Flow is Personal

“Get out of the way”                   
                                         Craig Newmark, craigslist.com

Flow’s underlying philosophy is permissive; business knows what it has to do and the role of IT systems is to make it as easy as possible – to remove the obstructions.

This particularly applies to the user interface for Flow. The user experience should be dictated by role, data and the processes that make up day to day work, not by the interaction with the system.

So, the UI needs to get out of the way; it needs to be conducive to performance not obstructive of it. What this translates to in practice is an interface that is;

• Clear; no hidden functions
• Configurable; users can configure it to work for them.

The user interface is a key component of the platform and adopts it’s principles; it can be easily extended to meet the business needs. After all, your business is made up of people, it needs to be personal; sensitive to each indidividual’s individual published and not so published roles and tasks; not only suitable for large corporates but also extensible to their not so large freelancers and SME partners.

We see Flow as the way that everyone gets everything they need to do their work. That might mean everything required is within the platform, or might mean linking to other platforms.

Flow is everything a magazine style intranet isn’t; personal doesn’t equate to a top down broadcast mentality. Rather each user has their own voice; Flow allows users to engage with each other about things on the shop floor. It’s going to be a key innovation tool, linking together people and data in new ways.