Project VRM - User contributions [en]

Talk:ListenLog

2009-02-05T22:48:07Z

Iain.Henderson: /* Users Might Object */

===Users Might Object===
Some individuals might perceive the ListenLog as yet another mechanism for aggregating personal attention data that will (or at least could) be used or used indiscriminately by a third party. There are four aspects of this concern, depending on how the LL concept is presented and implemented:
# Knee-jerk negative reaction to the concept of personal/attention data being monitored. This reaction is prior to any consideration as to why and for whom the data might be used.
# Assumption that whenever personal data is captured, it is captured ultimately on behalf of a vendor, even if users are told otherwise. The default assumption is that data is stored and used by the vendor who is in control of the current user experience, e.g. whomever distributes this software application or hosts this website. The assumption might be that it is used by an unwarranted vendor or that if explicit permission is given, the data might be used in an unwarranted fashion (e.g. when you provide your phone number to a vendor who then later uses it to solicit you).
# Concern that even if the data is owned or controlled by users, it might eventually be compromised, e.g. by a malicious 3rd party, oppressive government, legal body, etc. who can tie this data to me. Since we intend to store the data remotely, this might aggravate the concern.
# As a user, why would I choose to do this? Since LL will likely have the ability for individuals to opt-in or opt-out, why would someone choose to collect their own data? What's in it for them? There might be built-in resistance without a compelling use case.

What might we do to address these concerns? Here are some suggestions I propose:
* Clear, careful presentation of the concept. This is unlike anything people will be familiar with and they will likely resist, misunderstand, or compare it to historic privacy violations. A primary emphasis on new, previously unavailable user functionality might be a good approach.
* Store the data somewhere agnostic and other than on the application or vendor servers (I recommend Berkman servers)
* Transmit data securely
* Automatically and by default store all data fully encrypted (i.e. "locked"). As an alternative to opt-in, users would need to "unlock their data" (this action would decrypt it wholesale) in order to get access to functionality or to share the data externally. Users could lock, unlock, and delete all of their data at will. Users could also opt-out of capturing data in the first place.
** Perhaps lock and unlock could apply to different sub-sets of data, e.g. location data
* Don't build any ability to share data into first version
* Focus functional development on a single piece of previously unavailable end-user functionality, e.g. "Search across everything I've ever listened to" to help demonstrate our user-driven intentions
* Encourage additional audio applications/sites/devices to publicly commit to support the ListenLog standard. LL would be significantly more compelling to users if it spans devices/platforms

[[User:Khopper|Khopper]] 15:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Point 2 above is why we formed the Mydex Community Interest Company, a social enterprise; we believe this helps (although does not fully overcome) perceptions that the data is being used for anyone other than the originator. By all means use Mydex in your 'store the data somewhere agnostic' approach if that would be helpful - we can discuss the details. Iain

Talk:R-button

2008-09-12T09:37:22Z

Iain.Henderson:

Let's start a discussion.

[[User:Joe.andrieu|Joe.andrieu]] 17:02, 9 September 2008 (EDT)

FROM: Iain Henderson

Here's my original query from email a couple of weeks back. I'd be delighted to think we can retain the core simplicity, but think so far as the r-button outside of point applications is concerned we'll need to take a sizable step back to gain perspective before writing a detailed functional spec then technical one.

'''My own view, certainly as far as the wider deployment of Relbutton, is that there is a lot of work to do on the functional spec before we get to the technical spec.

I believe it can be made to work if we put enough thought time into it, but in current guise I think it's simplicity (a core virtue) is such that at the organisational end I think it would just bounce off, because it just moves the underlying/ actual complexity elsewhere or ignores it (and they already have ways of dealing with the complexity).

The complexity, as I see it, is that there are many facets of customer-supplier relationships, all of which could be leveraged in visualisation/ automation:

- reason for first use
- longevity
- depth
- breadth
- status (live, dormant, potential etc)
- nature (pay as a you go, account)
- importance (to both parties)

....and many more

If we can find a way of addressing the underlying complexity in ways that mask it then we'd be onto something very powerful.

Thoughts?'''

Iain

Talk:R-button

2008-09-12T07:57:52Z

Iain.Henderson:

Let's start a discussion.

[[User:Joe.andrieu|Joe.andrieu]] 17:02, 9 September 2008 (EDT)

Here's my original query from email a couple of weeks back. I'd be delighted to think we can retain the core simplicity, but think so far as the r-button outside of point applications is concerned we'll need to take a sizable step back to gain perspective before writing a detailed functional spec then technical one.

'''My own view, certainly as far as the wider deployment of Relbutton, is that there is a lot of work to do on the functional spec before we get to the technical spec.

I believe it can be made to work if we put enough thought time into it, but in current guise I think it's simplicity (a core virtue) is such that at the organisational end I think it would just bounce off, because it just moves the underlying/ actual complexity elsewhere or ignores it (and they already have ways of dealing with the complexity).

The complexity, as I see it, is that there are many facets of customer-supplier relationships, all of which could be leveraged in visualisation/ automation:

- reason for first use
- longevity
- depth
- breadth
- status (live, dormant, potential etc)
- nature (pay as a you go, account)
- importance (to both parties)

....and many more

If we can find a way of addressing the underlying complexity in ways that mask it then we'd be onto something very powerful.

Thoughts?'''

Standards Committee Teleconference 2008 08 13

2008-08-14T06:38:41Z

Iain.Henderson: /* Volunteered Personal Information */

==Standards Committee Teleconference Call Notes==
Drafted by Joe Andrieu, August 13, 2008

==Other Calls==
[[Category:Standards Committee Teleconferences]]
[[:Category:Standards Committee Teleconferences]]

==Attendees==
*Joe Andrieu
*Iain Henderson

==Previous Action Items==
# Additional thoughts to one night stand notes to VRM wiki. Eve. By next Wednesday.
# Close loop with and Doc and finalize Oct mtg date. Joe. By next Wednesday.

==Agenda==
#Set Agenda
#Review previous Action Items
#Review Action Items

==Notes==
===Volunteered Personal Information===

This is a meta-layer for all sorts of data types. A general framework. Allows the individual to have their own Privacy Policy, which companies or governments would have to accept IF they wish to access this data.

Within that, you'll have multiple different types of data, each with potentially different policies.

5 or 6 standard policies, ala Creative Commons, human and machine readable.

At least 90 types of data, categories with potentially different types of privacy policy.

Iain sees about a year of a public process to generate a viable specification.

Recent develpments with Markey in US Congress re: Behavioral Data.

Behavioral data is definitely one of the 90 data types... looking at the Trust Index. Currently, the average trust index score today is about 55, but we expect users would require 70 or better. So, companies would need to behave significantly differently in their data handling and use to be allowed to access the VPI.

Trust index is more about compliance--users will still likely have specific requirements.

At the moment the current privacy legislation doesn't go to enough detail.

In a VPI share scenario, the iteration will be more akin to:

"Ok, you wish to access my XXX data, between this date and that date, and you are going to use it for four things and NOT these 23 things."

And there would be both technical parts to enforce these uses and policy parts.

Technical?

Either Higgins/Infocard or Liberty, in terms of access privileges.

A major issue is that once you release the data, you've lost control (with the old paradigm). The Liberty/Infocard/ Higgins technologies can enable seamless use of data with robust access privileges, bound with good policies.

Not traditional media "DRM" in terms of wrapping bits it crypto packets... but looking at a higher level. That said, DRM might be appropriate for very specific data types.

Right now, Iain is buying a new car. There are seven different car companies/dealers that have Iain in their sites, each with a % guess that he is in the market. So, Iain is stuck dealing with the deluge of junk mail, because there isn't a single repository for an authoritative source of his current intention that can release that under his terms.

The technology is really about access, policy, and auditing (APA). NOT about protecting the bits, but about building a framework for compliant access to the bits.

And discovery, machine readability. (Is this inseparable from the APA?)

So, there are two different components: one is about APA, the other is about interoperability so that the different data types can be seamlessly sent from user to and compliant vendor (and vice-versa).

