Persona Prime

“You’re doing it wrong.”  I believe is one of the most counterproductive statements a person can make.

First of all – that statement gets little accomplished.  Typically it makes the person that is “doing it wrong” dig deeper to defend their work.  Why – well they are WORKING CREATING ACCOMPLISHING.  Something is vested and so therefore I must defend that time and effort on my part that I have vested.  It is a natural and some what justifiable human response.

And it be honest, “You’re doing it wrong” is typically an inaccurate statement.  Instead it should be “I think that you are not creating what I think I want.” Or perhaps instead “you are not doing what I would do.”  And sometimes “you are not doing what 99% of the rest of the world would do.”  That doesn’t actually make it wrong…  I mean Feynman talks about science being that constant challenging of norms and experimentation.  When is something actually 100% wrong?

I strive in life to be the person that helps people figure out that instead of them both fighting over the orange.  One person wants the peel while the other needs the juice.

So I am working on this citability codeathon.  It is interesting to me that many view me as dictating a standard that is incompatible with whatever they are doing and therefore my project must be competition.  This reminds me when I was at the National NonProfit Congress and I had to facilitate a discussion between two Nonprofits that were angry that the other was “stealing their poor people.”  I view this as losing sight of the cause or the reason we do what we do.

Our mutual goal is to make data citable and therefore more accessible to the people.  There are many paths there.

For the codeathon, I have several groups that will be attending.  At first glance, it might seem we are at odds.  For example everyone assumes that Joe Carmel’s Legislink.org must conflict w Citability.  He and I talked for several hours.  They don’t.  Actually citability may make his job easier.  We both know we could never get all the govt sites to adopt citability and that makes his tool quite necessary.

Also the Coins and URN:LEX crowd, those datamarkup standards can easily be added to the citability markups.  URN:LEX isn’t for everyone since it must be created and maintained by a governmental body but there is no reason why we can’t add a special parser to citability to add those fields when they are available.  Same with the semantic web.  Citability only requires 3 things: A unique location, datestimestamp and granularity.   There is so much more to be added.  When it was created, we KNEW it wasn’t perfect.

I suppose when you start a project from a point of view where you know what you are doing is not the complete answer, it makes it easier to see adaptive solutions.

I consider what we are doing with citability to be a baby step.  I don’t consider it to be right and other ways wrong.  I typically find that if we can sit down and talk there are easily ways to make things interoperable.  I believe that citability is right for a small part of what we are trying to accomplish.  I don’t think it is perfect.  Far from it.  I think eventually we will have some fascinating structures to build folksonomies, taxonomies and ontologies on top of this esp where we can specialize for different documents etc.

I know that Tim Berners-Lee is doing a huge project in the UK with Linkeddata.  I think that is awesome.  But I’m not sure about that project being available for the City of Austin anytime soon.  I am working within some very limited constraints.  I really want him to succeed. It would make many things easier if he does.  But this doesn’t mean I stop doing what I am trying to do.  It doesn’t mean our way of doing things is wrong. Life is evolution.  We use HTML 5 and XML now

But for now, I am trying to do what I believe is right for now.  Doesn’t mean I think what you are doing is wrong.  Just maybe wrong for me.  But there are so few of us creating in this space… I find it sad to argue over someone stealing their poor people…  Instead, let’s talk and see if maybe you just want juice while I am eying that orange peel.  And yes you are INVITED to the codeathon to work on your project as well just make sure it is Open Source

@thenextwomen: New Article: Women on Twitter for Business Reasons Why http://bit.ly/914BaD

Made me think about my gaming days… And all the discussions we used to have about women in gaming and getting more women involved in gaming.  We noticed that games with low introduction barriers were the most popular with women and captured the casual gamer market.

Two major ones that stood out to me are Solitaire and Tetris.  (I actually had a 4am discussion about this w Alexey at Burningman this year too.  I was camped at Tetrion – a very loud camp esp once the two 40ft tetris screens were setup.  We were celebrating Tetris’s 25 yr anniversary.  Henk was the initiator of the idea and got Alexey out there in all the dust and noise.)

Alexey believes (if I heard him right – it was kinda loud ) that women like Tetris because you are constantly building/creating/fixing something rather than destroying.  I’d like to say that was true but I think it is something deeper than that.  At Dave and Busters, all the girls play Day of the Dead.  I think it is because the interface is quickly accessible.  Also you are cooperating with your partner.

So adoption…It also wasn’t a time issue – I noticed many women getting lost in those games for hours.

To me it all come around to interfaces… women have less patience with overly complex interfaces.  I found that on average men would spend more time trying to figure out an interface than a woman would.  Women seem to adopt faster when the interface is simple.  We know how to create the necessary social structures/rules so we prefer interfaces that get out of our way and allow us to do so.

I think that is why women love twitter and have adopted faster.

***disclaimer all of this is said in recognition of “Sparkling Generalities.”  There are always exceptions to the rules.  I am just mulling over a pattern I have personally observed.  I am very open to opposing evidence esp scientifically gathered!

