Identity Woman

Independent Advocate for the Rights and Dignity of our Digital Selves

People

Quoted in NYT

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I was quoted in this article about Tim Berner’s Lee and the Solid Project.

….“No one will argue with the direction,” said Liam Broza, a founder of LifeScope, an open-source data project. “He’s on the right side of history. But is what he’s doing really going to work?”

Others say the Solid-Inrupt technology is only part of the answer. “There is lots of work outside Tim Berners-Lee’s project that will be vital to the vision,” said Kaliya Young, co-chair of the Internet Identity Workshop, whose members focus on digital identity.

Wired UK Profile

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Last Year Molly Swartz a reporter who I first met via the MyData community talked to me about doing a profile and Wired UK said yes!

The article ran in their print edition and online. You can read here Wired UK and regular Wired.
I think it does a good job of reflecting the work that I have done and where we are now with these emerging technologies. It simplifies my journey to get to where I am now there is more to it and more nuance but for a 2 page article its fine.

I've co-founded a company! The Leola Group

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Thursday evening following Internet Identity Workshop #18 in May I co-Founded and became Co-CEO of the Leola Group with my partner William Dyson.
So how did this all happen? Through a series of interesting coincidences in the 10 days (yes just 10 days) William got XDI to work for building working consumer facing applications. He showed the music meta-data application on Thursday evening and wowed many with the working name Nymble registry.  The XDI [eXtneible Resource Identifier Data Interchange] standard has been under development at OASIS for over 10 years. Getting it to actually work and having the opportunity to begin to build applications that really put people at the center of their own data lives is a big step forward both for the Leola Group and the  Personal Data community at large.
[Read more…] about I've co-founded a company! The Leola Group

Recent Activity Pt 2: Canada & Boston

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Immediately following IIW (post here). I headed to Canada to speak at the International Women in Digital Media Summit.

The iWDMS brings together professionals from traditional and digital media communities, as well as educational/research institutions from around the world.  With high level keynotes, cross-sector dialogue, expert panelists, controversial debates and structured networking, the Summit will promote knowledge-sharing, and will explore innovation, skills gaps, policy and research in digital media–including gaming, mobile, and social media–and the impacts on and advancements by women globally. 
I gave an “Ideas and Inspiration”  talk for 20 min about the Personal Data Ecosystem called The Old Cookies are Crumbling: How Context & Persona aware personal data servcies change everything and will transform the world and was also on a panel about New Media Literacies.
There are a few things I took away from this event:
1) Countries like Canada are very small with just 30 million people and the center of commercial/intellectual life in Toronto an event like this really brings together a core group of high profile women in the media production business that represents much of the industry.
2) Both the government of Canada, provinces like Ontario and universities like Ryerson  are very serious about attracting and retaining top technology and media talent with a variety of tax and investment incentives.
3) See point (1) because of that …one must think internationally about appeal and distribution of any media across the whole world not just one market.
4) The way they talk about diversity used lang had language I never heard before the term “designated groups” included folks with disabilities, first nations people (in the US they would be “American Indians”), women, and ethnic minorities.
5) The idea that people shouldn’t be stalked around the web to “monetize” them was new and provoked some thinking amongst those who made their living developing metrics.
It was great to connect to Canada again and I hope that with the IIW coming up in Toronto in February some of the women who I met there can attend and consider how media can change with new tools for people to manage their identity and data.
I got to meet up with Aran Hamilton  (@Aranh) who coordinated efforts around the NSTIC of Canada in Toronto. We outlined the possibility of a Satellite IIW in Toronto and I learned more about what is going on there.  Basically up to point  (1) above…Canada is small.  95% of people have a bank account and of that something like 85% have accounts with one of 5 banks (Bank of Montreal, Toronto Dominion Bank/Canada Trust, CIBC, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotia Bank) and there are 3 telco’s. So it seems like getting an NSTIC like system in place in Canada could involves meetings with a few dozen people.  They have the added advantage that Canadians have a higher trust in their government and institutions like banks and telco’s and have fewer “privacy rights” organizations.  So our IIW should be interesting and I hope that we can get some good cross over between the January 17th event in DC and this one.

