Ocasta

I have many digital personas. My blog, my CV, my Flickr photoss, my LinkedIn account etc. It looks like Nokia are going to give me another one with Sensor. Sensor is a Bluetooth-based social networking program. While not a new concept, the execution looks good and the fact that it will ship with Nokia Series 60 phones should improve its chance of success where other similar apps have failed. If you have the time its worth viewing this presentation on its development.

From the looks of it you can select a template, enter some text, add some pictures/sounds and publish your profile. Other people running the same application and in Bluetooth proximity can then find it and view it. While this sounds like a blog editor it isn't, its more akin to a web page publisher. There's no history, no archive.

But I want it to do so much more. I want to be able to share my profile beyond Bluetooth. I want to publish it to job sites, Social Networks, dating services and to conference attendee lists. Of course each of these might require a different view of my profile so I want to be able to control what I publish to each audience. It would be good too if I could write and publish my blog entries with it too.

If I'm going to publish my phone's content to a wider audience I want to use just one application to do it with not two (Lifeblog & Sensor). There's no need to use a different application just because the audience is different. Of course the published content maybe served to different people in different ways (Sensor for Bluetooth, Movable Type for the Web), but I only want one application to control what I publish.

There's an argument that asks why I need to publish at all. I view publishing as the act of making the decision of who sees what. Where I publish too and how it is accessed are different questions. I might just publish to my phone and serve my target communities from there (given IPv6, 3 or 4G and free data transfer).

So while I welcome Sensor and wish it well I do so in the hope that it is only the start of enabling me to manage all my digital personas from one place.

Further Reading on Nokia Sensor: Per Persson

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Last weekend was Baycon, one of only a small number of organised game events I go to. Ever since our local weekly game sessions were transformed into play test sessions for Reiner Knizia these are my main opportunities to play the popular games of the moment.

One of the games I played over the weekend was Power Grid. A game that many hardcore gamers rate highly. There are a couple of elements in this game that led me to think about what I refer to as a negative decisions. There are actions in the game that if I take them (for my own reasons) the impact is of greater benefit to another player. In Power Grid it could be buying a power plant that makes another, highly desirable plant available.

These decisions usually lead to at least one player being quite vocal about why you shouldn't do it. Generally these outbursts are motivated by self-interest. A rival is being given an unearned boost. You are supposed to take the option that is less good for your own position because it is for the greater good. Unfortunately nobody else has to make this decision. That doesn't seem like good design to me and is by no means limited to Power Grid.

It doesn't have to be this way. Find a way that allows players to avoid having to choose between two bad decisions, enable positive alternatives. It is even possible for a design to embrace the conflict of self-interest and the greater good, for instance: Republic of Rome.

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