Excellent post on Kim Cameron’s Identity Weblog, which reprints an article from InfoWorld with quotes from a conference where Kim discussed/presented on software whose “behavior reflects identity”.

I have been walking the edges of this topic for a while, not really getting in there and taking a closer look thanks to clients and deadlines and the usual lifestuff. I started looking closer thanks to Doc Searls excellent posts on the subject at his blog and his IT Garage. I decided to do a deeper dig after reading his recent SuitWatch column in Linux Journal. It fits incredibly well with the idea of Attention as defined by Steve Gillmore and the Attention Trust.

Doc on identity:

The real problem is the absense of something we’ve needed all along: Independent Identity, owned by the individual, rather than granted by outside commercial and governmental bodies. With Independent Identity, sovereign individuals could selectively present credentials and do business, anywhere on the Net (or in the physical world, for that matter), without being forced to obtain “membership” or whatever. Their private information (memberships, preferences, transaction histories, attention data) would reside with the equivalent of a bank or a broker, and would be represented to others in a way that revealed only what the transaction, conversation or relationship required.

As defined by the trust, Attention is:

… the substance of focus. It registers your interests by indicating choice for certain things and choice against other things. Any time you pay attention to something (and any time you ignore something), data is created. That data has value, but only if it’s gathered, measured, and analyzed.

Attention is about my time AND focus, what and how I spend my attention on depends not on some programming wonk at a major network, but depends on my likes and dislikes. Identity is about my self, how I identify myself to the world, how I exchange my identity for access or content, or commerce and what information I allow marketers to take away and use. The only way I can exchange or monetize my attention is through some process that interacts with my identity. But my identity is not required for others to monetize my time (think CPM).

It all comes down to control. The Ad Guy in me is scared to death of that. Direct Advertising (Below the line) is based on getting the right message to the right person at the right time in the right medium. Lack of control, the user determining what information a marketer can see/kee/share with partners. scares the shit out of the ad industry the same way timeshifting (what do you mean you allow them to skip my commercials) or napster (what do you mean they can share my music) scared the big media companies.

If they control their own eyeballs, how do we make any money off of them?

Marketers and their agencies would rather not engage in the discussion at all. Trust us, they say. Give us you information and we will customize/personalize our content to what you want. Exchange your identity with our network and we will give you all kinds of stuff – as long as you dont ever leave (it is our competitve advantage after all). If you lock yourself in to our proprietary platform/software/distribution mechanisms, we will give you almost everything you think you want – except choice – choice in what we spend our attention on and the choice of what parts of our identity to share.

Kim’s post can be found here.

Find the entire article here:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/09/21/HNinfocard_1.html

Today Seth announced his new book, The Big Moo by The Group of 33 on his blog:

Announcing this will be his last traditional book published (check out the remarkable Change This that he and his team launched last year) Seth has put a challenge to the movers and shakers of the blogosphere – get the galley copies (min order of 50 for $2 a pop) to share with your other early adopter/lunatic fringe/thought leader/maven friends – the kind of people who will share the book with their employees, clients, partners, vendors etc.

As usual, a brilliant idea from Seth that puts his faith in the market (he would rather take a chance on us) and at the same time tests his ideas about viral marketing, communication and business. When I was working at K2 Design in the mid 90’s Dave Centner gave every employee of the company Tom Peters In The Pursuit of WOW. At the time I thought it was incredible that a company would make any book required reading (other than Teach Yourself HTML in 21 Days).

Here is an excert from the 1800 CEO Read ordering page:

But how do you create a big moo—an insight so astounding that people can’t help but remark on it, like digital TV recording (TiVo) or overnight shipping (FedEx), or the world’s best vacuum cleaner (Dyson)? Godin worked with thirty-two of the world’s smartest thinkers to answer this critical question. And the team—with the likes of Tom Peters, Malcolm Gladwell, Guy Kawasaki, Mark Cuban, Robyn Waters, Dave Balter, Red Maxwell, and Randall Rothenberg on board— created an incredibly useful book that’s fun to read and perfect for groups to share, discuss, and apply.

I plan on taking up the challenge and ordering the galleys for my friends. I cant wait.