rsilva's dashboard

There's an interesting article, just out yesterday in The Economist, that covers some ideas around the trade-offs surrounding efficiency and national sovereignty.

Earlier, in 'Access Mgt', I wrote about the ability to maintain an oversight of all of your personal data, sharing with others when needed. The flip side of that is when you are the *receiver* of information that someone has shared with you.

I see the management of rights (or licenses, although I think there must be a better name to call it) a key aspect of this sharing. This is where we have lots of information at our fingertips - but perhaps most of it is "on loan" from others who are granting us the right to access it. Think of music, movies, books, conference streams, audio training sessions, presentations, non-disclosure agreements, names/addresses/phone#'s, security clearance, etc. All of this represents content that we can use, but that does not necessarily belong to us. Because everyone's storing their data online, it's easy to share, but tricky to manage. That's where this "grant" management.

We'd have the opportunity to request additional access (think iTunes for music, Netflix for movies, etc.) from other people/organizations. That grant could be for a day, a week, or indefinite. We'd be notified if a grant of content was about to expire and we'd have a chance to request an extension, likely with a payment of money, or some kind of reciprocating grant (you give me music, I give you my spending habits) involved.

There will be times (I've had them before) when I'll be in a location where I can't connect to the Internet, but I'll have my laptop and will be sharing files, presentations, etc. with others.

What I'd like to see in goeveryWare is an ability to easily take copies of my data offline. A data sync would be one way to do this, but I'd like to see a "backup"-type service that went beyond file/folder to include tags or themes.

For example, quickly entering "napoleon essay research" could drop down to my usb drive all files I need to present my findings in history class this afternoon. "Investments" could send my latest financial data to my mobile device for my meeting with my financial planner.

There's no need to backup my data, since it will never get misplaced on my webtop, but I may want to have certain kinds of things available to me offline for a while...like packing my luggage for a trip!

I'll restate an idea in this forum that I've put out for the Go team previously.

Access Management (or perhaps "breach of access" mgt) - I think the big mental leap for people to make is to get used to the idea that their personal files are stored somewhere out in neverland.

There are two angles to this. First, users should be notified if a breach has been attempted, or occurred. They can then act appropriately. And even if the data is totally secure, having the ability to actively state that adds value. Users know they've got a "watchdog" on their side.

Second, Rather than just being receivers of Access Mgt Reports, users should be allowed to take the steering wheel and grant access to certain data (pictures, medical info, account info, etc.) to certain people/entities (family, doctors, banks, etc.). *Users* stay in control of their own data and can determine at any time who has access. They can make updates to phone numbers, or addresses as necessary and not worry about notifying dozens of organizations. The data is updated once for everyone who has been granted access.