My colleagues and I often discuss and apply the DIKW hierarchy to what we do as digital strategists– this is a nice thought-starter piece for applying the same hierarchy to perhaps experience planners and visual designers.

via Information is Beautiful

It is no secret I am an unabashed techno-optimist and web evangelist. Indeed, I spend most of my personal and professional time evangelizing how the web, social media in particular, can foster community, collaboration, learning, connection and inspiration. I firmly believe that there is much power for good in social media, that it can be a key agent for progress and change—particularly in developing communities and impoverished regions.

However, while the web indeed has the power to enlighten, educate and be a powerful tool for good, it is still limited in very real ways. Of course, there will always be a need for tangible goods to improve communities and developing regions– commodities that we often take for granted.

Goods for Good is an organization dedicated to bettering the lives of orphans and vulnerable children in developing areas by collecting and delivering surplus goods to children in need, “turning excess into success.”

I was thrilled to participate in the recent Gap Holiday campaign in support of Goods for Good. For every “Like” my video receives on Facebook, Gap will donate $1 to Goods for Good!

Please help with support this fantastic organization by clicking here, watching the video and pressing that “Like” button! Also, please visit Goods4good.org to learn more!

And yes, that is seriously one epic hat…love it! I think @JaclynRJohnson at Some Notes on Napkins would approve! ☺

1) The ability to download your Facebook data

2) The ability to monitoring your data usage through an apps dashboard

3) The creation of Facebook groups.

For now, I wanted to issue a quick response about item #1.

Already I have seen across the Twittersphere references to Facebook now allowing “data portability.” Data portability is the idea that users are, and should be, in control of their data, how its used, and have access to it at any time. Beyond this, data portability inherently implies data interoperability— the ability for your identity and social graph data to be used across any site or service, as controlled by the end user, and therefore requires the use of open web standards. Facebook’s “Download Your Info” is NOT data portability. It is data accessibility.

Why is this important?

It is important to first understand that true data portability puts the ultimate power of data control in the hands of the user, not the web application using that data. Facebook has long fallen under scrutiny for having immense control over end user data. The development of Facebook Connect and the Open Graph API have been steps in the direction of data portability, but ultimately, Facebook continues to maintain, under their TOS, the last word on your data usage through an all-encompassing license to do what they wish with your data (including sub-license it to other entities).

What matters is that while they now allow more access to your data through the download feature, the Facebook TOS has not changed— meaning your data is still on their server and while you can download, you cannot remove your data entirely (if you wished to do so). This is data accessibility, not data portability.

I would love to see Facebook adopt the DataPortability Project’s Portability Policy. This proposed policy is a twist on the familiar web standard of a Privacy Policy, which has historically articulated what a site can and can’t do with your data. The Portability Policy aims to create transparency between applications/sites and end users when it comes to how end user data can be used, and how users may be able to access and ultimately “port” their data across any site or service. Adoption of a Portability Policy is the first true step towards data portability, transparency and end user control.

Disclosure:
Please note Alisa Leonard is Chair of Communications for the DataPortability Project