[projectvrm] VRM tool characteristics

[Doc Searls < >]

@jamiedsmith tweeted a pointer to Alex Bogusky's New Conscious Consumer Bill of Rights...

https://twitter.com/#!/jamiedsmith/status/80903314803396608

http://alexbogusky.posterous.com/the-new-consumer-bill-of-rights

... adding "needs more symmetry of power for consumers though". 

Rather than critique or seek to improve Alex's Bill, I thought I'd post something we've needed for awhile: a list of characteristics shared by VRM tools. I did that here:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/vrm/?p=872

Here they are:

1. VRM tools are personal. As with hammers, wallets and mobile phones, people use them as individuals,. They are social only in secondary ways.
2. VRM tools help customers express intent. These include preferences, policies, terms and means of engagement, permissions, requests and anything else that’s possible in a free market (i.e. the open marketplace surrounding any one vendor’s silo or walled garden for “managing” captive customers).
3. VRM tools help customers engage. This can be with each other, or with any organization, including (and especially) its CRM system.
4. VRM tools help customers manage. This includes both their own data and systems and their relationships with other entities, and their systems.
5. VRM tools are substitutable. This means no vendor of VRM tools can lock users in.

Suggestions and improvements welcome.

Doc