So I ignored the signs about identity. I waffled back and forth trying to create privacy on important things like home addresses while trying to maintain my brand. In a way I was forced into it. Whenever anyone hears the name Silona and they know me – they assume it is me. It’s a reasonable assumption. But when some students of mine discovered silona.ch, I realized I had more to do. Silona.ch was a porn site for a dominatrix in the Czech Republic. Unfortunately she never showed her face and hard dark hair and a similar build to mine. Everyone seemed to believe me that it wasn’t me but.. the seeds of doubt were there. I knew I had to work more on creating and preserving my own identity. And I was tired of addressing the issue – “no that isn’t me…”

So I gave up on privacy. For me it had become a lost cause. So many sites and agencies wanted my address and phone. It had accidentally been published. So many things depended on my SSN and name. I had already been stalked once and because of that Dad and I had done concealed handgun classes together. (Yes I own 4 guns. Yes I am a Texan and a military brat.) I realized privacy as secrecy was a thing of the past – it just took me awhile to completely accept it.

I know it’s hard. I mean I do large scale databases for a living.

So I went looking for a way to fix it… my first attempt was a royal failure.  I realized things don’t just need to be available.  They need to be equitable.

As individuals, the electronic medium was forcing us to be transparent to businesses and government but they did not have to report back to us.

I decided to strive to create more equitable relationships.  Step was get government transparent… step two was business.  But I didn’t tell many people.  See in 2004 in Texas – most people already thought I was a little “unrealistic.” (to put  it nicely.)

Recently though I refocused.  Now I am focused on citations for government documents, creating citable data, and openbanking.

So I keep rewatching that clip of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJJN9qwhkkE the bank run…

And I can’t help but think about how intertwined it all is.  This notion of trust and banking and how it doesn’t work without trust…

So what is trust?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Trust

So I have talked to many of you about Open Banking at this point.  Now I am working on a presentation for the potential clients.  I keep doing and redoing and redoing and… you get the point so

I was wondering – What you thought were the most compelling arguments about openbanking?

I’ll add in some of my own in the comments section…

help me convince them!  As I know others of you believe in this as well!

So one of my favorite stories/ demo’s I used to do for my new students was that of the “Big Rocks”

I would bring in a large glass vase and then I would place big rocks in it and ask if the vase was full…

Most would say yes.

I would then pour in small rocks and then ask again if it was full.  Some would say yes

I would then pour in sand and ask if it was full.  By then most had caught on and would say no.

And then I would pour in water…

I called it a lesson in priorities. So long as you figure out what your “large rocks” are in life you can fit most stuff in around those “large rocks.” Just remember to put your large rocks in first like family, children, school, work etc.

I think the hardest part for me personally in regards to that lesson is the huge wealth I am surrounded in in regards to opportunity costs.  I can’t help but look at the other large rocks – I took out and placed on the ground.

So many things I can choose to do with my time. And every time I choose to do something. I am choosing NOT to do a ton of other things.

I am at a standoff in regards to the social media world. Email, twitter, facebook – these should all be sand filling around my big rocks. And they are not. Instead processing them have been big rocks in my day. Mainly because of communication issues and others’ demand on my time.

I think what is missing most is an ability to truly prioritize and to accept losses when I do miss emails, texts, direct messages on twitter etc. The biggest opportunity loss is the fact I do not want to prioritize on open government anymore – sunlight is doing fine in that arena. Instead, I want to do Open Banking. It is all I think about. (ok maybe a few other idea pop up but it is sticky!) SO I have traded Big Rocks.  And that means having to dump out all the others and re-sort…

I need to focus on how to make Open Banking happen.

these are my internalized rules… pieces stolen from the ether.  Much is focused on maintaining self respect in difficult situations.

How to Criticize

1) try not to criticise period (per How to Win Friends and Influence People)

2) Only criticize when something must be fixed for continued involvement

3) Start off with what is going right in the relationship for you

4) Only talk about the actions and how those made you feel (no personal attacks)

4) Negotiate a win/win solution

5) if win/win solutions are not possible leave quietly

How to Accept Criticism

1) Listen

2) Reflect back to the speaker what you heard

3) Ask what solution they propose

4) Negotiate a win/win solution with the knowledge of their perspective (keep checking in)

5) if win/win is not possible state it that you understand their issue without antagonism and walk away

One thing I realized in regards to writing this is how important respectful negotiations are to these communications.  Without respectful negotiations, criticism is useless.  Only enter into criticism if you think win/win solutions are possible.

So a bunch of people are throwing around the word “Open” lately and I have to admit I am more than a bit offended by its abuse.

I think the biggest irony currently is Adobe’s use of the word considering their PDF’s are some of the most closed items on the planet as far as govt publications are concerned. I think I would be more supportive if they actually OPENED that up.

