Re: [projectvrm] Can I tell you a story ....

[Iain Henderson < >]

I won't be at IIW I'm afraid; but I'll make a start beforehand on the 
Customer Commons wiki I expect.

Cheers

Iain 

Sent from my iPhone

> On 16 Mar 2015, at 19:06, Doc Searls 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
> 
> That sounds cool. Let's put it together at IIW.
> 
> Doc
> 
>> On Mar 16, 2015, at 2:32 PM, Markus Sabadello 
>> <
 >
>>  wrote:
>> 
>> So if you're just talking about the vocabulary and not about protocols
>> (which is a very smart separation I think), then this should indeed be
>> not so difficult.
>> 
>> I don't think I have ever seen any standardized way of expressing a
>> relationship between customer and supplier.
>> 
>> I agree Good Relations probably has some parts of this, e.g. the "Offer"
>> class which I am sure you know:
>> http://schema.org/Offer
>> 
>> In the W3C Social WG I found the following, which could be relevant:
>> https://www.w3.org/wiki/Socialwg/Social_API/User_stories#Offering_asparagus
>> 
>> But I understand those are just parts of what you're looking for.
>> 
>> Why not just get something started on a wiki page or Github repo?
>> Now that I think of it this could be really exciting.
>> 
>> What if Customer Commons published a simple OWL ontology (and/or XDI
>> dictionary) that defined a SINGLE relation: X hasSupplier Y
>> This could then be expanded/refined of course, but even defining that
>> one thing could be a HUGE (symbolic) first step, no? :)
>> 
>> Markus
>> 
>>> On 03/17/2015 02:02 AM, Iain Henderson wrote:
>>> Hi Markus, yes I well remember all those conversations with Paul and 
>>> personal data store popping out as an area of general consensus.
>>> 
>>> To your point about standards, I think we perhaps do need to be more 
>>> specific. What i’m referring to is a data standard that defines the data 
>>> required around me and my suppliers. The technical means of moving that 
>>> data around, managing identity and access control and the like are 
>>> related but not what i’m describing. Higgins came relatively close on 
>>> some aspects of that’ albeit with some assumptions about ontologies. I’m 
>>> fairly sure there is nothing out there as a public standard in that 
>>> space. There are some in adjacent spaces or sub-sets, such as postal 
>>> address standards, or Good Relations on Products/ Services; anything 
>>> beyond that then let’s air them on the list for discussion.
>>> 
>>> Cheers
>>> 
>>> Iain
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On 16 Mar 2015, at 15:00, Markus Sabadello 
>>>> <
 >
>>>>  wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> For me, the most interesting aspect of Higgins was that it started by
>>>> defining an abstract data model with a single and very light API
>>>> ("IdAS") and several plugins that allowed you to access (parts of) your
>>>> personal data from all over the Internet.
>>>> 
>>>> It took a long time before Higgins itself provided a "perferred" way of
>>>> storing personal data in a place you control, which was eventually
>>>> called "personal data store".
>>>> 
>>>> In other words, Higgins was first concerned with interoperability with
>>>> external services, and only second with storing personal data "in 
>>>> Higgins".
>>>> 
>>>> Today, it mostly seems the other way round. People develop personal
>>>> clouds, and afterwards (maybe) ask the question how to interoperate with
>>>> others.
>>>> 
>>>> Before starting yet another standard, maybe a useful project would be to
>>>> map out the standards that are currently out there and potentially
>>>> relevant for personal clouds.
>>>> What functions they aim to fulfill, how they relate to each other, etc.
>>>> Such work could be done by Customer Commons, or PDEC would also be an
>>>> obvious place.
>>>> Anyone interested?
>>>> 
>>>> Markus
>>>> 
>>>>> On 03/16/2015 04:25 PM, Iain Henderson wrote:
>>>>> Hi Julian,
>>>>> 
>>>>> I understand the point you are making on the data standards/ ontology 
>>>>> issue, and it makes sense from an individual organisational stand 
>>>>> point. The problem is, multiple other entities are pursuing the same 
>>>>> approach, dating way back to at least the Higgins project which was 
>>>>> (is) open and used best of breed available wherever possible.