Ultimately, there will be twelve components of the program. Of the twelve questions in the trust index, eight of them are from EU privacy law (which is pretty much the same as Canadian and Australian), and four are from VRM conversation.

How do we avoid the inevitable rabbit holes of debating data formats while establishing the framework?

So we don't need to solve all the data types at first. The CIC will be piloting this stuff from around January 2009. It doesn't need standards. It knows what data to offer up.

We want to make it clear that the APA needs a data-agnostic approach. Ideally, this would be something like MIME attachments for email, where MIME specifies how you attach any kind of data to an email, and the MIME types deal with individual data types and how they are encoded. Similarly, the APA framework deals with how one accesses any kind of data, and APA Datatypes would specify the formats and semantics of particular data.

So, in essence APA is like a VRM Mime Type for volunteer personal information, and Iain already has identified at least 90 APA datatypes.

[NOTE: terminology is all strawman. It made sense during the call, but may not fit long term.]

===CIC will be looking for sponsorship===
Soon, the CIC will be announcing a project to research VPI standard and will be talking with large companies to fund it.

This is separate from the Liberty specification. Liberty is the organizational vehicle for facilitating the creation of this specification.

Working with Liberty/NewOrg will allow access to resources, including personnel and wikis, etc.

SIG Charter draft has been sent to committee members.

Joe says it looks good. "I'll be joining Liberty to support this." I'm a bit concerned about IPR, but we'll work with that.

===User-driven Search===
Search maps are a form of VPI. They would be one of the datatypes.

# File format
# Interactive API (macros)
# Policy Standards (Data Rights Management)

===Future Agenda Topics===
#Discuss the distinctions between a Service Endpoint and a Service Manager.

==Action Items==

==Next Meeting==
[[Standards Committee Teleconference 2008 08 13]]

VRM Workshop 2008

2008-07-12T15:37:50Z

Iain.Henderson: /* Possible Topics */

The first ProjectVRM Workshop (tag [http://technorati.com/tag/vrm2008 vrm2008]) will be hosted by ProjectVRM and the [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu Berkman Center] at Pound Hall at [http://law.harvard.edu Harvard Law School], on Monday-Tuesday 14-15 July. The event will go from 9AM to 5:30 on both days.

The purpose of the workshop is to bring people together and make progress on any number of VRM topics and projects. The workshop will be run as an "unconference" on the open space model, which means session topics will be chosen by participants. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology Here is the Wikipedia page on open space.]

In open space there are no speakers or panels -- just participants, gathered to get work done and enjoy doing it. Participation includes contributing to the [[VRM Workshop 2008]] wiki.

== Registration ==

The workshop is free. You can register through [http://vrmjuly2008workshop.eventbrite.com/ this EventBrite link]. Feel free to also add your name to the [[VRMWorkshop Attendees]] list.

== Schedule ==

=== Sunday ===
'''Non-hosted Dinner'''
* Location: [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&pwst=1&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=changsho+cambridge&spell=1 Changsho Restaurant], on Mass Ave, up the street from Harvard.
* Time: 7:30 (reservation made)
* Attendees (please add your name here if you plan to attend so we can get reservations):
** Keith Hopper
** Iain Henderson
** Doc Searls
** [http://ekive.blogspo.com Mark Scrimshire]
** [http://blog.joeandrieu.com Joe Andrieu]
** Chris Reynolds
** Jan Searls
** Brett McDowell
** Adriana Lukas
** Bart Stevens (TBC)
** Maarten Smolders (TBC)
** Stephen Lewis
** Mary Ruddy
** Rachel Schiff
** Dean Landsman (not 100% certain)
** Luk Vervenne
** Davor Meersman
* Social networking for those who come early at [http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=cambridge+common+restaurant Cambridge Common restaurant & bar], across the street on Massachusetts Avenue.
* For help call Doc's cell: +1-805-705-9666.

=== Monday ===

Room: Pound 101

Morning Refreshments - 8:30

Opening 9-11
* Overview
** Introductory remarks by Doc Searls and Phil Malone (of the Berkman Center and Harvard Law School), and a technology review by Joe Andrieu
** Project reports (5 min each)
* Marketplace of Ideas for specific projects (1.5 min each)
* Personal introductions by everybody

Sessions 11-4:30
* 11-11:30 Agenda Making
* 11:30-11:45 Lunch, which will be brought in
* 11:45 - 12:45 - Session 1
* 1:00-2:00 Session 2
* 2:15-3:15 Session 3
* 3:30-4:30 Session 4

Sessions reporting to the group, 4:30-5:30

In open space workshops, topics are suggested by participants in the Agenda making session, which is attended by everybody. Participants write the title of their topic on a sheet of paper with a bold marker, add their name, then describe the topic to the group and post it on a large "spreadsheet" of times and session locations, a blackboard in the front of Pound 101, which will be our main room.

One person in each session will take notes, either directly (or eventually) on the workshop wiki. At the end of each day somebody from each discussion session will report progress to the group.

7:00PM:
'''Non-hosted Dinner'''
* Location: TBD
* Time: TBD
* Attendees (please add your name here if you plan to attend so we can get reservations):
** [http://blog.joeandrieu.com Joe Andrieu]
** Iain Henderson
** Stephen Lewis
** Bart Stevens
** Maarten Smolders
** [http://twitter.com/ekivemark Mark Scrimshire]
** [http://searls.com Doc Searls]
** Mary Ruddy
** Eve Maler
** Luk Vervenne
** Davor Meersman

=== Tuesday ===

Morning Refreshments - 8:15

Opening group gathering (adding or moving sessions, reports of insights from yesterday) - 8:30-9:00

Sessions: 9am-4pm
* 9:00-10:00 Session 5
* 10:10-11:10 Session 6
* 11:20-12:30 Session 7
* 12:30-1:45 LUNCH - Groups go off to local eateries
* 1:45-2:45 Session 7
* 3:00-4:00 Session 8

Closing session, summarizing both days, personal comments, more - 4:00-5:30

==Space==

We have three classrooms booked, all in Pound Hall. Two rooms have a power outlet at every seat. The third has wall outlets. In each the seating is arranged in a horseshoe shape, so everybody can face everybody else.

If we need additional small session spaces, there are plenty of those out on the lawns and in the halls and public seating areas amongst nearby buildings at the Law School. We'll make room on the session "spreadsheet" for these, so we're ready if the need arises.

== Possible Topics ==

There are many. Here is a list to get us started. Add or subtract whatever you like...

* The Mine! (Adriana Lukas)
* Volunteered Personal Information (Iain Henderson)
* RelButton -- and first use challenge: a biz model for public media (Doc Searls)
* User-driven Search (Joe Andrieu)
* r-cards (Paul Trevithick)
* VRM and health care
* VRM and employability (Luk Vervenne)
* VRM and social web stuff (Kevin Marks)
* VRM standards, policies and practices (Brett McDowell)
* VRM and TiddlyWiki
* VRM + (rather than vs.)CRM (VRM<>CRM dialogue, digital conversations: next step in the maturity cycle?)
* VRM and legal openings, hurdles, models and precedents (Renee Lloyd)
* Trust architecture for securely shared services involving personal information (www.tas3.eu, Luk Vervenne)

== Getting There ==

Pound Hall is located on the Harvard campus at 1563 Massachusetts Avenue, within the Law School. Some resources --

* [http://www.law.harvard.edu/about/contact/images/law_map.jpg Harvard Law map]
* [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=1563+Massachusetts+Avenue,+02138&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=76.482111,100.898438&ie=UTF8&ll=42.378345,-71.120081&spn=0.009019,0.012317&t=h&z=16 Google Maps]
* [http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Getting_to_and_around_Cambridge Wikimania on Cambridge]

Parking is a hassle, so we highly recommend taking public transportation. Fortunately, the Boston Area has some of the best public transportation in the U.S. The Harvard Campus is adjacent to Harvard Square, which is a stop on the Red Line of the "T", Boston's subway system. The Red Line is the best of all the "T" lines. Trains roll through every stop only few minutes apart, and the trains are fast. If you can find accommodations near a Red Line stop, you'll be in great shape. Cambridge area stops are Alewife, Davis, Porter, Harvard, Central and Kendall. In Boston the near ones are Charles/MGH, Park, Government Center and South Station.

