Information that Works for You
I was just on an instant messaging (IM) conversation with LJ talking about an aspect of working with information that I would like to be better at doing, but so far have not taken enough of an initiative to do so. Essentially, I'd like to get to the point where information is working for me (and others) instead of me working for information.
This thought started a few weeks ago when I called for a meeting at my church of the guys on my a/v team. In sharing with them that the meeting was mandatory, I also sent to them a vCal attachment that had the meeting details. I explained that this vCal could be downloaded and saved into Outlook, Google Calendar, or if they need it on their phone, forwarded to their phone to appear in its calendar. One of the attendees responded back that it was great to have that information and it made it a lot easier for him to respond favorably to the meeting because that (small) part of putting the information into his calendar was already done.
That got me thinking, how can I harness an action like sending a vCal item for meetings into a better experience of having information that serves me instead of me serving it?
So far, I am only as far into this thought process that I can say that what I'd like is to get into the pattern of attaching my vCard (business card) and vCal (meeting/calendar) items to emails when I want people to have an action response to something. But, I wonder if this can go further. Not so much in using a web service or a specific tool, but how can I change the way that I do things so that I am now serving people, instead of serving information and pulling people along?
What are your thoughts on this? How can we make information work for us, instead of being pushed and pulled by it?
This thought started a few weeks ago when I called for a meeting at my church of the guys on my a/v team. In sharing with them that the meeting was mandatory, I also sent to them a vCal attachment that had the meeting details. I explained that this vCal could be downloaded and saved into Outlook, Google Calendar, or if they need it on their phone, forwarded to their phone to appear in its calendar. One of the attendees responded back that it was great to have that information and it made it a lot easier for him to respond favorably to the meeting because that (small) part of putting the information into his calendar was already done.
That got me thinking, how can I harness an action like sending a vCal item for meetings into a better experience of having information that serves me instead of me serving it?
So far, I am only as far into this thought process that I can say that what I'd like is to get into the pattern of attaching my vCard (business card) and vCal (meeting/calendar) items to emails when I want people to have an action response to something. But, I wonder if this can go further. Not so much in using a web service or a specific tool, but how can I change the way that I do things so that I am now serving people, instead of serving information and pulling people along?
What are your thoughts on this? How can we make information work for us, instead of being pushed and pulled by it?
Labels: accessiblity, community, microformats, mobile, usablity
posted by MMM @ 4/26/2007 10:08:00 AM
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