Re: [projectvrm] VRM tool characteristics

[Gon Zifroni < >]

Hi list, I've been following silently for the last year and took part in IIW 11 last year.

I'm not sure if I got everything right with the terminology, but from what I can synthesize it seems to me we're talking about a system like so:

In a VRM system...

1. your data is private

2. your data is yours

3. only fourth parties get only temporary access to shares of your data

4. third and second parties never get access to your data, the second trusts the third and the third trusts the fourth.

5. fourth parties of your choosing share your data for you

6. only fourth parties can be polled on your behalf

7. fourth parties can not be third parties too

Let me flesh this out a little bit further:

1. TOS, your data is your legal private property

2. You are the only one who has complete access to all of your data. Even if it is in the cloud, you are the only one authorized full access at any given time.

3. Only fourth parties are allowed to get and index only portions of your data, and you can set for how long that data is retained.

4. They can index it along with other people's data so they can be queried by third and second parties. The query is not a query for data but a query for matching people. The fourth party only returns to third parties the number of matching people not their identity nor data about them. Second parties can connect with first parties via the current fourth party.

5. In terms of data storage and indexing it is a federated system like email whereby you can choose your fourth party and have several for different kind of data if you choose for it, jsut like people have several email accounts.

6. see 4.

7. Fourth parties cannot make use of your data.

I'm not sure if this is exactly the logic but I thought, given the Google Wallet discussion (I think it'd be a mistake to let it aggregate, index and know about all of your transactions, see 7), that it is a good moment to zoom in and draft an architecture that by its nature keeps data private while maintining certain level of flexibility and performance. Disclosure: my background is in industrial design and architecture (housing). I moved to SF to start a LBS with a group of engineers.

I'm sure this can be further compressed into 3 or 4 basic rules that qualify any VRM system.

Gon

On 16 Jun 2011, at 03:29, Katherine Warman Kern wrote:

+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