Will Personalization = Uninformed?

For years the term "personalization" has been thrown around to imply giving user's more control ... kind of like the old Burger King slogan "have it your way".

On the surface it seems like a great idea right? We are constantly being bombarded by information coming from a variety of sources (TV, websites, magazines, Twitter, Facebook, events, friends, colleagues, industry pundits and the like) so how can we not feel overloaded or flustered. So wouldn't the ability to streamline information to only receive what we want, when we want it seem like utopia for those of us living in today's information age?

In theory yes, but don't forget to read the fine print. You see part of the beauty of personalization is the ability to "tune out" things that seem irrelevant to you. That puts the onus on the user and the personalization technology to know what's relevant or not. You are probably saying..."Duh, of course I know what's most relevant to me." Really?

Think about it do you really know what will peak your interest from one moment to the next, what will cause you to stop and think "wow, never thought of that" or even make you pause on an ad for a car you have no interest in just because a sock monkey was driving it.

I know in watching the Olympics this past week if I had "personalized" my viewing I would have been extremely sad to have missed learning more about skeletons, biathlons and combines. Nothing in my "personalized" profile would have triggered those things to be recorded but yet I really enjoyed them.

You see personalization is great for placing "focus" on things we already like but it has yet to take into account the things we "may like" if only we knew about them.

Take for example some cool new software being developed that automatically films sports events (with robots not people) using several different cameras called APIDS. It could give broadcasters the ability to let users set preferences to focus on shots of only their favorite players.

In this example they've filmed a basketball game and show you all the different angles of the game.

Now as a frequent college basketball watcher I think this is pretty cool because of all the angles I could watch the game from. But that said I know if I only set up the game to watch plays from my favorite player I would certainly miss most of the best plays from the game. The beauty of team sports is the fact they are made of a groups of people who interact to create amazing moments. While I certainly love watching Jane Appel of Stanford crash the boards, I would never want to miss an amazing Roz 3-pointer or a Jeannette steal. I, like I think most sports enthusiast, love the "unexpected play" and would not trade that for all the "personalization" in the world.

It's not that users don't want "focus" in their lives it just needs to be done at a level that is flexible enough not to tune out things they may not know they will enjoy. To give users the ability to easily discover their next "great like or dislike". To allow us to feel connected to the world without being overloaded by it.

I think DirecTV does a great job of this with their Red Zone Channel. They assume you will watch the football games you choose based on your favorite teams every Sunday but they also give you the flexibility to switch over to the Red Zone to see all great plays from inside the 20 yard line that happened in other games. So giving users the ability to discover what they may not have expected they would want to see.

It's about giving users choice and at the same time making discovery easier. I have no doubt that brilliant technology researchers will figure all of this out and give us a chance to filter and discover to our likings at some point.

But until then enjoy all the new personalized features, programs and offers bestowed upon you but don't forget to occasionally look outside 'the bubble' and be amazed by something new or different.