After Toronto headed to the 4th MassTLC Innovation Unconference.  It was great to be joined by Briana Cavanaugh who is working with me now at UnConference.net.  The community was thriving and it was the biggest ever unconference that I have run at 800 people and lots of sessions.  Jason Calacanis who apparently has relocated to Boston was there.  Jeff Taylor was there and had a rocking “un-official” after party that he DJ’ed.   The most notable costume was a guy in a suit with a 99% on his forehead. Yes Occupy Wall Street became a halloween costume.
 
 
 

The Nymwars and what they mean: summary of my posts to date.

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Update: Google relented a bit, however I am still waiting to see if my name of choice was approved. You can read about the process I had to go through here. The New Google Names Process
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For those of you coming from the Mercury News story on the NymWars exploding…
I STILL have my Google+ profile suspended for using a  [  .  ] as my last name.  Prior to that I had “Identity Woman” as my last name and prior to that… before I ever got a G+ profile and since I started using Gmail and Google Profiles I had a   [  *   ]as my last name. [see the complete list of posts about this whole saga below]
It is my right to choose my own name online and how I express it.  Names and identities are socially constructed AND contextual… and without the freedom to choose our own names, and the freedom to have different names (and identifiers) across different contexts we will end up with a social reality that I don’t want to live in: Participatory Totalitarianism.
[Read more…] about The Nymwars and what they mean: summary of my posts to date.

Open Letter to Google+ Profile Support

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On Sep 19, 2011, at 11:25 AM, Google Profiles Support wrote:
Hi,
Thank you for contacting us with regard to our review of the name you are trying to use in your Google Profile. After review of your appeal, we have determined that the name you want to use violates our Community Standards.

I am curious what community developed the standards?  If there really is a community behind them, where can one engage in dialogue about them and have one’s needs addressed.

Please avoid the use of any unusual characters. For example, numbers,symbols, or obscure punctuation might not be allowed.

(.)’s for last names are permitted for mononym people. I am making this choice.
If you search my name “Kaliya” in Google, I am 1/2 of the links, the other 1/2 are for the Hindu mythical figure that happens to share my name.
It is my name. I claim name sovereignty.

Most users choose to use their first and last names in the common name field in order to avoid any future name violation issues.

I am not “most users”. I am unique individual with my own name.
How can a name be in violation? What is a “name violation issue” anyways? Who says?
I feel violated by this experience because I do not want to use my (soon to be ex-) husband’s (who I’ve been separated from for 3 years) last name, Hamlin, as the headline on MY profile. I am fine listing it in the “other name” field – it is an “other name” to me.
I do not want to use my old last name, Young, last used in 2004 before my professional career began. I am also fine listing this the “other name” field as some who knew me before this date will be able to find me this way. Again, it is not appropriate for the headline on my profile.
I was fine using my professional handle/title “Identity Woman” as my last name for the headline of my profile but this was rejected by your acceptable name algorithms for having a space in it and being words not commonly in last names.
I actually do often list “Identity Woman” as my last name when I attend conferences so it is on my badge prominently  on my badge because my current last name (my ex-husband’s name) isn’t relevant. My Identity Woman professional handle IS relevant to the context, being at a professional conference so I choose to use it as my last name.
I decided when I began using Google+ that I would present and put forward information relevant to and related to my work persona Identity Woman and I am sticking with this persona in this context.  My Gmail address is after all identitywoman@gmail.com.
Last week I went back to what I had before we began this name silliness back and forth a symbol in my last name field on my Google profile for the last 4 years. I have gone ahead and listed other names as “Hamlin, Young, Identity Woman”. You are refusing this option.  This seems like the best compromise position all around. A win-win.
So I am not really sure where to go with this. Is there a human being I can talk to? How do I actually move through this process. Continuing to interact with faceless, first name only people in e-mail and via ever changing rejection notes on my profile is not working for me.

You can review our name guidelines at http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/answer.py?answer=1228271
If you edit your name to comply with our policies in the future, please respond to this email so that we can re-review your profile.

I am not editing my profile. I want to talk with a human being to resolve this or alternatively we can a committee meeting with your team at Google.
This feels like I am being put on trial for my choice of name.
It feels dehumanizing and unjust.  I expect better from a company like Google.
Regards,
-Kaliya

Sincerely,
Bennett
The Google Profiles Support Team

ps. What is your real name? I am curious to know more about you by looking you up on the internet and then maybe will have a better idea about how to persuade you to let my name be.