>>>>> 
>>>>> With my CRM Manager hat on, this makes it almost impossible to engage 
>>>>> with a VRM solution/ bring my customer base to the party prior to it 
>>>>> gaining large scale. The lack of an open standard schema/ ontology 
>>>>> around personal clouds is, in my view, pretty much the only thing now 
>>>>> holding back the personal cloud model from large scale adoption. XDI 
>>>>> promises to help in this area, but in practice is some time away from 
>>>>> being able to meet that need globally and at scale; sufficiently far 
>>>>> away that we can’t wait for it.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The upsides to opening up and working on a cross-industry collaboration 
>>>>> would likely far outweigh the downsides; and if there is a mind to 
>>>>> collaborate, the actual task itself is not that difficult. Without it 
>>>>> we just create more silos on the VRM side as well as the CRM side.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Doc - we could host such a standard at Customer Commons?
>>>>> 
>>>>> Cheers
>>>>> 
>>>>> Iain
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On 14 Mar 2015, at 11:41, Julian Ranger 
>>>>>> <
 >
>>>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Ah all these marriage proposals – makes me wish I was back in my 20s 
>>>>>> and 30s!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The standards issue you raise is a good one and could be used to start 
>>>>>> a long train of thought.  I should firstly state that I am totally in 
>>>>>> favour of standards before I bring my BUT into play.  I spent 19 years 
>>>>>> building a business in the military internet arena (which I eventually 
>>>>>> sold to Lockheed Martin) that was based predominately around 
>>>>>> standards; however, to achieve interoperability across systems, all of 
>>>>>> which had implemented standards but different ones for different 
>>>>>> purposes and to different levels of completeness and competence, it 
>>>>>> was necessary to create a new process (iSMART) that borrowed from 
>>>>>> these standards, incorporated them, but ultimately was itself a new 
>>>>>> standard that had to be implemented first by some, then by more, 
>>>>>> before it ultimately became the gold standard.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> What we are doing in digi.me is analogous to the approach we took for 
>>>>>> the military problem.  We are incorporating and using data standards 
>>>>>> in our own normalised ontology, but that ontology is itself new.  We 
>>>>>> will publish that ontology when we open the Permission Access API and 
>>>>>> hope through its use, and because we are not perverse and have based 
>>>>>> it on strong standards (and pseudo standards by which I mean 
>>>>>> ontologies which are commonly used but are not necessarily standards 
>>>>>> in themselves), that it will become a de facto standard – and we 
>>>>>> wouldn’t stand in the way of it being made an open standard.  Why are 
>>>>>> we doing this and not using a standard today? – because no standard 
>>>>>> today covers everything, or even most of, what we need to cover, so we 
>>>>>> have to do something new.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Carrying on the marriage theme “something old, something new, 
>>>>>> something borrowed, something blue” our answer  incorporates the old 
>>>>>> and the borrowed with the new – not sure we’ve got blue covered though 
>>>>>> yet!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I am not in a position yet to release our ontology and normalisation 
>>>>>> processes because of commercial reasons.  Not only will they make it 
>>>>>> easier for businesses to use digi.me data, but the process also makes 
>>>>>> our software easier to implement and scalable and that is a 
>>>>>> competitive advantage that we cannot forgo until we are close to 
>>>>>> releasing the open API.  That said I default to as much openness about 
>>>>>> what we’re doing, why and with whom as I can and I am therefore happy 
>>>>>> to answer further questions and discuss the principles, etc but please 
>>>>>> excuse me if I have to stay silent on some aspects.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Cheers, Jules
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> From: 
>>>>>> 
 
>>>>>>  
>>>>>> [mailto:
 ]
>>>>>>  On Behalf Of Adrian Gropper
>>>>>> Sent: 14 March 2015 02:12
>>>>>> To: Julian Ranger
>>>>>> Cc: ProjectVRM list; T.Rob
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [projectvrm] Can I tell you a story ....
