Susan Crawford writes about the practice of leaving cards — the politeness of a another age where people presented a request for an appointment of some kind, and the expectation was a response, positive or negative.
The calling card experience is a metaphor we have consciously imitated with iotum Talk-Now, but modified for modern times. You can check the Talk-Now application from your BlackBerry handset, see whether the people you need to speak with are available, and make a request (if they’re not). The other sees your request in an incoming queue (labelled “Waiting to talk to me”), and can make a choice to take the call now, or not. The iotum Relevance Engine performs the function of the butler — it makes judgement calls about how to represent you to various individuals, based on the relationship you have with that person.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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Wouldn't this also be useful to mediate online realtionships as well.
Increasingly I'm reading that one of the issues with all social software is that it asssumes all relationships are equal – when in fact people manage interaction much as the relevance engine appears to – depending on situtation recent history upcoming events etc.
These issues increase as social software goes mobile – as online and physical collide – in the same way that calls can be an interuption or welcome – depending on the situtation.