Getting to Pound Hall:

From the Harvard "T" station go up the stairs to "Church Street." At the top of the stairs, turn right to walk across Church (and past the church itself), then up "Mass Ave" past Cambridge Common (the large park on the left). At the next light (Waterhouse Street), cross over to the Harvard side of Mass Ave, then turn left to continue north. Pound Hall will come up on your right, just before a big construction project. A granite sign says "HARRVARD LAW SCHOOL." Look for the workshop in the center of the ground floor. If you walk fast you can make it in 5 minutes from the "T".

== Participation over the Net ==

We won't be streaming any of the sessions in a formal way, but some participants plan to do streaming anyway. When they do, we'll post information about that on the Workshop's wiki page.

We will also be running an IRC channel via Freenode, at #VRM.

VRM Workshop 2008

2008-07-08T18:17:22Z

Iain.Henderson: /* Monday */

The first ProjectVRM Workshop (tag [http://technorati.com/tag/vrm2008 vrm2008]) will be hosted by ProjectVRM and the [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu Berkman Center] at Pound Hall at [http://law.harvard.edu Harvard Law School], on Monday-Tuesday 14-15 July. The event will go from 9AM to 5:30 on both days.

The purpose of the workshop is to bring people together and make progress on any number of VRM topics and projects. The workshop will be run as an "unconference" on the open space model, which means session topics will be chosen by participants. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology Here is the Wikipedia page on open space.]

In open space there are no speakers or panels: only facilitation with no agenda beyond helping participants make progress on their topics.

== Registration ==

The workshop is free. You can register through [http://vrmjuly2008workshop.eventbrite.com/ this EventBrite link]. Feel free to also add your name to the [[VRMWorkshop Attendees]] list.

== Proposed Schedule ==

=== Sunday ===
'''Non-hosted Dinner'''
* Location: TBD
* Time: (somewhere close to Harvard would be good, neither Adriana will have a car - Iain)
* Attendees (please add your name here if you plan to attend so we can get reservations):
** Keith Hopper
** Iain Henderson
** Doc Searls
** Mark Scrimshire (tentative)
** [http://blog.joeandrieu.com Joe Andrieu]
** Chris Reynolds
** Brett McDowell
** Adriana Lukas

=== Monday ===

9AM to 5:30PM

After opening remarks, we'll each introduce ourselves to the group. After that we will have short briefings by people working on VRM projects. These briefings are required by the purpose of the workshop: to move VRM projects forward. We plan to keep these briefings under 5 minutes apiece, though some may go a bit longer. There is a lot of parallel work being done already with VRM, not just on specific projects but also in committees and conversations around various hot topics. It is essential that we get to know a few basics about who's doing what before we break off into the workshop discussions.

In open space workshops, topics are suggested by participants in an opening session attended by everybody. Participants write the title of their topic on a sheet of paper with a bold marker, add their name, then describe the topic to the group and post it on a large "spreadsheet" of times and session locations, located on a wall for everybody to see. Once up, these sessions can be combined or moved around as the sheet fills up.

One person in each session will take notes, either directly (or eventually) on the workshop wiki. At the end of each day somebody from each discussion session will report progress to the group.

7:00PM:
'''Non-hosted Dinner'''
* Location: TBD
* Time: TBD
* Attendees (please add your name here if you plan to attend so we can get reservations):
** [http://blog.joeandrieu.com Joe Andrieu]
** Iain Henderson

=== Tuesday ===

9:00am-9:30am Opening and Agenda Making -- same as in Day 1

9:30am-4:00pm: Sessions

4:00-5:30pm:

Closing - Reports from all discussions, listing of Action Items and community conversation about what is next for various VRM projects

==Space==

We have three classrooms booked. All have a power outlet at every seat, and seating is arranged in a horseshoe shape, so everybody can face everybody else. (We'll also put details here for wi-fi connecting as well. Some advance work is required there.)

If we need additional small session spaces, there are plenty of those out on the lawns and in the halls and public seating areas amongst nearby buildings at the Law School. We'll make room on the session "spreadsheet" for these, so we're ready if the need arises.

As the workshop approaches, we encourage people working on projects to get ahead of the workshop curve by sharing some of their work with the ProjectVRM list and on their own blogs.

== Possible Topics ==

There are many. Here is a list to get us started. Add or subtract whatever you like...

* The Mine! (Adriana Lukas)
* Personal Address Manager (Iain Henderson)
* RelButton -- and first use challenge: a biz model for public media (Doc Searls)
* User-driven Search (Joe Andrieu)
* r-cards (Paul Trevithick)
* VRM and health care
* VRM and social web stuff (Kevin Marks)
* VRM standards, policies and practices (Brett McDowell)
* VRM and TiddlyWiki
* VRM + (rather than vs.) CRM
* VRM and legal openings, hurdles, models and precedents (Renee Lloyd)

== Getting There ==

Pound Hall is located on the Harvard campus at 1563 Massachusetts Avenue, within the Law School. Some resources --

* [http://www.law.harvard.edu/about/contact/images/law_map.jpg Harvard Law map]
* [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=1563+Massachusetts+Avenue,+02138&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=76.482111,100.898438&ie=UTF8&ll=42.378345,-71.120081&spn=0.009019,0.012317&t=h&z=16 Google Maps]
* [http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Getting_to_and_around_Cambridge Wikimania on Cambridge]

Parking is a hassle, so we highly recommend taking public transportation. Fortunately, the Boston Area has some of the best public transportation in the U.S. The Harvard Campus is adjacent to Harvard Square, which is a stop on the Red Line of the "T", Boston's subway system. The Red Line is the best of all the "T" lines. Trains roll through every stop only few minutes apart, and the trains are fast. If you can find accommodations near a Red Line stop, you'll be in great shape. Cambridge area stops are Alewife, Davis, Porter, Harvard, Central and Kendall. In Boston the near ones are Charles/MGH, Park, Government Center and South Station.

Getting to Pound Hall:

From the Harvard "T" station go up the stairs to "Church Street." At the top of the stairs, turn right to walk across Church (and past the church itself), then up "Mass Ave" past Cambridge Common (which will be on the left). Cross over to the Harvard side of Mass Ave at Waterhouse Street, then turn left to continue north on Mass Ave. The first Harvard building on your right (just before a big construction project) is Pound Hall. Look for us in the center of the ground floor. If you walk fast you can make it in 5 minutes from the "T".

VRM Workshop 2008

2008-07-08T18:14:14Z

Iain.Henderson: /* Sunday */

The first ProjectVRM Workshop (tag [http://technorati.com/tag/vrm2008 vrm2008]) will be hosted by ProjectVRM and the [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu Berkman Center] at Pound Hall at [http://law.harvard.edu Harvard Law School], on Monday-Tuesday 14-15 July. The event will go from 9AM to 5:30 on both days.

The purpose of the workshop is to bring people together and make progress on any number of VRM topics and projects. The workshop will be run as an "unconference" on the open space model, which means session topics will be chosen by participants. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology Here is the Wikipedia page on open space.]

In open space there are no speakers or panels: only facilitation with no agenda beyond helping participants make progress on their topics.

== Registration ==

The workshop is free. You can register through [http://vrmjuly2008workshop.eventbrite.com/ this EventBrite link]. Feel free to also add your name to the [[VRMWorkshop Attendees]] list.