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I watched the video and share T.Rob's love. Maybe digi.me will move to 
>>>>>> Utah so we can all marry you. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The logic of what you're doing is impeccable but it raises the 
>>>>>> question of standards. An authorization service would need to be 
>>>>>> substitutable in order to compete with the likes of Apple at doing the 
>>>>>> same job by extending HealthKit and ResearchKit where they say: "Apple 
>>>>>> will not see your data." (But Apple controls the apps.) The UMA 
>>>>>> standard is meant to address some of what you're doing, for example. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> What is the role of standards in your service and your business model 
>>>>>> as post office?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Adrian
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 7:52 PM, Julian Ranger 
>>>>>> <
 >
>>>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>> T.Rob,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thank you for your kind words – all offers of marriage gratefully 
>>>>>> considered (but unfortunately my wife has final say!).  More seriously 
>>>>>> we will of course work with anyone who wants to further the progress 
>>>>>> of personal data.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Answering your questions as follows:
>>>>>> Q1:  You mention the ability to choose a cloud storage provider but do 
>>>>>> not mention that the data is encrypted.  After the discussion of how 
>>>>>> we would not trust any one vendor with all that data, I assume that it 
>>>>>> is encrypted locally before transmission to the cloud storage 
>>>>>> provider, yes?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> A1:  Yes the data is encrypted.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Q2:  The video mentions Amazon, FitBit and others but the Pricing page 
>>>>>> lists only "social network accounts."  Are the vendor accounts free, 
>>>>>> counted as social media accounts, or are they not there yet?  Have you 
>>>>>> considered collaborating (or merging) with FileThis who already fetch  
>>>>>> tons of utility bills and bank account statements?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> A2: As of today we have implemented only social media accounts (which 
>>>>>> have massive amounts of data I might add) – because they are the most 
>>>>>> evocative.  As we progress through 2015 and into 2016 we will add the 
>>>>>> other accounts we mention.  For example we are working on getting step 
>>>>>> data and Transport for London data for a particular application we are 
>>>>>> working with a health provider in London on – over 2,000 people in 
>>>>>> London die each year because they do not walk enough!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Q3:  Is there an open API to develop our own apps against the data?  
>>>>>> One of the biggest issues with Internet of Things is that proprietary 
>>>>>> devices interface only with whatever other devices the vendor thinks 
>>>>>> have a possibility of strong ROI for the development costs.  As cool 
>>>>>> as Digi.me sounds, the idea of waiting endlessly for the company to 
>>>>>> clear off the high priority interfaces and get to the niche 
>>>>>> integrations is a total turn-off.  (For those who haven't realized it 
>>>>>> yet, the long tail *is* the tail.  If your Internet biz doesn't scale 
>>>>>> to handle niche cases, it isn't an Internet biz, or if it is it won't 
>>>>>> be for long.)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> A3: You won’t be surprised to know that we are constrained by funding 
>>>>>> as to what we can do when.  Clearly, distribution is key – no one will 
>>>>>> want to access data (with user Permission of course!) if there aren’t 
>>>>>> many users.  Cost of acquisition with a direct acquisition model gets 
>>>>>> expensive quickly, so we have a partnership model as our main user 
>>>>>> acquisition channel initially.  Therefore in 2015 Permission Access is 
>>>>>> being worked on for our main partners only – those who can 
>>>>>> strategically get us lots of users (Telcos, FMSCG, banks, insurers – 
>>>>>> all whilst following our strict Permission Access principles) and who 
>>>>>> can gives us some money as well.  We expect to have an anyone can 
>>>>>> access your data API (again with Permission of course) by mid 2016 at 
>>>>>> the latest.  If anyone wants earlier access then just email me and 
>>>>>> we’ll see what we can do – we’re moving as fast as we can.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Q4:  Can I route my email receipts through Digi.me?  For example my 
