At the recent Office 2.0 conference, I had a conversation with the always sharp Rafe Needleman (who has a long history writing and covering business and technology) and his reaction to my description of 30 Boxes was two words: “situational awareness.”

I think he is spot on.  For those of you who have never heard the term, it is quite popular in Naval Aviation but also has a fairly detailed history in scientific literature. For practical purposes, we are going to stick with a fairly simple explanation: “a state of knowing and understanding what is going around you and predicting how things will change.”

It is a helpful construct for describing how fighter pilots are successful in combat, how some basketball players seem to do the impossible, or how some baseball players manage to make the correct decision without fail.

What happens when we try to apply this concept to software?  Well, it sounds like a bit of a stretch, but shouldn’t the collection of information at some point render decision making a little more intuitive? We think that 30 Boxes is one such application (albeit in its infancy).  Sure, 30 Boxes allows for resolution of items (checking off a to do, putting an event on your calendar), but it also dares to deliver relevant information to you in an integrated way. Becoming better informed allows activities like planning, sheduling, and sharing become easier.

As you start to build a tight social circle (I’d say 2-10 buddies is a sweet spot), you’ll begin to find a rhythm and a general sense of awareness.  This isn’t about schedule negotiation (for the over-subscribed Outlook slave), it is about having a sense of what is going on around you.  It is about becoming aware of events and actions that might have passed you by or having a conversation that isn’t simply recapping events (and the weather) but about personal experience and emotion.

The internet has always held the promise of bringing people closer together.  We may have lost our way a bit with the overload of information. We’re trying to create a product that slows the deluge and lets you take control.

Share your life, good things come of it.

Tags: 30boxes, socialmedia, socialsoftware, situationalawareness, rafeneedleman

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 27th, 2006 at 7:57 pm and is filed under Product News, Opinions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.