Smart Commons Collection is the first software offering from Integration Research. It is a desktop “asset management” tool that helps you keep track of all your stuff! If Amazon sells it, Collection can track it. For now, it is only available for Windows machines (Mac etc. coming…um…sometime…sorry guys and gals, majority rules when developing on a seriously bootstrapped budget!).
Collection also synchronizes with your Smart Commons account. You can also just use Smart Commons to keep track of your stuff, and borrow/lend from/to others. Maybe tomorrow I’ll talk specifically about how to use these two tools together to enable sharing and gift within your communities. For now I’m just going to wax philosophical.
It’s the day after Christmas, and you’ve got a lot of cool new stuff (and maybe some not-so-cool stuff from an infamous distant relative or the office gift exchange). I’m listening to an amazing new CD my parents picked up for me off of my wish list (somehow my parents always manage to pick the coolest, most meaningful things off my wish list…pretty cool).
There is something amazing about injesting a new piece of culture from a new artifact…do you know what I’m saying? The disk goes into the player and the sound waves exit the speakers and the CD case sits in your hands, tangible and somehow…important. Some of us hate to be judged by our cultural choices, but it’s just a simple fact: a large part of our personality can be discerned by them. Go ahead, sign up for Smart Commons, find me, add me as a friend, and browse my “collection.” It’s not complete yet, I’m still adding what I didn’t buy at Amazon (and therefore couldn’t just automatically add through synchronization with Amazon), but it will give you a bit of a look.
Then, we might be in the same community…like, already or literally a “community” on Smart Commons (or preferably both). And through Smart Commons, our collective collection becomes everyone’s collection. It’s voluntary…I can still reject your request to borrow something with the click of a button. But not just access, but discovery of these cultural and informational artifacts, starts to expontentate by the number of people in my community. And because the relationships in my communities aren’t just thin, artificial, technologically-created relationships (because SC focuses on sharing life with the people you are already in community with), the sharing of our stuff adds to the meaningfulness of our experiences both with the stuff and with each other.
What can I say? We’re utopian technologists. Download Smart Commons Collection.