I think we've all received messages that make us think: "Does this organization/person know anything about me at all?"  Irrelevant communication. It's at a minimum annoying, at it's worst it can be dangerous.  Here are some examples that I've received just this week:

1. Suggestions to buy baby products
2. An invitation to a local DC tech event while I'm in Orlando next week
3. Safety recall notice about a car that I sold 4 years ago
4. Information about a class action suit for a product I never owned



A lot of this stuff just gets sent out to everyone on a massive list.  The reality is that there is tons of public information about me that a company could gain access to, and even more of it would be available if we've done business together in the past, that would clearly make their communications to me more relevant.  For the examples above, here is how things would change:

1. My Facebook information would clearly indicate that I am married, but have no children
2. TripIt, Facebook status updates, Twitter posts, would make it clear that I'm not in DC next week
3. Facebook profile information & status updates, Twitter posts, credit report information clearly indicate that I no longer own the car
4. Where did they get the idea that I owned the product to begin with? If it's something cool (gadget for example) I would probably have tweeted about it or referenced it on Facebook somewhere

If these organizations were more careful about sending me stuff that I actually cared about, I would actually pay attention when I got a SMS, email, or phone call from them vs. just tuning them out.

So what's the solution?  Where possible, organizations should use what they know about their employees, partners, and customers to messsage only people to whom the content is relevant.  Otherwise they risk getting ignored when connecting really counts.  There is of course a balance to be struck with what information you want to share with each organization and that's why personal data & social history sharing information management (I'll let someone else come up with a more concise name) will become an important area of development.

Consider this an introduction to the topic since there are lots of areas to dig into here, ranging from what would constitute a "complete" professional and personal profile, fencing data with different levels of access, how to actually use the information for targeting, etc.

Comments on suggestions on where to take this topic are welcome!

Abbas Haider Ali.

Image credit: WebDesignerDepot