Persona Prime

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.

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

One thing I have been pondering for some time is how to let old personas die. (or at least fade?)  Ever since my crass usenet jokes in college made it on the web in ’96.

I think the most frequent thing my generation talks about (in regards to social media) is how grateful they are that Facebook etc didn’t exist when they were in college. (Course I like to remind them old photos can be scanned in and uploaded… So nothing is perfect here.  I am talking some general constructs.)

But the new generations do have to deal with a more prevalent problem… Remember that time you got so drunk you passed out and your friends decided it would be fun to draw a mustache on you.  Those precious moments in time can now live forever and ever.  They can also be easily accessible. Maybe they are googlable by a potential boss or your mom.  Also let’s not forget Credit Card companies and scoring agencies are also thinking of data mining social behavioral data to determine risk… so some real implications beyond social could impact you in the future.

Some of that is out of your control (esp when your “friend” that I say isn’t really a friend uploads it to facebook and tags you.)  I can’t fix that problem but maybe though mutual data ownership and verification might help in the future.

In the old days, you could move to a new place and start again.  Now, you can’t…  it is too prevalent and easy to find ESP if you have a unique name – like Silona for example.  John Doe – don’t think you are safe Mister!  With the new social graphing tools… I can figure out you are JohnDoe78731 you are 37 yrs old w two cats!  Just takes a little more digging is all.  And don’t think that cute blonde’s dad isn’t willing to make that effort!

I think some data should have a time limit.  It was something Mark Bergman and I were discussing the other day.  He envisions a beautifully geeky way to let data expire.  It isn’t perfect of course.  People can always take pictures etc.  But the validation mechanism – (that shared data part) that makes it valuable and citable could expire and possibly lock it up.  I mean sometimes the internet is kind and does that for us anyways (bye bye ugly geocities site.)  But wouldn’t it be nicer that it happened based on a default setting YOU SET?  Especially on some sites where you have a certain expectation of privacy (ahem facebook? remember when it was college students only – so drunken pics are “fine”?)

I know it’s too late for some things but sure it couldn’t hurt…  give you the option to unlock things and allow them to live on if you so choose?

It something to ponder and Mark – I hope you do develop it further   esp for dating sites – cause I think there is a GOOD business model there

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!