A system and method is provided for personalizing and refining policies within a general notification platform. The system includes a profile definition and selection system that receives contextual information relating to a user state. The profile definition and selection system generates and/or relays a set of control parameters based at least partially upon the contextual information, and a notification manager selectively sends a user notification and/or communication based upon the set of control parameters. Methods are provided for tuning the notification platform. This may include defining one or more context profiles, assigning values to parameters employed in one or more context profiles, determining a current user context, determining which of the one or more user profiles is consistent with the current user context, and utilizing the parameter value associated with the one or more context profiles consistent with the current user context to adjust the notification system.