>>>>>> bank, department store, sporting goods store, and most online stores 
>>>>>> will send me an email receipt.  These are almost all text so they can 
>>>>>> be dropped as-is into a DB and become instantly searchable.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> A4:Not on the plan for 2015 nor 2016.  Others may do this and move the 
>>>>>> data when we have the general purpose API available in 2016, but for 
>>>>>> now we are concentrating on direct access to data via APIs only.  (I’d 
>>>>>> love to buy one of the companies that does a lot of this already, but 
>>>>>> strategically it’s not the most important think we can do – I think.)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Q5:  Is the pricing structure scalable?  At some point do you stop 
>>>>>> counting accounts and just go by bandwidth?  Because I hit 20 social 
>>>>>> media accounts before I even start counting the vendor accounts and I 
>>>>>> probably have way more than 20 of those.  Thinking of the Long Tail 
>>>>>> again, I'm not worried that Digi.me will capture my Duke Power 
>>>>>> interactions, it's the appliance repair guy or the tree surgeon I used 
>>>>>> a couple of years ago that I *really* need help remembering.  If 
>>>>>> Digi.me believes per-account pricing is the way to go, there's a 
>>>>>> natural incentive to *not* load up data from occasional vendors, which 
>>>>>> would by design omit large swathes of useful info, thereby crippling 
>>>>>> the app to some extent.  I'm the CEO of my family and I want an 
>>>>>> enterprise license, dammit!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> A5:  Taking the pricing answer from my email to JP:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> “The video doesn’t really explain our charging model, so as you 
>>>>>> mention the “The Free is the Lie” syndrome I’ll address it.  Today we 
>>>>>> DO charge for the basic software – at a low $7 a year for basic 
>>>>>> premium features; however, in time the software functionality of 
>>>>>> digi.me will be free.  Our main revenue will be from postal charges – 
>>>>>> when you Permission Access to some element(s) of your data and your 
>>>>>> digi.me app ”posts” that data to another app/web page/etc then a 
>>>>>> postal fee is charged by digi.me to the receiving entity.  This postal 
>>>>>> fee will only be cents/tens of cents each time (or for a regular 
>>>>>> “subscription”) but will add to $20 or so per user per year 
>>>>>> (roughly)and when you consider we don’t hold data, process it or have 
>>>>>> bandwidth then that makes us profitable without the need to take 
>>>>>> commission, sell your data or anything else.  Our mission is to be 
>>>>>> dreadfully boring – be your Librarian and Postman and nothing else”
>>>>>> So you won’t in the medium term pay per channel at all – only when you 
>>>>>> Permission Access to your data, and then you won’t pay, but the 
>>>>>> receiver will.  Yes, we charge now, but that is because until our 
>>>>>> Permission Access API is up and running we have to make some money – 
>>>>>> and we have partners who do get many customers for us by selling our 
>>>>>> software.  For example FNAC in France sell our software as part of a 
>>>>>> security pack.
>>>>>> I hope that gives you further detail and responds to your questions 
>>>>>> adequately, but do fire in my thoughts questions, comments.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Cheers Jules
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>>>>> From: T.Rob 
>>>>>> <
 >
>>>>>> Date: Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 1:51 PM
>>>>>> Subject: RE: [projectvrm] Can I tell you a story ....
>>>>>> To: Julian Ranger 
>>>>>> <
 >,
>>>>>>  ProjectVRM list 
>>>>>> <
 >
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I'm in love!  Can I marry Digi.me?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Seriously though, I do have a couple of questions from the video.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ·       You mention the ability to choose a cloud storage provider but 
>>>>>> do not mention that the data is encrypted.  After the discussion of 
>>>>>> how we would not trust any one vendor with all that data, I assume 
>>>>>> that it is encrypted locally before transmission to the cloud storage 
>>>>>> provider, yes?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ·       The video mentions Amazon, FitBit and others but the Pricing 
>>>>>> page lists only "social network accounts."  Are the vendor accounts 
>>>>>> free, counted as social media accounts, or are they not there yet?  
