Hi!

I am on a Human Factors task force at the European Telecommunications
Standards Institute (http://portal.etsi.org/stfs/hf/STF265.asp). We are
having a Workshop October 21st at ETSI in Sophia Antipolis, France, to
discuss our current efforts at creating a recommendation for user
profile management in information and communications technologies,
oriented toward universal access and personal empowerment. I have
included the draft agenda at the bottom of this email. 

I have been receiving this discussion list for a while and think you
would have some excellent input for this effort, either at the workshop
or through email.

The day following this, Friday, October 22, is the Digital Home and
Human Factors Workshop (http://www.etsi.org/casanova/home.htm) as well.

To round this out, there are other human factors task forces in ETSI as
well. The current list includes:

Telecare in Intelligent Homes: http://portal.etsi.org/stfs/hf/STF264.asp
Guidelines for ICT Use By Children:
http://portal.etsi.org/stfs/hf/STF266.asp
Universal Speech and Text Access for e-Inclusion:
http://portal.etsi.org/stfs/hf/STF267.asp

Thanks!
Regards,
Walt Brown

Invitation Workshop
Personalisation of ICT products and services
by means of User Profile Management

When: Thursday 21st October 2004 at 9.00-17.30, registration will start
at 8.30

Where: ETSI Headquarters, Sophia Antipolis, France, Hermes meeting room
(and Iris)

Who should attend: standards developers, manufacturers, service creators
and service providers.
As ICT usage becomes an integral part of many people's lives, users
expect to be able to personalise a product or service to meet their
individual needs and will no longer accept "one size fits all" products
and services. Personalisation can range from simple cosmetic factors
such as custom ring-tones to the complex tailoring of the presentation
of a shopping web site to a user's personal interests and their previous
purchasing behaviour. Behind every instance of personalisation is a
"user profile" that stores details of the user, their preferences and
other information that can be used to deliver to the user an experience
that is tailored to their individual requirements.

For a single product or service it may be difficult for a user to manage
all of the information needed in their user profile. This will include;
*       checking what information is in their profile;
*       adding to, changing or deleting information in their profile;
*       the opportunity to be made aware of other entities accessing
their profile;
*       understanding how their profile affects the service or
capabilities that the user experiences.

The ETSI Specialist Task Force STF265 on "User Profile Management" is
addressing all of the above issues and will provide guidance to assist
ICT product and service designers to make it easy for users to manage
their user profiles.

STF265 is also addressing the increasingly important issue of how users
can be provided with an integrated approach to their profiles. Ideally
this approach can ensure that when user information or a generic
preference is supplied, this only needs to be done once and all products
and services will then be aware of this data. For such a desirable
outcome to be achieved, it will be necessary for all products and
services to be designed to be consistent with a common set of
guidelines. The development of such a set of guidelines for user profile
management is the ultimate objective of STF265.

 Agenda Items
*       Why are user profiles becoming more important?
*       Introduction to user profile management and the objectives of
STF 265 
*       Different scenarios related to user profiles 
*       Examples of current implementations
*       Current and emerging gaps and problems
*       Discussion participants view of personalisation
*       What are the most important users' needs?
*       Who are the stakeholders and why?
*       What is you ideal future for this?
*       What could be standardized? 
*       Questions, current status and future work
*       Other work that has been done related to user profile management