And of course you have another noxious offender Facebook claiming their API is “OPEN.” Check out Louis Grey’s post of definitions http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/10/blurry-picture-of-open-apis-standards.html

I purposely stopped saying “TRANSPARENT Government” a few years back even though I had been using the term since 2004. (and had registered just about every domainURL version under the sun) Basically, I realized just having the data available somewhere buried on the site was not enough. It had to be easily accessible as well. So I jumped on the “OPEN” bandwagon. And started referring to “Open Government” instead of transparent government.

But I also found that term to be lacking as well and created a new word for what I wanted. CITABILITY – which goes beyond available or accessible. It has set definitions. It must be citable also. This has a long and fairly well defined history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citable – So it creates a stronger term that is less subject to abuse.  And defines a specific goal.

Add to the term “citability” – the specifications on the website citability.org and the implementations being posted to citability.pbworks.com and you have a more enforceable definition. That I am hoping a community of people will support.

Also add in the time date stamp portions and you have versioning and accountability. This makes “citability” goes way past the generalized concept of “OPEN” and creates something specific.

I think we need to be careful about using such fluid terms…

(and since a silona blog post wouldn’t be complete without a reverse navel gazing about how I make be doing the same mistake i am critiquing…)

Which makes me ponder posting a better definition of “OPENBANKING” I want to incorporate the best of OPEN in regards to banking to create EARNED trust.

Time to make a quick ruleset. Since I am inventing this term and all and being one of the first to blog about it. (at least so far as I have found anyhow )

Now Adobe… let’s talk about Citability and standards in regards to your PDF’s… I’m sure we can figure something out to not just help you to be OPEN but Citable as well. I know you guys aren’t actually evil in regards to this just monolithic which results in being slow.

I was reading an interesting blog post today http://www.fiercecontentmanagement.com/story/can-we-control-records-cloud/2009-10-20

Where he basically ponders the loss of control of data… esp in regards to the cloud.

The current scenario of you (individuals, businesses, groups etc) uploading all your information onto the cloud without proper contractual safeguards means that you have no control over your data…

This is why I am arguing we need to have mutual ownership of data. The multiple parties get to have a traceroute of thier mutual owned data. We can see who has touched it and where it has been. That portion becomes immutable (and if the data is important enough hashed and tagged in multiple locations for verification purposes.)

We can then create contracts with these cloud entities about individual ownership and force them to acknowledge our mutual ownership of the data.

Currently you give aware tons and tons of money every day! Why do you think google and facebook is worth Billions? because you GAVE it to them (forever and ever amen.) Every single idle thought, your favorite movies, your friends listing, your best friend listing, your address, your email, your game playing behavior, every thing you would never give a survey or the government – you have given to them AND most importantly SIGNED THE RIGHT TO THEM. and yea honey – that is worth some serious cash because it is some serious power.

We need a Creative Commons style contract for all this data. So that we can create some checks and balances here!

because it gets scarier than Google and Facebook (how can it get worse that a behavioral profile of all my searches?)

well it can become a profile of how you spend your money (credit cards, shoppingcards) which could effect your credit rating (hello thoughtcrime?)

or your gps data (hello ATT – or have we forgotten about them giving everything away without a search warrant?)

There is a reason Sandy Pentland calls datamining on gps data “reality mining.” Because there is NOTHING more revealing that is being gathered on you today… and nothing worth more money!

take ownership! get paid for it! sue for damages when it is stolen or misused!

So I want to talk about a pattern I see in the world…

All of these numbers are completely pulled out of my head and there are no scientific studies that I know of… so buyer beware! just trying to attach and estimation…

It seem like 1 out of 10 people is what I call a “brave monkey.” I loosely define brave monkeys as the kind of monkey that would touch the obelisk in 2010. They are the novelty seekers in the world that are willing to try to things without knowing what will happen. Sometime many people in the world ask them “Why would you want to do that.” And the typical answer is pure curiosity…

So in the land of electronic media… there are few things that can kill us. Previously evolutionarily speaking we didn’t want too many brave monkeys because unfortunately brave monkey often die for their curiosity. So I believe we need a higher percentage of brave monkeys in our new safer world.

But how do we help people be more brave? esp in an online situation where risk is diminished?

I think the best things to do are:
1) make sure to always reward people very publicly
this sets up a system for scared monkeys to go and see what people have done correctly
2) Create very clear examples for scared monkeys to follow – I find with these best practices… you can convert 1/3 of the scared monkeys to be braver monkeys
3) There are brave monkeys out there that are good teachers – make them role models
They become living examples of best practices

and most importantly 4)
The more I do this life thing… the more I am on Dale Carnegie side – don’t criticize individuals.
All it does is force people to defend themselves (and puts the in lizard brain – and none of us are smart when we are being lizards…)
Only talk about things or actions that are wrong not people. If you can talk about it without calling out an individual – you have done a good thing!

We don’t want to hurt brave monkeys! even when sometimes they aren’t smart monkeys – we all make mistakes.