>>>>>> Have you considered collaborating (or merging) with FileThis who 
>>>>>> already fetch  tons of utility bills and bank account statements?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ·       Is there an open API to develop our own apps against the data? 
>>>>>>  One of the biggest issues with Internet of Things is that proprietary 
>>>>>> devices interface only with whatever other devices the vendor thinks 
>>>>>> have a possibility of strong ROI for the development costs.  As cool 
>>>>>> as Digi.me sounds, the idea of waiting endlessly for the company to 
>>>>>> clear off the high priority interfaces and get to the niche 
>>>>>> integrations is a total turn-off.  (For those who haven't realized it 
>>>>>> yet, the long tail *is* the tail.  If your Internet biz doesn't scale 
>>>>>> to handle niche cases, it isn't an Internet biz, or if it is it won't 
>>>>>> be for long.)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ·       Can I route my email receipts through Digi.me?  For example my 
>>>>>> bank, department store, sporting goods store, and most online stores 
>>>>>> will send me an email receipt.  These are almost all text so they can 
>>>>>> be dropped as-is into a DB and become instantly searchable.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ·       Is the pricing structure scalable?  At some point do you stop 
>>>>>> counting accounts and just go by bandwidth?  Because I hit 20 social 
>>>>>> media accounts before I even start counting the vendor accounts and I 
>>>>>> probably have way more than 20 of those.  Thinking of the Long Tail 
>>>>>> again, I'm not worried that Digi.me will capture my Duke Power 
>>>>>> interactions, it's the appliance repair guy or the tree surgeon I used 
>>>>>> a couple of years ago that I *really* need help remembering.  If 
>>>>>> Digi.me believes per-account pricing is the way to go, there's a 
>>>>>> natural incentive to *not* load up data from occasional vendors, which 
>>>>>> would by design omit large swathes of useful info, thereby crippling 
>>>>>> the app to some extent.  I'm the CEO of my family and I want an 
>>>>>> enterprise license, dammit!  J
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I'll go sign up later.  Tonight I'm in charge of dinner and, as I 
>>>>>> posted earlier to Facebook, my soup has that "new crock pot smell."  I 
>>>>>> think I'll have to run to the store for something to grill real fast. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Kind regards,
>>>>>> -- T.Rob
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I have availability! For a good time (with IBM MQ) call:
>>>>>> T.Robert Wyatt, Managing partner
>>>>>> IoPT Consulting, LLC
>>>>>> +1 704-443-TROB (8762) Voice/Text
>>>>>> +44 (0) 8714 089 546  Voice
>>>>>> https://ioptconsulting.com
>>>>>> https://twitter.com/tdotrob
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> From: Julian Ranger 
>>>>>> [mailto:
 
>>>>>> ]
>>>>>> Sent: Friday, March 13, 2015 12:34 PM
>>>>>> To: ProjectVRM list
>>>>>> Subject: [projectvrm] Can I tell you a story ....
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> …. using a pack of cards?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Time for me to tell you all what we’re really up to at digi.me – 
>>>>>> please look at http://digi.me/video
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> We’re over 270K licences out there now, growing fast, and expect some 
>>>>>> major partnerships we have in final stages to take us beyond first 
>>>>>> million this year – moving.  The personal cloud and iOS mobile 
>>>>>> versions mentioned in the video all get released this month; the 
>>>>>> PC/Mac versions have been around for a long time and are now at a true 
>>>>>> V7. Permission Access will be open to select partners this year and to 
>>>>>> the world from mid-2016.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Comments, questions, thoughts all very welcome.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Cheers, Jules
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Julian Ranger
>>>>>> Founder & Chairman, digi.me (formerly SocialSafe)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> http://digi.me – It’s your life
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Mobile: +44 7802 207470
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> @rangerj
>>>>>> uk.linkedin.com/in/julianranger/
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>> Adrian Gropper MD
>>>>>> Ensure Health Information Privacy. Support Patient Privacy Rights.
>>>>>> http://patientprivacyrights.org/donate-2/
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