Re: [projectvrm] VRM tool characteristics

[Katherine Warman Kern < >]

+1

Katherine Warman Kern

203.918.2617

On Jun 15, 2011, at 4:36 PM, Doc Searls < "> > wrote:

Thanks!

I had meant #4 to cover that, in the sense that "managing" one's data would include understanding it; but maybe that's not the case. Gotta think about it....

Doc

On Jun 15, 2011, at 3:44 PM, Jamie Smith wrote:

Thanks Doc, this is a great start.

Would you say that number 4 ('help customers manage') would include tools to analyse your own data?

Such tools might help you identify your own behavioural or commercial trends (for example by finding patterns in your travel expenses or your weekly shopping), and in doing so would help you better a) express intent (#3) and b) engage (#4).

I suspect that such VRM tools would not necessarily have to have this characteristic, but if they did, then I'd want it to be a separate and distinct characteristic from 'help customers manage' - perhaps along the lines of:

6. VRM tools help customers better understand their own data. This is helping the customer discover and expose new value in their own data sets, on their terms and for their own benefit.

Keen to hear your views.

Jamie

On 15 June 2011 19:07, Doc Searls < " target="_blank"> "> > wrote:

@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