here in this brief overview. But ANSI continues to serve the role for which the American Engineering Standards Committee was created – to coordinate U.S. standards activities. As the U.S. economy changes so must the Institute continue to evolve to meet the challenges of a global marketplace and the demands of its constituents. It will continue to be an organization that is committed to serving the U.S. voluntary standards system and its members, the backbone of a system that is first among equals.

Appendix B

ISO 9000/9001 - 2000

The most successful and most widely implemented global standard, to the present time, is the ISO’s 9000/9001 series of quality management standards. This group of process and management standards actually can trace their origins back to the United States Department of Defense (DoD) standards MIL-Q-9858A (circa 1963). Domestic US automakers were also starting to imbed standards into their businesses in this same time frame (i.e. Ford’s Q1, GM’s Targets for Excellence - TFE, etc.).

In 1968 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) adopted DoD MIL-Q-9858A as AQAP-1 (Allied Quality Assurance Publication–1). In a different area in 1979, Great Britain formulated a commercial quality code, and the British Standards Institute used several existing standard sets including AQAP-1 to derive their new quality code. This new commercial quality code standard was designated BS-5750. Subsequently, in 1987, ISO adopted the BS-5750 quality code into the standards that have come to be known as ISO 9000. From this early set of ISO 9000 standards the newly formed European Community (EC) developed EN 29000, which was virtually identical to the ISO 9000 standards. Other countries and organizations joined in with Australia adopting the ISO 9000 standards as AS-3900, India as IS-10201, New Zealand as NZS 5600, and in the United States ISO 9000 was adopted as Q90 or Q9000 inclusive of the Big 3 Automakers standards designated QS9000. This early adoption of ISO 9000 was based on the standards of circa 1994. A revised version of these circa 1994 standards, as specified in the ISO scheme of periodically reviewing and upgrading all existing ISO 9000 standards, were officially set on the table to be available for Y2K, and thereafter. This specific set of revised standard items are designated as ISO 9000 2000 and have replaced the previous 1994 version of the ISO 9000 model standards, for end-user implementation and audit review.

The ISO 9000 quality management (and ISO 14000 environmental management) standards are already implemented by some 634,000 organizations in 152 countries

The ISO 9000/9001 2000 standards have replaced all earlier versions of this standard set (previous version issued in 1994). These standards are applicable to all types of organizations in pretty nearly all sectors of human endeavor. A short list of these areas of enterprise include manufacturing, processing, servicing, printing, forestry, electronics, steel, computing, legal services, financial services, accounting, trucking, banking, retailing, drilling, recycling, aerospace, construction, exploration, textiles, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, pulp and paper, petrochemicals, publishing, shipping, energy, telecommunications, plastics, metals, research, health care, hospitality, utilities, pest control, aviation, machine tools, food processing, agriculture, government, education, recreation, fabrication, sanitation, software development, consumer products, transportation, design, instrumentation, tourism, communications, biotechnology, chemicals, engineering, farming, entertainment, horticulture, consulting, insurance, and the list continues to grow to include both new enterprise areas and specific organizations.

Appendix C

World Standards Services Network (WSSN), is a network of publicly accessible World Wide Web servers of standards organizations around the world. Through the Web sites of its members, WSSN provides information on international, regional and national standardization and related activities and services. Direct links from the WSSN site are provided to the Web sites of:

About Standards in General

The application of model standards, to promote best-in-class methods and processes, to describe physical layer characteristics and properties, and to identify timing issues and protocols for messages, signal and trigger events, is just another way humans attempt to adapt. With the application of standards, engineers in particular continue to raise the bar for society by providing client end-users and customers with standards based projects and systems implementations. This work includes both developmental and sustaining efforts to provide for consistent and predictable end-user outcomes, and which takes full advantage of advances in modern technology. With these efforts, engineers also seek to provide best in class deliverables and services to customers, with ever increasing enterprise profitability and market share. This work effort also serves to provide for growth by end-user team members, and delineation for these team members of the new ideas and terminology associated with the standards model processes. Also included in these efforts is the goal of helping to redefine a newer, better quality metaphor for all enterprise participants in today’s modern, dynamically changing operational and technical specific environments. Like the steel rebar imbedded in the concrete of an interstate highway roadbed - standards are integrated with the intellectual infrastructure in the path of enterprise progress, to reinforce management quality procedures, processes, and work practices in the virtual roadbed traveled by end-user enterprise team participants. Even while not obvious and visible to the observer, for the enterprise participant moving along this path, the reinforcement is still there. So regardless if one moves forward along this path (or falls behind), the path remains level, free of potholes, and offers the traveler as much opportunity as possible to travel at the best pace they are able. It is also there to provide the traveler with a reasonable degree of positive expectation for a safe and prosperous journey, while facilitating their efforts to add as much value as possible to their lives during these ongoing efforts in the search for life, liberty, and in the pursuit of happiness.

1. What is the most significant and cost effective direct access information storage device?

2. (fill in the blank) One who can also learn to apply these vast information base resources, and the underlying network communication infrastructure in a collaborative and consensual way, will be able to __________ practically any intellectual project.

3. The new paradigm for an author is to get your work, in whole or in part, on the web for ________?

5. What organization serves as the coordinator of the U.S. voluntary standards system?

6. The ISO 9000/9001 2000 standards are applicable to which of the following industries/organizations?

9. Shortly after World War II, ASA in 1946 joined with the national standards bodies of 25 countries to form what?

Table of Contents

Standards from the Start