== Proposed Schedule ==

=== Sunday ===
'''Non-hosted Dinner'''
* Location: TBD
* Time: (somewhere close to Harvard would be good, neither Adriana will have a car - Iain)
* Attendees (please add your name here if you plan to attend so we can get reservations):
** Keith Hopper
** Iain Henderson
** Doc Searls
** Mark Scrimshire (tentative)
** [http://blog.joeandrieu.com Joe Andrieu]
** Chris Reynolds
** Brett McDowell
** Adriana Lukas

=== Monday ===

9AM to 5:30PM

After opening remarks, we'll each introduce ourselves to the group. After that we will have short briefings by people working on VRM projects. These briefings are required by the purpose of the workshop: to move VRM projects forward. We plan to keep these briefings under 5 minutes apiece, though some may go a bit longer. There is a lot of parallel work being done already with VRM, not just on specific projects but also in committees and conversations around various hot topics. It is essential that we get to know a few basics about who's doing what before we break off into the workshop discussions.

In open space workshops, topics are suggested by participants in an opening session attended by everybody. Participants write the title of their topic on a sheet of paper with a bold marker, add their name, then describe the topic to the group and post it on a large "spreadsheet" of times and session locations, located on a wall for everybody to see. Once up, these sessions can be combined or moved around as the sheet fills up.

One person in each session will take notes, either directly (or eventually) on the workshop wiki. At the end of each day somebody from each discussion session will report progress to the group.

7:00PM:
'''Non-hosted Dinner'''
* Location: TBD
* Time: TBD
* Attendees (please add your name here if you plan to attend so we can get reservations):
** [http://blog.joeandrieu.com Joe Andrieu]

=== Tuesday ===

9:00am-9:30am Opening and Agenda Making -- same as in Day 1

9:30am-4:00pm: Sessions

4:00-5:30pm:

Closing - Reports from all discussions, listing of Action Items and community conversation about what is next for various VRM projects

==Space==

We have three classrooms booked. All have a power outlet at every seat, and seating is arranged in a horseshoe shape, so everybody can face everybody else. (We'll also put details here for wi-fi connecting as well. Some advance work is required there.)

If we need additional small session spaces, there are plenty of those out on the lawns and in the halls and public seating areas amongst nearby buildings at the Law School. We'll make room on the session "spreadsheet" for these, so we're ready if the need arises.

As the workshop approaches, we encourage people working on projects to get ahead of the workshop curve by sharing some of their work with the ProjectVRM list and on their own blogs.

== Possible Topics ==

There are many. Here is a list to get us started. Add or subtract whatever you like...

* The Mine! (Adriana Lukas)
* Personal Address Manager (Iain Henderson)
* RelButton -- and first use challenge: a biz model for public media (Doc Searls)
* User-driven Search (Joe Andrieu)
* r-cards (Paul Trevithick)
* VRM and health care
* VRM and social web stuff (Kevin Marks)
* VRM standards, policies and practices (Brett McDowell)
* VRM and TiddlyWiki
* VRM + (rather than vs.) CRM
* VRM and legal openings, hurdles, models and precedents (Renee Lloyd)

== Getting There ==

Pound Hall is located on the Harvard campus at 1563 Massachusetts Avenue, within the Law School. Some resources --

* [http://www.law.harvard.edu/about/contact/images/law_map.jpg Harvard Law map]
* [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=1563+Massachusetts+Avenue,+02138&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=76.482111,100.898438&ie=UTF8&ll=42.378345,-71.120081&spn=0.009019,0.012317&t=h&z=16 Google Maps]
* [http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Getting_to_and_around_Cambridge Wikimania on Cambridge]

Parking is a hassle, so we highly recommend taking public transportation. Fortunately, the Boston Area has some of the best public transportation in the U.S. The Harvard Campus is adjacent to Harvard Square, which is a stop on the Red Line of the "T", Boston's subway system. The Red Line is the best of all the "T" lines. Trains roll through every stop only few minutes apart, and the trains are fast. If you can find accommodations near a Red Line stop, you'll be in great shape. Cambridge area stops are Alewife, Davis, Porter, Harvard, Central and Kendall. In Boston the near ones are Charles/MGH, Park, Government Center and South Station.

Getting to Pound Hall:

From the Harvard "T" station go up the stairs to "Church Street." At the top of the stairs, turn right to walk across Church (and past the church itself), then up "Mass Ave" past Cambridge Common (which will be on the left). Cross over to the Harvard side of Mass Ave at Waterhouse Street, then turn left to continue north on Mass Ave. The first Harvard building on your right (just before a big construction project) is Pound Hall. Look for us in the center of the ground floor. If you walk fast you can make it in 5 minutes from the "T".

VRM Workshop 2008

2008-06-21T17:14:32Z

Iain.Henderson: /* Sunday */

The first ProjectVRM Workshop (tag [http://technorati.com/tag/pvrmw2008a pvrmw2008a] alternative tag [http://technorati.com/tag/VRMworkshop2008 VRMworkshop2008] [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/talk:VRM_Workshop discuss?]) will be hosted by ProjectVRM and the [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu Berkman Center], here at [http://harvard.edu Harvard University], on Monday-Tuesday 14-15 July. The event will go from 9AM to 5:30 on Monday and 8:30-5:30 on Tuesday.

This VRM workshop is posed as the first at which the VRM conversation spins off from incubation from within the [http://iiw.idcommons.net/index.php/Main_Page IIW Internet Identity Workshops], an outstanding and highly productive workshop that has been happening twice a year since Fall 2005. There is a tradition of "user-generated" conference that Dave Winer began at Harvard with BloggerCon in 2003

== Registration ==
FREE REGISTRATION is on EVENTBRITE (opening shortly - you must register to attend so lunch and space can be planned, etc.)

== Proposed Schedule ==

=== Sunday ===
Non-hosted Dinner

Location: TBD

Time: TBD

Attendees (please add your name here if you plan to attend so we can get reservations):
* Keith Hopper
* Iain Henderson

=== Monday ===
9:00 SHARP

Opening VRM 101 (this will be several different people including Doc giving the context and opening)

10:30 - 11:00

Group orientation who is here (we will figure out exactly what we are doing at some later date) some kind of conversation amongst the participants getting people to share something about them why they are here.

11:00-11:20

Break

11:20-12:00

Agenda Making

12:00-12:15

Lunch pick up and moving into breakouts

3 or 4 Sessions in the afternoon (we will figure out the exact number and timing once we know the room layout and some other thing like where/how lunch will be served)

4:45-5:30

group closing

7:00

No host dinner.

=== Tuesday ===
8:30-9:00

Opening and Agenda Making

9-12

3 sessions
12-1

Lunch
1-4

3 Sessions

4-5:30

Closing - really covering wall of results, Action Items and a community conversation about what is next for the VRM Project)

(Maybe we only do 2 in the afternoon and have a longer conversation for closing or ending it a bit earlier)

== Proposed Topics ==
The rest of the conference will have an agenda created live to move the work forward. We see this range of topics being covered (Feel free to suggest topics that you want to discuss or want others to talk about):

* topic 1
* topic 2
* topic 3

Feel free to also add your name to the [[VRMWorkshop Attendees]]

[[Logistics Information]]

VRM vision

2008-04-20T19:13:04Z

Iain.Henderson: /* Problems With CRM */

VRM, or Vendor Relationship Management, is the reciprocal of CRM or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_Relationship_Management Customer Relationship Management]. VRM describes a set of tools, technologies and services that help individuals go to market and manage relationships with vendors. In turn, vendors aligning themselves to these tools, technologies and services have the opportunity to build better relationships with their customers.

The goal of VRM is to improve the relationship between Demand and Supply by providing new and better ways for the former to relate to the latter. In a larger sense, VRM immodestly intends to improve markets and their mechanisms by equipping customers to be independent leaders and not just captive followers in their relationships with vendors and other parties on the supply side of the marketplace.

== History ==
CRM systems for the duration have borne the full burden of relating with customers. VRM will provide customers with the means to bear some of that weight, and to help make markets work for ''both'' vendors and customers  in ways that don't require the former to "lock in" the latter.

* Where name came from
* Where idea came from (relationship with the Cluetrain Manifesto)
** Core concepts & shifting landscape: Internet increasing alienation between consumer and vendor, etc.
* How VRM has helped leverage (and tries to see ahead of) ideas being worked on in the identity space, etc.

=== Problems With CRM ===
* Don't get me started!....

