Persona Prime

1) How can you tell when you do not fully own the data? when people can lie to you about it #dataownership #openbank

2) How do you know data is mutually owned? When at least two parties are needed to verify it as true #dataownership #openbank

3) I am amazed at the people/businesses who are offended at the idea of “mutually owned” data then complain about “false” data

I wrote these as simple ways to explain the concept of mutually owned data. It seems there are many people who feel that data is like an object and only has one owner.

I think most data is created and is actually more like a child with parents. Those parents have responsibilities to the child data they create. Good parents understand accountability and citability. Bad parents let their data roam around abused and used and often corrupted

metrics metrics metrics

With an openbank I get to prove a concept with the most old fashioned metric there is – money…

for what is money than the most generally accepted metric?

I want to educate people about the ownership of their data. No better way than to attach it to their money.
Show them that Data is the new money.
No better way to prove to businesses that people care than to make alot of money off of it.
No better way to get other banks to follow suit than to take money away from them.

yep I am a bit of a more pragmatic gal these days…

Doing more research on my Open Banking proposal (due in less that a week) and I am noticing many females coming to sisterly similar conclusions. This is very odd to me coming from the world of computer programming and gaming as well as politics. There just aren’t very many gals…

I also have thought of the banking industry as nothing but men… and yet these new concepts are all being reflected in women’s work. I’m not gonna preach but that does say something to me and makes me feel oddly happy and confident to see so many new sisters.

Kristin Moyer at Gartner

http://blogs.gartner.com/kristin_moyer/2009/09/15/customers-as-co-creators-of-innovation-in-banking/#comment-5513

Cate Long at Riski

http://shopyield.com/?p=5017

Kate Niederhoffer at Dachis Group
@katenieder

http://socialabacus.blogspot.com/

nifty!

And I have much to think about…

The biggest issue is me needing to be a bit more heads down for some of my work. it is an issue of priorities… and time…

I have been doing way too much, for way too long, for way too little money. It is simply not sustainable.

I thought long and hard about what matters most to me and what my CORE goals are…

It is hard to leave something I have worked so hard on for 5 years. But it is time to retire the Transparent Federal Budget and to rethink the role of the League of Technical Voters.

I think the time is now for the OurOpenBank. It is going to mean a drastic change for my work/social sphere. And I have to get up to speed on some topics I never really thought I would study. But it is important and my new priority. I have seen way too many signs of the dangers up head.

Just like when I saw how to run political campaigns in 94, MMOs in 98, and transparent govt in 04. It is time. Mutual ownership of data is the next thing and the only way to have true control over an ever changing fractionated identity.

I believe an open bank is the best way to go about this.

I know this will disappoint some people and I am sorry. But I am not sad that I have worked on these projects for the past 5 yrs and I did change the way some very important people saw possibilites. I mean when I started everyone told me I was nuts and yet I was able to reach and exchange ideas with some amazing minds.

I am not stopping on my mission to make the world a better place. I simply feel like for a time I got caught in the details without remembering the fundamental reason I started doing Transparent Government is the first place.

I started because of concern for the individual’s pursuit of happiness. I started because of my concerns of loss of privacy and social structures. I started because I perceived a dangerous inequality. This is a continuation of that story. It is more linear than just the concept of “government” this is going to hit people where it hurts the most – money.

I will start again here.

http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail4222.html

Phil gets me to talk about steps 4 and 5 for the openbank as well!

And jokes about this week being @silona week at itconversations

http://www.windley.com/archives/2009/08/silona_bonewald_week_on_it_conversations.shtml

now just need to write up both my posts for O’Reilly Radar! and then no geek alive can miss seeing my picture on the two topics of Citability and OpenBanking!

also some reference links from things I talk about…

http://freerisk.org

http://reality.media.mit.edu/

http://www.leighbureau.com/speaker.asp?id=455

and I guess I should put something up at ouropenbank.com and .org since I own them but not yet I think… I will make them point here for now.

The podcast I did with Jon Udell about Citability.pbworks.com is now live!

check it out!

http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail4219.html

and if you want to help work on the specs see

http://citability.pbworks.com/Citable-Documents-Specification

also we need help w PDF issues at http://citability.pbworks.com/PDF

community work at http://citability.pbworks.com/Community

project specifications for drupal at http://citability.pbworks.com/Drupal

Project specifications for archive server at http://citability.pbworks.com/QuickFix

I would like to do a facebook app somewhat similar to girlscout badges on facebook. Citizens could do tasks that prepare them to help other citizens in times of crisis and then orgs could validate that by posting badges to their profile.

For example, knows CPR, create earthquake prepareness kit, volunteer firefighter. So it encourages awareness of those skills and organizations.

