I will be on the road again tomorrow morning to attend Identity Open Space event in Brussels. The theme is one that has been on my mind for some time – identity. Usually it has been on Samizdata.net in connection with privacy but there is an obvious and fundamental connection between identity and individuals taking control over their online existence. I do go on about identity as a version of branding for companies but in this context it is the cornerstone of people’s ability to manage information about themselves. Sort of like owning your health records or your insurance profile.
An area related to this I am very much interested in is Project VRM. This will also be discussed at the event by Doc Searls and this was one of the reasons I am going.
There will be no ’speakers’ just an open space session, with
agenda set by attendees. I have been to several events like that some
run by Johnnie Moore (who is an outstanding facilitator) and some run by geeks as a default format at various blogfests. Once you experience it, you can’t go back.
I am really looking forward to spending time with some of my favourite people – JP, Doc, Ben and Philippe. It will also be good to get down to what I increasingly see as the ‘real stuff’ – i.e. out-there thinking, getting hands dirty with technology and not worrying about ROI just yet.
Adam
on Apr 26th, 2007
@ 19:07 pm:
Oh, interesting. Will you be blogging the event?
Alice Bachini-Smith
on Apr 27th, 2007
@ 3:53 am:
“out-there thinking, getting hands dirty with technology and not worrying about ROI just yet”-
Great summary, I’ve been trying to pinpoint something very similar all day, for a project.
All creativity comes from “out-there”, but it seems hard to put that into an argument.
Vincent Clark
on Apr 27th, 2007
@ 12:07 pm:
I am very much interested in managing my own personal information. Especially I would like to have ready access (and secure) to all my login names and passwords, for websites where they are used and bank accounts, credit cards, online insurance accounts, Utility accounts, website accounts, etc. I would like to recommend General Knowledge Base which fills this bill marvelously. It is a free from relational database with secure sharing capabilities using Client/Server technology. You can create categories for Utilities, banking and finance, websites, Insurance, Software registrations, etc. Then add the links for the login pages in each category, add a page holding the login information and other personal account information. You can also insert spread sheets, word documents, PDF files, photographs, and executable files into a topic. All in all, General Knowledge Base is the best resource on the market for managing your personal information, giving you ready access to it, and allowing you to use it without fear of Identity theft.
Adriana
on Apr 27th, 2007
@ 12:36 pm:
Vincent, agreed! It comes down to having ownership, control and autonomy over my data, metadata and its management. I am actually going further than just a place to manage and store passwords – perhaps once the identity is self-owned, there will be no need for them. But that’s flipping the current understanding of identity, privacy on its head, which is what we have been doing during a stormy and rewarding session this morning with Doc Searls and JP Rangaswami. It has moved my thinking light years forward. Will blog it as soon as I get a chance.