CRM, as originally envisaged, was a reasonably attractive sounding proposition to the end customer...Organisations were going to build more complete views of their customers across the many touchpoints and, through investing in 'front office software', cultural change, and integrated processes across marketing, sales and service present a more informed, joined up view of themselves that customer's would find it easier/ more rewarding to deal with.

However, more often than not, organisations under-estimated how much it would cost for the cultural change aspect....or decided (wrongly) that they could do without that bit. Many also tended to focus more on the cost saving potential of the new technologies than the relationship improvement possibilities. But one 'structural problem has emerged to surpass the many tactical issues with the vision or how it was deployed......it is impossible for any one organisation to build a comprehensive view of their customer. Some, with much effort, can build a complete view of THEIR OWN relationship with a customer; but they are largely unaware of the many other supply relationships that individuals must maintain (over 100 would not be unusual).

Only the individual, when given access to the necessary tools and processes, can build anything approaching a complete view of their supply requirements.

== Project VRM ==
* Berkman Center - Steering Committee
* Doc Searls, Champion
* Objectives

== Challenges for VRM ==
For VRM to work, vendors must have reason to value it, and customers must have reasons to invest the necessary time, effort and attention to making it work. Providing those reasons to both sides is the primary challenge for VRM.
* Iconoclastic anti-vendor perception
* Need killer apps

== VRM Capabilities & Standards ==

The following are generic capabilities that we see as at least some of the capabilities that will emerge to enable and empower VRM.

'''Personal Data Store(s)'''

A generic term to cover a multitude of different and often connected services that help individuals gather, store, protect, analyze, share and use information to help them make better decisions and achieve their goals more efficiently and effectively.

Personal Data Stores help individuals manage the seven core information management processes:

- Data gathering

- Data storage

- Data analytics

- Data protection and security, including identity and data validation

- Data access

- Data volunteering/input/publishing

- Data sharing

As Personal Data Stores gain critical mass they will become individualsâ first port of call when wanting to make decisions, including going to market. They will become the means by which individuals plan, administer and organize many aspects of their daily lives. They will act as the pivotal, central interface between individuals and organizations; the means and channel by which individuals choose to conduct their interactions and transactions with service providers.

Using Personal Data Stores, individuals are able to pull together their own personal databases (potentially delegating to an agent under their control) encompassing all the important aspects of their lives, including:

- administrative records and details

- contact databases: friends, family, colleagues etc

- transaction histories: products and services purchases, etc

- interaction histories: records of correspondence

- supplier data such as 'my doctor', 'my plumber', etc

- plans for life projects (trips, moving home etc)

- personal preferences e.g. 'favored' brands and organizations vs 'blacklisted' brands and organizations

- information gathered and collected to help inform decisions and actions about all the above.

These data areas may cover all the main life 'departments' such as home, health, money, general administration, transport, communications, career, social network, leisure and hobbies, etc.
Over time, Personal Data Stores will become the fulcrum of 'life management', including individuals' interactions and transactions with supplying and service organizations.

'''Personal Data Analytics'''

As individuals hold more and more data about themselves and their activities on their own databases (see Personal Data Stores) the more able they are to mine and analyze this data to generate the insights they need to make better decisions.

Personal data analytics adds value for users by:

- helping them track trends such as personal spending, calorie intake, household energy usage, car mileage, etc, etc. This could take the form of an 'annual audit' or of ongoing, bespoke or one off analytical projects

- using 'people like you' comparisons to highlight areas where their resources could be better managed

Individuals (or households) may recognize needs for consultants or services to help manage the personal data, or to interpret and maximize the data for their betterment.

'''Request for Proposal (RFP)'''

A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a message sent from an individual to a company, set of companies or market (in this case, think of using a space on the net as the "public location" or publishing base), declaring and defining a need they want to be met.

RFPs form an engagement where customers declare their needs/requirements/specifications and Vendors can respond with their offer/price/terms. This creates an environment where the consumer is given a voice and a say in the product or solution, as opposed to accepting a solution that, by it's very nature, is advantageous to the vendor.

RFPs can take many forms:

- 'one-to-one', where a named individual sends his request directly to one or more named companies

- aggregated, where many different individuals' requests are collated and passed on to companies by an intermediary. Companies then respond to these RFPs either on an individual or collective basis.

- anonymized one-to-one or aggregated, where an intermediary informs a company or set of companies that there is this number of people seeking out this particular product or service, but where the companies concerned cannot have access to their names and addresses and have to deal with these individuals via the intermediary service (until a transaction is closed).

- RFPs can range from simple commodity requests (e.g. motor insurance renewal) through to complex specifications for products or services that do not even exist yet.

'''Permissions Management'''

'Permission marketing' as currently practiced is a joke. Marketers work hard to get 'permission' to communicate from the customer, and once the customer gives 'permission' the floodgates of spam are open. Future permissions are compromised by this process. Real and specific permissions with no hidden agenda or ulterior motives are necessary for success and for trust.

True Permissions management puts the individual in control â allowing the individual to specify terms and conditions and 'rules of engagement', and to maintain control over these rules of engagement -and access (e-mail, et al) at will.

Permissions management revolves around two main areas of relevance, which increase trust and effective two-way communication: receiving information and releasing information on a timely and relevant basis. Controlling the timing and the gateway, so, for example, the "new car buyer" is not barraged with car offers for years after the purchase of a new vehicle

Receiving information

Here the individual is able to specify what messages he wishes to receive from suppliers, about what, when and how.
For example, he may be planning to buy a new car in June and go on holiday in December. He therefore specifies his willingness to receive messages about new cars, in this price bracket, from these brands, in the months of April and May. Likewise, for his holiday planning: skiing not trekking, etc. (see Reverse Messaging)

At the same time, he might signal a general willingness to receive messages all year round about golf, but only from these named suppliers.

Releasing information

Over the coming years individuals will collect increasing amounts of rich personal information in their Personal Data Stores. Many organizations will be keen to gain access to various fields of this data for various purposes including marketing, research and innovation.

Permissions management will allow individuals to choose what data to release to which people (or vendors, organizations, datastores, et al), for what purposes, on what terms and conditions. For example, the individual may want to release information to:

- health researchers about certain aspects of medical history and lifestyle, on an anonymous basis, for free, for the purposes of cancer research

- details about current inventory of hardware and software to a specialist retailer/reseller, on a named but once-only use basis, for the purposes of advice on solving a computing problem and making the next best purchase

- details about brand preferences on an anonymous basis, to marketing companies, in return for a fee

'''Power of attorney services'''

There are many aspects of managing a household or a supply relationship that are tedious, time-consuming and non-value adding: renewing insurances, for example. As a result many buyers 'make do' with deals that are far from best value, just because the hassle of doing something about it so high.

With power of attorney services, individuals give agents permission to act on their behalf, within certain parameters, without the need for detailed, specific negotiation or even authorization. For example, in the case of insurance renewals, the individual may give power of attorney to the agent to sweep the market for best prices for insurance contracts with no worse terms of cover, one month before the contract is due to come to an end. The attorney service may then presents the individual with the top three choices. It may even go ahead to close the deal: all the individual then has to do is sign on the dotted line and authorize payment.

The insurance renewal example is pretty trivial, but the concept can be extended to many other areas of life including travel and transport (e.g. flight and hotel booking), home (security, maintenance and repair, etc), finances ('if savings or debt reach this level, then do that'), health, etc. This can also be applied on small-business, corporate basis, creating a VRM connection point into the enterprise.

'''Problem Solving Communities (PSCs)'''

Before finally making a purchase or carrying out a decision, most individuals need to answer a long series of questions satisfactorily These may include:

- what are the available options?

- what things do I need to do achieve my desired outcome?

- how to do x or y?

- what are the hidden pitfalls that I ought to be aware of?

- who can I trust?

- which is better for somebody in my circumstances, option A or option B?

Often, our inability to answer such questions satisfactorily is the cause of great anxiety, of mistakes (bad decisions), or simple inaction ('given that I can't answer this question, I won't go any further'). Yet, currently, there are very few sources of trustworthy, expert, customized advice that ordinary individuals can afford.