And the supercool part of it is then individuals could give their contact information to those organizations just in case they need their help.

Kinda like how Citizens helped document the San Diego fires and such.

ah well – it’s a thought!

Since I seem to be one of the main people using the term of #OpenBank (at least in MY echochamber) so I feel l like I should define this hashtag publicly. (Also note I have registered myopenbank.com and will be raising investment funds shortly so I have like vested interests and such.)

When I say OPEN I am going a bit further than just “Transparent.” Things can be transparent without being Accessible. (See this blog post for an enlightening example

I admit I am a huge fan of “show me the raw data.” And I often tell Government wonks – stop worrying about interpreting the data just release it RAW and we will work with it. To be honest, I don’t want them interpreting it. Rarely does the government employee have the same motivations as the individual citizen. Therefore cannot do an appropriate interpretation without biases showing. Their interpretations will be subjected to their odd internal metrics which are too abstracted from the public. (see post on Govt metric issues.)

So what am I trying to achieve with #OpenBank? I want an open and accountable bank.

I see this as a 6 step process. I am going to only talk about 3 steps here. ( The other three are kinda out there and I have noticed many of my ideas need 3-5yrs marinate time before anyone else doesn’t think they are nuts so I am holding off… maybe in a month or two)

So the 3 steps I created 2.5 almost 3 yrs ago are…

1) The new #OpenBank will

a) be completely transparent to its customer about all data gathers on the customer.

b) will acknowledge the Mutual ownership of data btn the bank and customer

c) create equitable contracts in regards to the accrual and usage of that data hereby creating equanimity and trust.

2) The new #OpenBank will be transparent about the Bank’s data and status and will release all FDIC data to the public. It will foster a community of stakeholders to openly interpret the data like freerisk.org but with special support.

3) It will create internal mentoring communities that eventually will help with the loaning process.  There is a reason kiva.org has a 95% return rate.  The special mentorship Nonprofits are key.  They know the individuals, the community, the conditions etc.  They are motivated to make sure the customers can repay the loan.  There are no levels of abstraction that allowed the previous trading of mortgages that resulted in fraud.  We can bring that back to banking on a large scale.

So that’s the first part of my plan… whacha think?

The biggest problem I see in Government is that most things are too abstracted in regards to accountability.

Who really do govt workers answer to? Is it really the citizen? we laugh at the crazy person that says to the govt worker “I pay your salary.” But isn’t it true. Doesn’t is illustrated our frustration with government bureaucracy in general?

Who do bureaucrats really answer to? Well unfortunately the 3 main groups are legislation, lawsuits, and sometimes the press. Wow… no wonder their metrics are broken and most processes involve so much CYA.

We need to instead have customer (citizen) satisfaction have a more direct role and impact on their budgets. Maybe I suggest some kind of role for getsatisfaction style feedback? maybe even a game where citizens get so many reward points to give out so they can rate their interactions.

Woah before going nuts, I am not suggesting direct democracy. I don’t think we can handle that! But at least look at a few options to give citizens more direct sayso than just who they elect? That is not direct feedback and is inherently broken.

It prevents rapid development and in a world of rapid development is means govt will rarely solve problems like the banking industry in time.

So had an interesting discussion with Gina Cooper at Transparency Camp West yesterday that I thought I should post.

She was getting a bit frustrated at people’s misuse of vocabulary and I have to agree with her.  People were throwing around terms like Govt2.0, egovt, transparent govt, opengov as all meaning the same thing.  They don’t.

I guess my layman style definitions would be:

Govt 2.0 – uses social media aspects which may or may not be transparent.  I can easily create a walled off garden that only a certain group of govt can use and call it govt 2.0

E-Gov – gosh this has been in existence for a long time.  it is basically moving govt from paper to electronic documentation and optimization on efficiency.   Probably some of the leaders are United Arab Emeritus and Singapore which I do not view as very open or transparent government but they are efficient!

Transparent Govt – basically show me everything. give me all the raw data etc.  Okay this is nifty BUT can involve information overload.  My best story in regards to this is a rather loud argument I had with an IRS employee at a recent security conference.  He argued that the bidding process for contracts with the IRS is completely transparent.  You only have to gather information and documents from 15+ sites (scattered at different levels) to create a bid.  But the whole process is there for anyone smart enough to figure it out.  He said it was on purpose to filter out the “less committed” ones.  I had to admit… it is transparent… just not accessible.

OpenGov – this is accessible government.  I believe it should be built upon transparent govt so that we can fact check it.  but if we want normal citizen engagement and not just us geeks… this is the direction we will need to go.  The biggest problem here?  METRICS and stakeholders. (see stakeholders in govt post)  This is my goal in regards to Citability.  I like to think it achieves those goals.  Now if we can just put it to the test!