Mutual ownership of data – B2B B2C P2P O2O O2P
So how did I get here? this concept of mutual ownership of data. To be honest I did not get there from the perspective of the individual. I got here because I wanted to figure out how to create a mesh of social nets so that I could have multiple personas.
The big piece is getting groups that control the Social nets to share the data. I had to create something so that competitive groups would share data. That is when I realized
business 2 business
org 2 org
business 2 client
and org 2 patron and even person to person
were all the same issue. Setting up a TRUST relationship and keeping that balanced. To do that mutual ownership must be acknowledged then maybe we can begin to negotiate what might be an equivalent relationship to create that trust.
Trusting without recourse… isn’t very smart in business though as people we do it naturally (and I think it is why we are losing our data left and right and suffering the advertising overload consequences.) good fences make good neighborhoods. good contracts make good business partners just by SETTING EXPECTATIONS.
I honestly believe that a mesh of Federating Social Nets cannot exist without this mutual ownership of data. How else do we get Businesses and organization to share data?
Mike Neuenschwander wrote an awesome blog post about the equivalence issue – and explains it better than I in business terminology.
He calls it the law of relational symmetry. I should state here too that one of my top five movies is “Brazil.” Also Princess Bride, Dune (6hr version NOT TV), Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and The Fifth Element. But that did not bias me to his article 
Sometimes I am upset that we do not learn to barter in this country. I think this aspect of figuring out the relational symmetry of ownership of data would be more intuitive if we realized – Data is money therefore negiogate cash for its release!
June 16th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Those various “X to Y” relations are not the same issue, because some of them are direct at both ends (and should have relational symmetry), and others involve delegation at at least one end. The information of mine that my bank holds (and face it, *all* money is only information!) is something I want them to share with their peers to some extent (such as, in order to honor that check I wrote), but I expect care from them to a much higher and different degree than they take with their own money#####information.
One of the multitudinous howls of recent financial turmoil illustrates: “hedge funds” were fairly recently made legal in part because of a representation that they would only be open to rich people playing with their own money: let ‘em take what risks they choose. But when these funds collapsed, they were discovered to have been using, and to have untraceably misplaced, money from pension funds and other kinds of “not their money.” Many people find this outrageous. Why? Because they did not expect mere “symmetry” in the relations: people who expect to need their pensions, perhaps even soon, are inherently more risk-averse than people with extra millions lying about to play with.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Hi Silona, thanks for the shout out! I appreciate the focus on shared ownership in relationships over your last several posts. I think you’ve really struck at the crux of the problem with identity systems today.
Most of the software in use reinforces “what’s mine & what’s yours” interactions, with very little emphasis on “ours.” It feels natural to think in those terms. Even the notions of B2C and B2B imply a Mine2Yours attitude. The problem is that relationships are rarely that conveniently simplistic.
For example, the Law of Relational Symmetry you referenced discusses how Org 2 Person relationships are slanted by their very constitution. Organizations aren’t people. Organizational behavior is vastly different from individuals’ behavior. Organizations and natural persons have different legal footing. So a B2C relationship is a very complex thing that can’t be expressed in simple mine/thine terms.
But even interpersonal relations are complex. When 2 people get together and sign a contract, there’s usually a witness, an enforcer, an arbiter, or some system to ensure the contract is carried out to the satisfaction of the parties. These ancillary roles factor into the relationship, as well. When two people are married, it’s romantic to think of the couple as being the only ones in that relation. But then were does the marriage license come from? A marriage license is proof of a societal interest and involvement in that relationship.
So how do participants in a relationship come to trust each other and collaborate? Well, if you frame the problem in those terms, you have decades of research to fall back on. The fields of collaborative action theory, cooperation theory, common pool resource (CPR) management, and game theory have a lot to contribute to the discussion.
June 18th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Also, to jrep’s comment: totally agree with the hedge fund howl. Symmetry isn’t the only operative law here–it’s also about what I call “relational projection.” I discuss similar issues in my post here:
http://hybridvigor.org/2008/10/12/money-cant-buy-you-trust-what-we-wont-be-getting-for-1-trillion/#more-181
June 27th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
As an aside, equiveillance is a similar concept for a slightly different realm.
As far as the technical side of identity systems go, I think this touches on a point you made in another post, which I’ve also made a lot in design meetings and elsewhere:
There’s no reason in the world why you need to have one owner on a resource. There’s no reason why you can’t build your database and overlying system code to handle two-way streets and more complicated social structures (without making the system any harder to use). It’s just, the people who have been designing these systems don’t think like this.
One of the great things that seems to be happening in computing, at least on the web, is the move from making interesting technologies to doing interesting things that happen to use technologies. The next innovations and revolutionary features in applications are human ones, not code. This kind of thinking leaves us with more useful tools that can be used in a wider set of contexts – and in some ways represents social Internet applications coming of age.