Problem Solving Communities help individuals overcome this problem by collecting the answers other people have discovered and making them available to the individual, thereby helping him avoid the need to reinvent the wheel. By answering the questions users ask â and storing the answers for re-use the next time somebody asks the same question â VRM as a process then brings economies of scale to personal decision making.
If it costs $100 to research and formulate a good answer to a certain question and the answer is used only once, then it adds $100 to the cost of the product or service (or solution) in question. However, if the same answer is used 1000 times over, the unit cost of the answer falls from $100 to $0.1: a productivity boost of 99.9%.

'''Personal Scenario Planning/Event Management'''

There are many events in our lives which we never encounter enough times for us to become expert at handling them: getting married or divorced, moving home, organizing a trip round the world, coping with the death of partner, coping with a life threatening illness or accident, etc.

Scenario Planning identifies (as best as it can) 'best practices' or at least, 'things you should think about', 'pitfalls to watch out for', 'the main steps of the process'.

For example, if you are getting married, the planning service will help you remember and consider all the things you need to organize such as venue, ceremony details, invites, catering, travel and transport, honeymoon, wedding attire, wedding presents, etc. etc.

At this level, it is a pretty generic advice service. At the next level it begins to drill down into the detail: what sorts of venues do you want and where, how much do they cost, are they available on the date in question, what are the necessary travel arrangements? Etc. This next level of detail therefore includes a wide range of information from and about suppliers, p2p reviews, etc.
The third level involves the provision of specific tools and services to help individuals actually implement their resulting decisions: book the venue, arrange the catering, send out the invitations etc.
Scenario Planning services are therefore likely to use many other person-centric services (such as Requests for Proposal and Problem Solving Communities) as modules of a broader, more integrated service that focuses on a specific problem.

'''Reverse Messaging/Attention marketing'''

Reverse messaging is a 'light' form of Request for Proposal/Permissions Management. Under Reverse Messaging individuals signal their willingness/wish to receive messages about specific items/brands at specific times. A reverse message says 'I am currently in the market for a ... new credit card/lawnmower/washing machine ... and I am willing to receive messages from suppliers of these items'. In most cases, these reverse messages are collated and aggregated by intermediaries who sell them on to suppliers as leads. A key part of this service is the user's ability to turn messages on and off ('I am no longer interested in offers about credit cards'). Users may also specify e-mail or IM addresses which have a life span designated and controlled by the user.

== Related Initiatives ==
=== Internet Identity ===
=== Data Portability ===
=== Relationship Cards ===

== VRM Example Uses ==
List practical, leading examples of best proposed uses for VRM. Link to Use Cases (if any)
* Personal Address Manager

== VRM Companies ==
Companies, sellers, vendors all may have existing examples of VRM. Please post them here.

== Additional Links ==
* [[VRM FAQ]]

VRM vision

2008-04-20T11:11:28Z

Iain.Henderson: /* VRM Capabilities & Standards */

VRM, or Vendor Relationship Management, is the reciprocal of CRM or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_Relationship_Management Customer Relationship Management]. VRM describes a set of tools, technologies and services that help individuals go to market and manage relationships with vendors. In turn, vendors aligning themselves to these tools, technologies and services have the opportunity to build better relationships with their customers.

The goal of VRM is to improve the relationship between Demand and Supply by providing new and better ways for the former to relate to the latter. In a larger sense, VRM immodestly intends to improve markets and their mechanisms by equipping customers to be independent leaders and not just captive followers in their relationships with vendors and other parties on the supply side of the marketplace.

== History ==
CRM systems for the duration have borne the full burden of relating with customers. VRM will provide customers with the means to bear some of that weight, and to help make markets work for ''both'' vendors and customers  in ways that don't require the former to "lock in" the latter.

* Where name came from
* Where idea came from (relationship with the Cluetrain Manifesto)
** Core concepts & shifting landscape: Internet increasing alienation between consumer and vendor, etc.
* How VRM has helped leverage (and tries to see ahead of) ideas being worked on in the identity space, etc.

=== Problems With CRM ===
* Don't get me started!

== Project VRM ==
* Berkman Center - Steering Committee
* Doc Searls, Champion
* Objectives

== Challenges for VRM ==
For VRM to work, vendors must have reason to value it, and customers must have reasons to invest the necessary time, effort and attention to making it work. Providing those reasons to both sides is the primary challenge for VRM.
* Iconoclastic anti-vendor perception
* Need killer apps

== VRM Capabilities & Standards ==

The following are generic capabilities that we see as at least some of the capabilities that will emerge to enable and empower VRM.

'''Personal Data Store(s)'''

A generic term to cover a multitude of different and often connected services that help individuals gather, store, protect, analyze, share and use information to help them make better decisions and achieve their goals more efficiently and effectively.

Personal Data Stores help individuals manage the seven core information management processes:

- Data gathering

- Data storage

- Data analytics

- Data protection and security, including identity and data validation

- Data access

- Data volunteering/input/publishing

- Data sharing

As Personal Data Stores gain critical mass they will become individualsâ first port of call when wanting to make decisions, including going to market. They will become the means by which individuals plan, administer and organize many aspects of their daily lives. They will act as the pivotal, central interface between individuals and organizations; the means and channel by which individuals choose to conduct their interactions and transactions with service providers.

Using Personal Data Stores, individuals are able to pull together their own personal databases (potentially delegating to an agent under their control) encompassing all the important aspects of their lives, including:

- administrative records and details

- contact databases: friends, family, colleagues etc

- transaction histories: products and services purchases, etc

- interaction histories: records of correspondence

- supplier data such as 'my doctor', 'my plumber', etc

- plans for life projects (trips, moving home etc)

- personal preferences e.g. 'favored' brands and organizations vs 'blacklisted' brands and organizations

- information gathered and collected to help inform decisions and actions about all the above.

These data areas may cover all the main life 'departments' such as home, health, money, general administration, transport, communications, career, social network, leisure and hobbies, etc.
Over time, Personal Data Stores will become the fulcrum of 'life management', including individuals' interactions and transactions with supplying and service organizations.

'''Personal Data Analytics'''

As individuals hold more and more data about themselves and their activities on their own databases (see Personal Data Stores) the more able they are to mine and analyze this data to generate the insights they need to make better decisions.

Personal data analytics adds value for users by:

- helping them track trends such as personal spending, calorie intake, household energy usage, car mileage, etc, etc. This could take the form of an 'annual audit' or of ongoing, bespoke or one off analytical projects

- using 'people like you' comparisons to highlight areas where their resources could be better managed

Individuals (or households) may recognize needs for consultants or services to help manage the personal data, or to interpret and maximize the data for their betterment.

'''Request for Proposal (RFP)'''

A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a message sent from an individual to a company, set of companies or market (in this case, think of using a space on the net as the "public location" or publishing base), declaring and defining a need they want to be met.

RFPs form an engagement where customers declare their needs/requirements/specifications and Vendors can respond with their offer/price/terms. This creates an environment where the consumer is given a voice and a say in the product or solution, as opposed to accepting a solution that, by it's very nature, is advantageous to the vendor.

RFPs can take many forms:

- 'one-to-one', where a named individual sends his request directly to one or more named companies

- aggregated, where many different individuals' requests are collated and passed on to companies by an intermediary. Companies then respond to these RFPs either on an individual or collective basis.

- anonymized one-to-one or aggregated, where an intermediary informs a company or set of companies that there is this number of people seeking out this particular product or service, but where the companies concerned cannot have access to their names and addresses and have to deal with these individuals via the intermediary service (until a transaction is closed).

- RFPs can range from simple commodity requests (e.g. motor insurance renewal) through to complex specifications for products or services that do not even exist yet.

'''Permissions Management'''

'Permission marketing' as currently practiced is a joke. Marketers work hard to get 'permission' to communicate from the customer, and once the customer gives 'permission' the floodgates of spam are open. Future permissions are compromised by this process. Real and specific permissions with no hidden agenda or ulterior motives are necessary for success and for trust.

