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Posts Tagged ‘academia’

Customer Info Data Management

January 31st, 2011
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Across the pond in the UK, The Telegraph posted an article back in Aug. 2008, How Big Brother watches your every move, about the level of data collection by the Government, law enforcement agencies and private companies. From the article:

In one week, the average person living in Britain has 3,254 pieces of personal information stored about him or her, most of which is kept in databases for years and in some cases indefinitely.

We know it’s not just Big Brother but is really the 10,000 Little Brothers that are collecting the data. We also know they’re collecting way beyond what’s actually needed to complete any specific transaction. According to Matt Flynn, 89% of data leakage incidents in 2007 went unreported. While there’s a mismatch in years, I don’t think it alters the big picture: corporations treat personal datalike a big slushy resource with no regard for the individuals behind it. Moreover, I don’t think this practice or attitude has changed since this time. Facebook is a prime example of this corporate hubris.

There’s a short and informative post on Information Answers about the Trust Index Outputs that proposes a set of questions to help score trustworthiness on 12 topic areas. The specific questions that lead to the scores on each topic aren’t included, but I like the 12 areas:

  1. Overall Approach
  2. Data Collection
  3. Data Use
  4. Minimum Data Capture
  5. Data Accuracy
  6. Data Retention
  7. Subject Access
  8. Data Security
  9. Data Sharing
  10. Liability
  11. Data Breaches
  12. Adding Value

A set of metrics like this would go a long way toward recognizing and connecting with potential (and currently wasted) value in the information marketplace.

Coaching moment: As a person, I’d love to have some way of measuring the information sharing practices of companies I do business with. I’d love to know that someone was being held accountable for doing things in a measurable, trustworthy manner. As a company, I’d love to have the opportunity to show my value AND ensure cost-saving and efficient ways of keeping the data accurate and appropriate to my specific needs. Such a proposal as this Trust Index helps point to how we can make this happen. If you’re reading this as an individual, would you like to see such a thing? If you’re a company, what are your concerns?

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Going deep into identity

September 24th, 2008
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This blog post isn’t going very deep, but I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to invite you to learn more about what a personal identity is all about from a philosophical perspective.

As you might imagine, philosophers have a field day with concepts like identity. “Who am I” is a great starting point for long discussions of great academic importance. Hey, in your philosophical moments you may have had this discussion too. The mystery of life is a compelling inquiry.

If you’re interested in learning more about how academic philosophers approach the question of personal identity, you might be interested in reading this paper by Eric T. Olson at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP).

In the first part of the paper, The Problems of Personal identity, Olson outlines several “loosely connected questions:

  • Who am I? (what makes us individual and unique?)
  • Personhood (what is it that defines us to be a person?)
  • Persistence (survival, existence in a place or time, beyond death)
  • Evidence (sources that support who someone is)
  • Population (facts that help us determine how many of us there are)
  • What am I? (in a metaphysical sense)
  • How (different) could I have been? (my essential properties)
  • What matters in identity? (responsibility, a selfish interest, etc.)

The question of identity is not a new question, nor has the notion been settled or defined. Who we are at any point in our lives is also subject to change with time, circumstances, desires, or any reason we find compelling. These discussions will continue to inform us for many years to come.

Coaching moment: The next time you sit down with friends or family, ask them if they’ve ever thought about what makes them who they are. There are no right or wrong answers. The question is merely to help you explore if the subject of identity has ever occurred to people, and if so, how do they approach it.

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