Little did I know this would spark such lively comments when I posted Why CRM doesn't work - is VRM any better? Thanks to Doc Searls for correcting me: both are needed.
Cycling home from work one mild and mellow evening, I spotted a shuttered loading dock (like this one) and mused about how the sizes need to match and both the truck door and the loading gate must be opened, to get any business done. Peer to peer as far as floor level and cargo goes. Is there a good idea, maybe? How could this apply to personal data and privacy?
Enter the Diaspora* project.
Within a few days Diaspora* wildly exceeded its funding target. Hello, recession? Or is it a wave of public interest because of the facebook privacy ruckus? See the fresh utility aspect, too. Anyway, I donated to Diaspora, when they were still well below their target.
So, cycling home past said loading dock, I mocked up 3D models for connectors, imagined a wall of sliding drawers on the back of a truck, some of them open, others locked closed and some in-between that can be opened. This would give the dock people access to only the data the truck owner wishes to disclose or share.
It's my data and I share if I want to
I will let you mine mine, but only those I feel safe to disclose. So there. What else do we have these privacy laws for, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
For my own part, I want to use an interface I know and trust, not a different page layout with each of hundreds of businesses or people I connect with. Social networking service providers, with their varied field labels to join, sign up (sign in, log in), register and so on are building a virtual space complete with a Tower of Babel in English alone.
Once, I may have overlooked to opt out of sharing my snail mail address and I have pounds of paper spam to prove which "provider" sold it.
My first personal data connector
This would be a kind of universal personal data connector I would be really happy with. I can easily determine what I share with whom. Just as in real life. Here is a mockup for a possible user interface.
Like it? No such facebook button here, phew!
With this connector concept, what would you improve and why?
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