True Permissions management puts the individual in control â allowing the individual to specify terms and conditions and 'rules of engagement', and to maintain control over these rules of engagement -and access (e-mail, et al) at will.

Permissions management revolves around two main areas of relevance, which increase trust and effective two-way communication: receiving information and releasing information on a timely and relevant basis. Controlling the timing and the gateway, so, for example, the "new car buyer" is not barraged with car offers for years after the purchase of a new vehicle

Receiving information

Here the individual is able to specify what messages he wishes to receive from suppliers, about what, when and how.
For example, he may be planning to buy a new car in June and go on holiday in December. He therefore specifies his willingness to receive messages about new cars, in this price bracket, from these brands, in the months of April and May. Likewise, for his holiday planning: skiing not trekking, etc. (see Reverse Messaging)

At the same time, he might signal a general willingness to receive messages all year round about golf, but only from these named suppliers.

Releasing information

Over the coming years individuals will collect increasing amounts of rich personal information in their Personal Data Stores. Many organizations will be keen to gain access to various fields of this data for various purposes including marketing, research and innovation.

Permissions management will allow individuals to choose what data to release to which people (or vendors, organizations, datastores, et al), for what purposes, on what terms and conditions. For example, the individual may want to release information to:

- health researchers about certain aspects of medical history and lifestyle, on an anonymous basis, for free, for the purposes of cancer research

- details about current inventory of hardware and software to a specialist retailer/reseller, on a named but once-only use basis, for the purposes of advice on solving a computing problem and making the next best purchase

- details about brand preferences on an anonymous basis, to marketing companies, in return for a fee

'''Power of attorney services'''

There are many aspects of managing a household or a supply relationship that are tedious, time-consuming and non-value adding: renewing insurances, for example. As a result many buyers 'make do' with deals that are far from best value, just because the hassle of doing something about it so high.

With power of attorney services, individuals give agents permission to act on their behalf, within certain parameters, without the need for detailed, specific negotiation or even authorization. For example, in the case of insurance renewals, the individual may give power of attorney to the agent to sweep the market for best prices for insurance contracts with no worse terms of cover, one month before the contract is due to come to an end. The attorney service may then presents the individual with the top three choices. It may even go ahead to close the deal: all the individual then has to do is sign on the dotted line and authorize payment.

The insurance renewal example is pretty trivial, but the concept can be extended to many other areas of life including travel and transport (e.g. flight and hotel booking), home (security, maintenance and repair, etc), finances ('if savings or debt reach this level, then do that'), health, etc. This can also be applied on small-business, corporate basis, creating a VRM connection point into the enterprise.

'''Problem Solving Communities (PSCs)'''

Before finally making a purchase or carrying out a decision, most individuals need to answer a long series of questions satisfactorily These may include:

- what are the available options?

- what things do I need to do achieve my desired outcome?

- how to do x or y?

- what are the hidden pitfalls that I ought to be aware of?

- who can I trust?

- which is better for somebody in my circumstances, option A or option B?

Often, our inability to answer such questions satisfactorily is the cause of great anxiety, of mistakes (bad decisions), or simple inaction ('given that I can't answer this question, I won't go any further'). Yet, currently, there are very few sources of trustworthy, expert, customized advice that ordinary individuals can afford.

Problem Solving Communities help individuals overcome this problem by collecting the answers other people have discovered and making them available to the individual, thereby helping him avoid the need to reinvent the wheel. By answering the questions users ask â and storing the answers for re-use the next time somebody asks the same question â VRM as a process then brings economies of scale to personal decision making.
If it costs $100 to research and formulate a good answer to a certain question and the answer is used only once, then it adds $100 to the cost of the product or service (or solution) in question. However, if the same answer is used 1000 times over, the unit cost of the answer falls from $100 to $0.1: a productivity boost of 99.9%.

'''Personal Scenario Planning/Event Management'''

There are many events in our lives which we never encounter enough times for us to become expert at handling them: getting married or divorced, moving home, organizing a trip round the world, coping with the death of partner, coping with a life threatening illness or accident, etc.

Scenario Planning identifies (as best as it can) 'best practices' or at least, 'things you should think about', 'pitfalls to watch out for', 'the main steps of the process'.

For example, if you are getting married, the planning service will help you remember and consider all the things you need to organize such as venue, ceremony details, invites, catering, travel and transport, honeymoon, wedding attire, wedding presents, etc. etc.

At this level, it is a pretty generic advice service. At the next level it begins to drill down into the detail: what sorts of venues do you want and where, how much do they cost, are they available on the date in question, what are the necessary travel arrangements? Etc. This next level of detail therefore includes a wide range of information from and about suppliers, p2p reviews, etc.
The third level involves the provision of specific tools and services to help individuals actually implement their resulting decisions: book the venue, arrange the catering, send out the invitations etc.
Scenario Planning services are therefore likely to use many other person-centric services (such as Requests for Proposal and Problem Solving Communities) as modules of a broader, more integrated service that focuses on a specific problem.

'''Reverse Messaging/Attention marketing'''

Reverse messaging is a 'light' form of Request for Proposal/Permissions Management. Under Reverse Messaging individuals signal their willingness/wish to receive messages about specific items/brands at specific times. A reverse message says 'I am currently in the market for a ... new credit card/lawnmower/washing machine ... and I am willing to receive messages from suppliers of these items'. In most cases, these reverse messages are collated and aggregated by intermediaries who sell them on to suppliers as leads. A key part of this service is the user's ability to turn messages on and off ('I am no longer interested in offers about credit cards'). Users may also specify e-mail or IM addresses which have a life span designated and controlled by the user.

== Related Initiatives ==
=== Internet Identity ===
=== Data Portability ===
=== Relationship Cards ===

== VRM Example Uses ==
List practical, leading examples of best proposed uses for VRM. Link to Use Cases (if any)
* Personal Address Manager

== VRM Companies ==
Companies, sellers, vendors all may have existing examples of VRM. Please post them here.

== Additional Links ==
* [[VRM FAQ]]

VRM vision

2008-04-20T11:09:38Z

Iain.Henderson: /* VRM Capabilities & Standards */

VRM, or Vendor Relationship Management, is the reciprocal of CRM or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_Relationship_Management Customer Relationship Management]. VRM describes a set of tools, technologies and services that help individuals go to market and manage relationships with vendors. In turn, vendors aligning themselves to these tools, technologies and services have the opportunity to build better relationships with their customers.

The goal of VRM is to improve the relationship between Demand and Supply by providing new and better ways for the former to relate to the latter. In a larger sense, VRM immodestly intends to improve markets and their mechanisms by equipping customers to be independent leaders and not just captive followers in their relationships with vendors and other parties on the supply side of the marketplace.

== History ==
CRM systems for the duration have borne the full burden of relating with customers. VRM will provide customers with the means to bear some of that weight, and to help make markets work for ''both'' vendors and customers  in ways that don't require the former to "lock in" the latter.

* Where name came from
* Where idea came from (relationship with the Cluetrain Manifesto)
** Core concepts & shifting landscape: Internet increasing alienation between consumer and vendor, etc.
* How VRM has helped leverage (and tries to see ahead of) ideas being worked on in the identity space, etc.

=== Problems With CRM ===
* Don't get me started!

== Project VRM ==
* Berkman Center - Steering Committee
* Doc Searls, Champion
* Objectives

== Challenges for VRM ==
For VRM to work, vendors must have reason to value it, and customers must have reasons to invest the necessary time, effort and attention to making it work. Providing those reasons to both sides is the primary challenge for VRM.
* Iconoclastic anti-vendor perception
* Need killer apps

== VRM Capabilities & Standards ==

The following are generic capabilities that we see as at least some of the capabilities that will emerge to enable and empower VRM.

'''Personal Data Store(s)'''

A generic term to cover a multitude of different and often connected services that help individuals gather, store, protect, analyze, share and use information to help them make better decisions and achieve their goals more efficiently and effectively.

