Connection Commons
Definition
By Lee S Dryburgh at http://www.connectioncommons.org/about/
"Connection Commons aims to provide a collaborative focal point for those interested in changing the paradigm of communications from almost exclusively connecting with known others to being presence aware of relevant strangers throughout our daily lives."
Further Context
By Lee S Dryburgh at http://www.connectioncommons.org/about/
"The communications industry is interested in adding contextual awareness (CA). CA promises to help enable more successful and efficient communications. At present calls are placed blindly without an awareness of the remote end. As a result calls are often placed which are not appropriate (or of a low value) in the current context; for example placing a call to someone who is in an important meeting only to be diverted to voicemail. The example is even worse when it develops into a game of voice mail tag â where each end returns each others call just to land up leaving another voicemail. CA is thus a noble cause which promises to help reach people on the right channel (email, IM, SMS, regular telephony, desktop VoIP Etc.) at the right time according to their current context (work, home, vacation, driving, busy etc.).
Although CA promises more valuable conversations, these conversations are only between people who already know each other (to varying degrees). Far greater value could be provided if conversations were enabled between people regardless of whether or not they already knew each other. It is highly likely for example that people pass us by in the opposite direction each day that could help us realise our objectives faster and easier; that when we are spending time waiting in public there is someone of interest who is nearby; or that someone who can help provide a solution to our problem or provide the urgent information or advice which we seek is available yet they could be physically separated from us by continents and are yet unknown to us. Current telephony requires that the subscriber already knows the identity (telephone number or at least name) of the called party. This implies that the caller must already have some knowledge of the called party before initiating communication.
Current telephony does not facilitate in connecting with unknown others, regardless of the potential positive transaction values that these new relationships could bring; either in terms of personal and business productivity or entertainment.
Our aim is to work towards enabling applications that connect us with unknown others by automatically adding relevant persons to our communications client âbuddy-listâ? according to our context and our wishes/needs/desires. We wish to greatly extend the notion of âright channel, right timeâ? to âright person, right channel, right timeâ?. This represents a paradigm shift which we believe will empower a wealth of new applications and services."