Potential Future: Google-Zon

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With the nymwars unfolding (Nym = Pseudonym , Anonymous and other varities on this theme) this video of the Google-Zon story in the year 2014 seems more prescient then ever.
Please watch the video on the Original Site the way it was done is amazing. 
EPIC in this video stands for the Electronic Personalized Information Construct
The computer writes a new story for every user (sound like the Filter Bubble?) everyone contributes and in exchange gets a cut of the revenue…
We stand for the exact oposite vision at the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium where people have control over their own data and manage the rights to access it and shape things.

Starting on the OASIS IDtrust member steering committee

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I started a new “job” last week, serving on the OASIS Identity and Trusted Infrastructure (IDtrust) Member Section, member steering committee.  I was elected to a 2 year term on this 5 member board.  This was my candidate statement and remains as my profile. On my first call as a member of the committee I was part of approving 8K of money including sponsoring the upcoming Interent Identity Workshop.
I shared with my fellow board members

in my introductory call that I was keen to link this work with other work that is related and ongoing at other standards efforts like the W3C where I have been participating in the Federated Social Web work.  There is also independent efforts like OpenID and OAuth happening within IETF.  One of our next tasks at Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium is to outline the core standards relevant to personal data.  We are not going to invent anything new – rather help what is be found and adopted and adapted.
Why Does participation in an International Standards body matter?

If “code is law,” then standards are like the Senate.  – Bruce Sterling, commenting on the April 2011 Augmented Reality Standards gathering

[Read more…] about Starting on the OASIS IDtrust member steering committee

Gender Matters in CS & Tech & The World

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I don’t need to say much. This graphic from the New York Times explains it simply  Computer Science and Engineering are getting worse for women and have been for 10 years. These industries are where law and medicine were in the 50’s and 60’s.  I share this fact with people from other industries and they look at me funny and say “really” – YES really. They have believed the myth that technology is a a meritocracy and really progressive.

[Read more…] about Gender Matters in CS & Tech & The World

Mononym officially "not" accepted. I'm Kaliya. Google get a clue.

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OK.
Let me be very frank.
Kaliya says to Google:
“Why should I have to justify my name to you?”
My name is Kaliya
Just me. That is what it was on my profile before you decided that i had to have letters in my last name.
Type me into Google nymrods, 5 of the posts on the fronte page are me…the other 5 are for a figure in Hindu mythology.
What is the top post for “me”? Its the “Identity Woman” blog, then my Fast Company blog post on  NSTIC written as Identity Woman, then my flickr photos (Kaliya), linkedIn (Kaliya), Slideshar’s (Kaliya) and finally my unconference site (Kaliya).
I chose to have Identity Woman as my last name when you rejected my choice to go with the mononym “Kaliya *”. That is how people know me. It is how I want to be known.
I am NOT putting my soon to be ex-husband’s, have been separated amicably  for 3 years, last name as “my name” as the top of my profile on Googoe+.
[TO BE CLEAR. My ex and I are on good terms and I really didn’t want to bring this up in public-public on my blog because it is not my practice to discuss personal matters on this blog and cause it is nobody’s business what my marital status is.  I made the choice to share this very real personal life situation I face to make the point I am trying to make. On another note he is also very supportive of my work on these issues for freedom on the internet.]
I am totally fine listing this last name in the “other” field along with my maiden name.  I am not particularly attached to either name. I have a an idea for a future last name and I might change it in several years in the mean time I don’t want to promote this “other” name that isn’t “mine” as the headline of my profile. Both Young and Hamlin are part of my legal name. They are my wallet names  (as Skud has so aptly put it) and in some way they are my names but they are not “my” names.
When people who don’t know me that well call me “Ms. Hamlin” I object politely and say “please just call me Kaliya – Hamlin is not “my” name”.  Everyone who I have made this request have honored it. If they didn’t I wouldn’t be their friend for very long. As Bob Blakeley from Gartner (formerly Burton Group) explains, names are social and if you don’t call people what they want to be called they won’t respond.
Google, My name is Kaliya.
If you don’t honor this request. I won’t be your friend any more. Just like Bob explained.
 
 

G-Male is a Good Listener, Maybe too good.

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Ok, now we know what is wrong 🙂 Google is on the [autism] spectrum.

“The obstacles primarily exist in the realm of social interaction. The fundamental problem is akin to blindness, as the term social blindness suggests.”

