Bringing teams together to work on enterprise content products requires intentional and consistent effort. It’s hard to get people sitting in different silos to collaborate, and it’s crucial to gain executive buy-in for an investment in content strategy.
Confab 2018 invited me to share some of the approaches I’ve used to break down barriers and garner support for content strategy. These include tactics like governance checklists, ongoing education programs, and even brokering an exchange of hostages.
HUBweek 2015 is a wrap. 46,000 people took part in this weeklong celebration of the work and impact at the intersection of art, science, and technology in Greater Boston. The festival was co-founded by Harvard, MIT, MGH, and the Boston Globe, and benefited from creative collaborators from dozens of institutions across the region.
A few of my favorite moments:
“Who you are; who parents think you are; who your computer thinks you are can be three totally separate people.”
“We live in the Golden Age of surveillance, where law can subvert technology and technology can subvert law … the most intimate surveillance device I have is my cell phone.”
– Bruce Schneier, presenting on The Future of Privacy and Security in a Big Data World
Last week I participated in a data and gov tech roundtable hosted by Nick Sinai at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard Kennedy School. Nick brought together an all-star panel with Lynn Overmann, Todd Park, Aneesh Chopra, and newly-named U.S. Chief Data Scientist D.J. Patil. Entrepreneurs, academics, and officials exchanged ideas on the challenges of collecting, structuring, and delivering meaningful open data.
Patil led off with his (Day 5!) understanding of his new role, which — I was heartened to hear — included a mention of the importance of user experience. Back in the late 1990s, websites were created on the premise of “Build it and they will come.” Early release of data sets suffers from a similar problem — it’s hard to attract a wide range of users with only machine readable formats. Government officials invested in sharing data are realizing that a better approach to user experience is needed to get the data in the hands of more users. Ideally, an infrastructure will be created to meet this need, and it’s not yet clear how much public-private partnerships will (or should) play that role.
As more government data is released (new datasets were announced today from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency), there is greater potential value for researchers and journalists. While improved data literacy is coming, the challenge of user experience remains critical to solve to reach wider audiences.
There’s a lot going on at the intersection — some might even say collision — of mobile, social, digital revolution and the travel industry. Last week I presented at the Educational Travel Community summarizing current and emerging challenges, and offering seven digital opportunities to pursue.
“Internet of Things” is a bit of a misnomer. [tweetable]Ideally as more interactions become internet-enabled, the device as a clunky intermediary will reduce in importance[/tweetable]. Private home automation is an easier first frontier. If a wearable sensor can tell my house I am home, turning on the lights and turning up the heat are straightforward. Companies like Withings have established home markets with a number of smart devices from scales to blood pressure monitors. Users track their own personal health data, and can opt into more public sharing for motivation and support.
In public spaces, internet-enabled interactions raise security and privacy concerns, but provide opportunities as well as solutions to longstanding problems. Three ideas to consider for physical campuses of any kind:
Immersive experiences: Imagine a person picking up a signifying object (example: a gavel for the law school), and interact with it to summon up an immersive digital experience. Images, video, and sound can create this experience in a setting as dramatic as a whitewashed room (museums, take note) or in a smaller surround-sound booth setting.
Traffic management: The ability to measure opted-in wearable devices crossing a threshold would improve campus foot traffic management. This could improve wait times at a fitness center or limit time spent in lines at popular food trucks; wearable devices on the alert recipients to could be customized to preference (elliptical, taco truck) in either case.
Serendipity creation: At a networking event, how do you find the three-five people most interesting for you to meet? There are analog attempts to solve this problem: events like WebInno provide colored nametag stickers if you are hiring or looking for a job. And skilled superconnectors like Peter Boyce (who pointed me to One Mighty Roar) will always be relevant. But what other personal metadata might spark valuable conversations? Imagine an opt-in system where people’s professional and personal interests display above them, and alert others to proximity of those with similar interest. Might it be possible to create or even just enable serendipity?
Much of this is technically possible, if not yet robust. And the structural lag in both social norms and privacy policies remains enormous. While you may not yet feel the need for your own Internet of Conference Tables, consider the opportunities as internet-enabled interactions through devices come to private and public spaces.
“Digital is bigger than the screen,” says Zach Dunn, who co-founded digital experience company