Help Wanted
I'm imagining a new job. We could call it the Personal Data Assistant, or "PDA". For most people, their PDA would be a part time role, perhaps just needing a couple of hours a week. This would be a highly trusted role, just like a PA, but with a different set of specialist skills.
The Personal Data Assistant would do all the tedious tasks which one ought to do around personal data - creating it, sharing it, securing it, archiving it, curating it. Sure, there are tools for some of these tasks, but none of them operate without manual intervention, and these tasks tend to be either tedious work which we avoid doing at all, or tricky things which could more quickly and effectively done by an expert.
So, what would my PDA do? He would archive and preserve my old emails and files, which I don't usually do very well. I, like Bill Thompson with his Zip disks, have old files on old disks which are running a serious risk of becoming unopenable and unpreservable; I think I still have floppies in a box somewhere. My PDA would make sure old data was migrated forwards into preservable forms and that if I wanted to dig information out of these old records, I'd be able to find it. He would take my paperwork and digitise it and file it so that it was findable, whether by searching, or more likely, by browsing in a structured way ("electricity bills from 5 years ago" or "emails from Bob with attachments, ordered by date." He would keep these private archives up to date, checking that all my files were backed up appropriately and that sensitive information was stored securely.
He would make sure my web presence was up to date, and, if sites I used to use are closing down, he would spot this, check with me, and perhaps grab and store any data I had there. He would check that I was Googlable and that the results were what I would want - that the good stuff was discoverable and the bad stuff less obviously findable. He would keep an eye on Google Analytics and other website logs and let me know if there were unusual things happening which I might wish to do something about.
My PDA would check that I only paid subscriptions to sites which I actually used. He would grab my preferred username on new web services I might want to use, even if I didn't get around to trying the service for a while. Maybe he would check that I had sensible privacy settings on FaceBook and advise me if terms and conditions were changing and I needed to review them. He would recommend new tools which would make the things I do with my data easier (just like Michael suggested Courier the other day). If I was struggling to find something amongst my files or online, my PDA would be able to point me at more powerful search terms or methods.
There's definitely a service in this which I would be willing to pay for, and I'm sure I'm not alone. PDAs would need to be highly trustworthy, reliable people. Perhaps 10 to 20 people could share the services of one full time PDA; if they paid £20-50 a week, this could add up to a reasonable wage. I think there's a market out there for this sort of thing, although one might want to find a better name for the role...
The Personal Data Assistant would do all the tedious tasks which one ought to do around personal data - creating it, sharing it, securing it, archiving it, curating it. Sure, there are tools for some of these tasks, but none of them operate without manual intervention, and these tasks tend to be either tedious work which we avoid doing at all, or tricky things which could more quickly and effectively done by an expert.
So, what would my PDA do? He would archive and preserve my old emails and files, which I don't usually do very well. I, like Bill Thompson with his Zip disks, have old files on old disks which are running a serious risk of becoming unopenable and unpreservable; I think I still have floppies in a box somewhere. My PDA would make sure old data was migrated forwards into preservable forms and that if I wanted to dig information out of these old records, I'd be able to find it. He would take my paperwork and digitise it and file it so that it was findable, whether by searching, or more likely, by browsing in a structured way ("electricity bills from 5 years ago" or "emails from Bob with attachments, ordered by date." He would keep these private archives up to date, checking that all my files were backed up appropriately and that sensitive information was stored securely.
He would make sure my web presence was up to date, and, if sites I used to use are closing down, he would spot this, check with me, and perhaps grab and store any data I had there. He would check that I was Googlable and that the results were what I would want - that the good stuff was discoverable and the bad stuff less obviously findable. He would keep an eye on Google Analytics and other website logs and let me know if there were unusual things happening which I might wish to do something about.
My PDA would check that I only paid subscriptions to sites which I actually used. He would grab my preferred username on new web services I might want to use, even if I didn't get around to trying the service for a while. Maybe he would check that I had sensible privacy settings on FaceBook and advise me if terms and conditions were changing and I needed to review them. He would recommend new tools which would make the things I do with my data easier (just like Michael suggested Courier the other day). If I was struggling to find something amongst my files or online, my PDA would be able to point me at more powerful search terms or methods.
There's definitely a service in this which I would be willing to pay for, and I'm sure I'm not alone. PDAs would need to be highly trustworthy, reliable people. Perhaps 10 to 20 people could share the services of one full time PDA; if they paid £20-50 a week, this could add up to a reasonable wage. I think there's a market out there for this sort of thing, although one might want to find a better name for the role...