They keep doing well meaning but awkward feeling things because well they know how to technically but it isn’t how human beings act or want to be treated.
[Read more…] about G-Male is a Good Listener, Maybe too good.

Is Google+ is being lynched by out-spoken users upset by real names policy?

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Following my post yesterday Google+ says your name is “Toby” not “Kunta Kinte”, I chronicled tweets from this morning’s back and forth with  Tim O’Reilly and Kevin Marks, Nishant  Kaushik, Phil Hunt,  Steve Bogart and Suw Charman-Anderson.
I wrote the original post after watching the Bradley Horwitz (@elatable) – Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly) interview re: Google+. I found Tim’s choice of words about the tone (strident) and judgement (self-righteous) towards those standing up for their freedom to choose their own names on the new social network being rolled out by Google internet’s predominant search engine disappointing.  His response to my post was to call me self-righteous and reiterate that this was just a market issue.
I myself have been the victim of a Google+ suspension since July 31st and yesterday I applied for a mononym profile (which is what it was before they insisted I fill out my last name which I chose to do so with my online handle and real life identity “Identity Woman”) 
In the thread this morning Tim said that the kind of pressure being aimed at Google is way worse then anything they are doing and that in fact Google was the subject of a “lynch mob” by these same people.  Sigh, I guess Tim hasn’t read much history but I have included some quotes form and links to wikipedia for additional historial context.
Update: inspired in part by this post an amazing post “about tone” as a silencing/ignoring tactics when difficult, uncomfortable challenges are raised in situations of privilege was written by Shiela Marie.  
I think there is a need for greater understanding all around and that perhaps blogging and tweeting isn’t really the best way to address it.  I know that in the identity community when we first formed once we started meeting one another in person and really having deep dialogues in analogue form that deeper understanding emerged.  IIW the place we have been gathering for 6 years and talking about the identity issues of the internet and other digital systems is coming up in mid-October and all are welcome.  The agenda is created live the day of the event and all topics are welcome.
Here’s the thread… (oldest tweets first)
 Note all the images of tweets in this thread are linked to the actual tweet (unless they erased the tweet).  [Read more…] about Is Google+ is being lynched by out-spoken users upset by real names policy?

Google+ says your name is "Toby" NOT "Kunta Kinte"

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This post is about what is going on at a deeper level when Google+ says your name is “Toby” NOT “Kunta Kinte”. The punchline video is at the bottom feel free to scroll there and watch if you don’t want to read to much.

This whole line of thought to explain to those who don’t get what is going on with Google+ names policy arose yesterday after I watched the Bradley Horwitz – Tim O’Reilly interview (they start talking about the real names issue at about minute 24).

[Read more…] about Google+ says your name is "Toby" NOT "Kunta Kinte"

Lets try going with the Mononym for Google+

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Seeing that Google+ is approving mononyms for some (Original Sai, on the construction of names Additional Post) but not for others (Original Stilgherrian Post Update post ).
I decided to go in and change my profile basically back to what it was before all this started.  I put a  ( . ) dot in the last name field.  In my original version of my google proflile my last name was a * and when they said that was not acceptable I put my last name as my online handle “Identity Woman”.
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Google+ Suspension saga continues

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I get this e-mail from them. You know, I wish they would use their “real name” when they talked to me. Being stuck inside a bureaucratic system – Kafkaesque.
On Aug 9, 2011, at 10:40 AM, Google Profiles Support wrote:

On Aug 9, 2011, at 10:40 AM, Google Profiles Support wrote:
Hi,
Thank you for your appeal. It seems that we are unable to pull up your Google Profile with this Email. Please reply back with the Email and the Profile URL associated  with your Google Profile, so that we may further continue the review of your name appeal.
Sincerely,
The Google Profiles Support Team

 
Dear Google,
[Read more…] about Google+ Suspension saga continues

Identity Woman Google+ Suspension Update

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I checked in today …to see if I had been let out of Google+ prison. Was my profile free to speak with the rest of the prisoners or not?
Apparently not. Now I am being informed that “business accounts” will be available soon.

This is my personal  handle on account that is related to the professional side of my life. I only use my google gmail account to subscribe to PROFESSIONAL NEWSLETTERS.  So anyone seeing my g-mail address it’s “identitywoman@gmail.com” does so on a professional context.
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