About
ABOUT ME
My field of expertise is user centricity. I started out in traditional media,
marketing and advertising. About 17 years ago I was introduced to the world of the internet and my life got a new dimension. At that time markets gradually moved from mass marketing of one fits all to segmentation first and then to personalization. My views on systems shaped primarily to accommodate a plethora of users in more accommodating ways began to shape as a vision of systems that adapt themselves to users, instead
of users adapting to rigid offerings, and evolved along the years. I was an
entrepreneur and co -founder of several high tech companies, all of them based on personalization and real time adaptation to fluctuating and dynamic demands of users in chaotic environments.
Gradually I came to realize that the
fight over hegemony of users’ data, profiles and captivity as means in the power struggles between providers, is in direct contrast to the free, open spirit of what the web can and should be to each of us, as it increasingly becomes our digital home.
Over the years marketing discourse
shifted from segmentation to personalization, which implies outbound relations
from top down architectures and walled gardens of providers. But for me it did not stop there. When user centricity became the next evolutionary phase of personalization, it started to infiltrate to the private sector and governments, and egovernment initiatives started to be built in order to
improve the connection between constituents and governing offices.
The ideas around a personalized world have been fermenting in me for over a decade – starting from a global user centered perspective and evolving to an Icentered paradigm that takes the opposite view and looks from the single user outward and bottom up to interactions with providers, social sphere and information flow.
With the evolving web zeitgeist, the growing power and expressiveness of
individuals in web 2.0, the new era of conversations and social connectivity, the demands for individual adaptation, user friendliness, I gradually moved from the direction of user centered to Icentered the and later to citizen centered along the same lines.
This new proactive approach to user centricity, that puts the wheel at the hands of the user, will create new food chains and personalization and privacy practices and new economic models to accommodate it.
Where it comes to corporates and users I dream of a green web ecology that empowers a personalized web. The Icentered worldview demands thinking outside the box. The time is ripe for new definitions, defying existing orders, a paradigm shift and new pacts of interactions between all parties involved, based on transparency, authenticity, ethics and trust. In the citizen centricity prism it is about increasing users’ satisfaction and user experience in the interactions with governing offices, but also redefining transparency and the active role of citizens in order to enhance trust in the governing institutions.
In the Icentered blog I will look at the relations between users, citizen, providers and governing offices from an Icentered point of view, the social, marketing, philosophical and economic aspects that stem from the world through an Icentered lens.
I hope that the Icentered site will grow to serve as a jumping board for collaborative conversation about the paradigm shift needed to empower a more social, clean web ecology and will influence new cultures and paradigms.
My bio
I am an Israeli, live in Tel Aviv.
My formal education is:
B.A. in English and French from bar Ilan university,
M.A. in Semiotics and comparative literature) from Tel Aviv university
Executive business management from Tel Aviv university.
In my non –formal education I am an autodidact in the areas of :Web 2.0, internet, web marketing, personalization, privacy, identity management, social web, adaptive systems, bottom up, crowdsourcing, trend tracking, Natural language processing,
Occupation history:
I4c- corp – co-founder, CEO
2005 – 2009
A start up that developed user centered solutions for an adaptive personalized web experience, maintaining user controlled privacy.
It was based on an Icentered approach that called for a new pact of web based interactions with providers and peers, based on a proactive personalization and privacy management at the hands of users.
Senior-Touch – Co founder, CEO
2004 – present
Senior – Touch is a third age expert house dedicated to tailoring and adapting products, services and interfaces to age related constraints and life style needs of people ages 55+ , bridging the age related digital divide
CollaComp – Collaborative Computing – co-founder, CEO
2001-2004
A start up that developed Self-Managing adaptive real-time software for automating provisioning and allocation activities IT infrastructure, by empowering IT infrastructure systems to adapt on the fly to dynamic business level requirements and assure the supply of IT resources to a fluctuating non-predictable demand.
Homing – co- founder, CEO
1997-2000
The company developed content management and personalization solutions based on implicit self learning personalization and direct content analysis, creating harmonized profiles across media.
The Icentered blog is about us, our web and our relations with our providers and the institutions we interact with as users and as citizens. Icentered means the individual user is at the center, with the wheel in her hands – a personal vantage point on digital relations that is user centered, personalized, private and safe. It is in sync with emerging paradigm for our personal relations with our digital surroundings.
I in the center means that I am no longer the “user” or a passive citizen as defined by digital merchants, web site owners and institutions– I in the center means truly user centered digital environments.
The I in my writing is a collective I – I speak for myself, for you and you – the voice of individuals on the web, open to explore this mindset, hopefully embrace its principles and take part in shaping this view, towards a quality of web life and digital wellness in its deepest sense.
The Icentered blog speaks to people who care about their digital habitat and want to influence its order of the day and be part of a shift to real user centricity. Icentricity is very much a product of the evolving web’s zeitgeist of the era of the user. The time is ripe for new definitions that will better reflect the increasingly central place of a personalized web culture.
The web as such has become so ubiquitous that it is a commodity, just as electricity. As such it should become a natural habitat, a true web of life – accessible, free, adapted and safe.
It is true for our interactions with providers, with information sources and with institutions we interact with as part of our civic routines. It should exceed simplification of procedures and efficient service processes to include fundamental shifts in interaction patterns that will enhance the trust of users in the systems and institutions they interact with. Providers should see in users true partners to processes from which both parties benefit, apply transparency, bring back the human factor, cherish inclusiveness and understand the reciprocity in the processes –these are some of the cornerstones that will lead to Icentricity.
From the user side – our webbing experience should be holistic, harmonious and intuitive. Under the Icentered mindset, the web should be presented to each of us in a prismatic way, dynamically updated, reflecting individual affinities, interests, likes and dislikes. The interacting I should be at the center, an active partner to food chains and interactions, at the driver’s seat.
It is a flat world, indeed, but with a big I at its center.
Each of us is an Itom – an individual painted in unique colors, and yet a member in the web’s people grid.
This blog will explore Icentricity
at its broadest sense – musings towards a paradigm shift for an Icentered green web ecology. It will look through an Icentered lens at new orders and relations between me, the individual – the person, employee, friend, parent, colleague, citizen… and an endless array of web based interactions. It will explore personal, social, marketing, philosophical, civic and economic aspects of the web that stem from this new paradigm, and how can web 2.0, the social web, new technologies… empower it.
I invite you to embark on this exploratory journey into a new mindset. I hope that the Icentered site will grow to serve as a collaborative conversation about the paradigm shift needed to empower a clean web ecology, and hope that the Icentered lens will intrigue you enough to cross the line from passive readers into you a proactive participants, to weave together the cornerstones for a blue print of an Icentered web.
You can contact me through ayala.rahav@icentered.com or the form below:
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Disclaimer – code of conduct and license
The Icentered blog was put up for musing, discussion and development of the Icentered web view, as a viable paradigm for personalized web experience.
The blog expresses my personal opinion only and personal opinions of guest writers. I am not responsible for the accuracy, completeness and validity of information and data quoted. I don’t have any editorial board or peer review process.
In this blog I follow a code based on ethical attitude, tolerance and openness to pluralism of views.I ask that in your comments, responses and guest writing you will also cherish versatile opinions and keep debates non offensive and based on mutual respect.
Also please refrain from using Icentered as a platform to distribute commercial information.
All Icentered content is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license for any reworking and redistributions of texts.
Commentators, talkbackists and writers are solely responsible for the content of their individual messages and postings, as well as for any violation of 3rd party rights, including the right to privacy and copyrights in individual postings.