Personal Data Stores help individuals manage the seven core information management processes:

- Data gathering

- Data storage

- Data analytics

- Data protection and security, including identity and data validation

- Data access

- Data volunteering/input/publishing

- Data sharing

As Personal Data Stores gain critical mass they will become individualsâ first port of call when wanting to make decisions, including going to market. They will become the means by which individuals plan, administer and organize many aspects of their daily lives. They will act as the pivotal, central interface between individuals and organizations; the means and channel by which individuals choose to conduct their interactions and transactions with service providers.

Using Personal Data Stores, individuals are able to pull together their own personal databases (potentially delegating to an agent under their control) encompassing all the important aspects of their lives, including:

- administrative records and details

- contact databases: friends, family, colleagues etc

- transaction histories: products and services purchases, etc

- interaction histories: records of correspondence

- supplier data such as 'my doctor', 'my plumber', etc

- plans for life projects (trips, moving home etc)

- personal preferences e.g. 'favored' brands and organizations vs 'blacklisted' brands and organizations

- information gathered and collected to help inform decisions and actions about all the above.

These data areas may cover all the main life 'departments' such as home, health, money, general administration, transport, communications, career, social network, leisure and hobbies, etc.
Over time, Personal Data Stores will become the fulcrum of 'life management', including individuals' interactions and transactions with supplying and service organizations.

'''Personal Data Analytics'''

As individuals hold more and more data about themselves and their activities on their own databases (see Personal Data Stores) the more able they are to mine and analyze this data to generate the insights they need to make better decisions.
Personal data analytics adds value for users by:

- helping them track trends such as personal spending, calorie intake, household energy usage, car mileage, etc, etc. This could take the form of an 'annual audit' or of ongoing, bespoke or one off analytical projects

- using 'people like you' comparisons to highlight areas where their resources could be better managed

Individuals (or households) may recognize needs for consultants or services to help manage the personal data, or to interpret and maximize the data for their betterment.

'''Request for Proposal (RFP)'''

A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a message sent from an individual to a company, set of companies or market (in this case, think of using a space on the net as the "public location" or publishing base), declaring and defining a need they want to be met.

RFPs form an engagement where customers declare their needs/requirements/specifications and Vendors can respond with their offer/price/terms. This creates an environment where the consumer is given a voice and a say in the product or solution, as opposed to accepting a solution that, by it's very nature, is advantageous to the vendor.

RFPs can take many forms:

- 'one-to-one', where a named individual sends his request directly to one or more named companies

- aggregated, where many different individuals' requests are collated and passed on to companies by an intermediary. Companies then respond to these RFPs either on an individual or collective basis.

- anonymized one-to-one or aggregated, where an intermediary informs a company or set of companies that there is this number of people seeking out this particular product or service, but where the companies concerned cannot have access to their names and addresses and have to deal with these individuals via the intermediary service (until a transaction is closed).

- RFPs can range from simple commodity requests (e.g. motor insurance renewal) through to complex specifications for products or services that do not even exist yet.

'''Permissions Management'''

'Permission marketing' as currently practiced is a joke. Marketers work hard to get 'permission' to communicate from the customer, and once the customer gives 'permission' the floodgates of spam are open. Future permissions are compromised by this process. Real and specific permissions with no hidden agenda or ulterior motives are necessary for success and for trust.

True Permissions management puts the individual in control â allowing the individual to specify terms and conditions and 'rules of engagement', and to maintain control over these rules of engagement -and access (e-mail, et al) at will.

Permissions management revolves around two main areas of relevance, which increase trust and effective two-way communication: receiving information and releasing information on a timely and relevant basis. Controlling the timing and the gateway, so, for example, the "new car buyer" is not barraged with car offers for years after the purchase of a new vehicle

Receiving information

Here the individual is able to specify what messages he wishes to receive from suppliers, about what, when and how.
For example, he may be planning to buy a new car in June and go on holiday in December. He therefore specifies his willingness to receive messages about new cars, in this price bracket, from these brands, in the months of April and May. Likewise, for his holiday planning: skiing not trekking, etc. (see Reverse Messaging)

At the same time, he might signal a general willingness to receive messages all year round about golf, but only from these named suppliers.

Releasing information

Over the coming years individuals will collect increasing amounts of rich personal information in their Personal Data Stores. Many organizations will be keen to gain access to various fields of this data for various purposes including marketing, research and innovation.

Permissions management will allow individuals to choose what data to release to which people (or vendors, organizations, datastores, et al), for what purposes, on what terms and conditions. For example, the individual may want to release information to:

- health researchers about certain aspects of medical history and lifestyle, on an anonymous basis, for free, for the purposes of cancer research

- details about current inventory of hardware and software to a specialist retailer/reseller, on a named but once-only use basis, for the purposes of advice on solving a computing problem and making the next best purchase

- details about brand preferences on an anonymous basis, to marketing companies, in return for a fee

'''Power of attorney services'''

There are many aspects of managing a household or a supply relationship that are tedious, time-consuming and non-value adding: renewing insurances, for example. As a result many buyers 'make do' with deals that are far from best value, just because the hassle of doing something about it so high.

With power of attorney services, individuals give agents permission to act on their behalf, within certain parameters, without the need for detailed, specific negotiation or even authorization. For example, in the case of insurance renewals, the individual may give power of attorney to the agent to sweep the market for best prices for insurance contracts with no worse terms of cover, one month before the contract is due to come to an end. The attorney service may then presents the individual with the top three choices. It may even go ahead to close the deal: all the individual then has to do is sign on the dotted line and authorize payment.

The insurance renewal example is pretty trivial, but the concept can be extended to many other areas of life including travel and transport (e.g. flight and hotel booking), home (security, maintenance and repair, etc), finances ('if savings or debt reach this level, then do that'), health, etc. This can also be applied on small-business, corporate basis, creating a VRM connection point into the enterprise.

'''Problem Solving Communities (PSCs)'''

Before finally making a purchase or carrying out a decision, most individuals need to answer a long series of questions satisfactorily These may include:

- what are the available options?

- what things do I need to do achieve my desired outcome?

- how to do x or y?

- what are the hidden pitfalls that I ought to be aware of?

- who can I trust?

- which is better for somebody in my circumstances, option A or option B?

Often, our inability to answer such questions satisfactorily is the cause of great anxiety, of mistakes (bad decisions), or simple inaction ('given that I can't answer this question, I won't go any further'). Yet, currently, there are very few sources of trustworthy, expert, customized advice that ordinary individuals can afford.

Problem Solving Communities help individuals overcome this problem by collecting the answers other people have discovered and making them available to the individual, thereby helping him avoid the need to reinvent the wheel. By answering the questions users ask â and storing the answers for re-use the next time somebody asks the same question â VRM as a process then brings economies of scale to personal decision making.
If it costs $100 to research and formulate a good answer to a certain question and the answer is used only once, then it adds $100 to the cost of the product or service (or solution) in question. However, if the same answer is used 1000 times over, the unit cost of the answer falls from $100 to $0.1: a productivity boost of 99.9%.

'''Personal Scenario Planning/Event Management'''

There are many events in our lives which we never encounter enough times for us to become expert at handling them: getting married or divorced, moving home, organizing a trip round the world, coping with the death of partner, coping with a life threatening illness or accident, etc.

Scenario Planning identifies (as best as it can) 'best practices' or at least, 'things you should think about', 'pitfalls to watch out for', 'the main steps of the process'.

For example, if you are getting married, the planning service will help you remember and consider all the things you need to organize such as venue, ceremony details, invites, catering, travel and transport, honeymoon, wedding attire, wedding presents, etc. etc.

At this level, it is a pretty generic advice service. At the next level it begins to drill down into the detail: what sorts of venues do you want and where, how much do they cost, are they available on the date in question, what are the necessary travel arrangements? Etc. This next level of detail therefore includes a wide range of information from and about suppliers, p2p reviews, etc.
The third level involves the provision of specific tools and services to help individuals actually implement their resulting decisions: book the venue, arrange the catering, send out the invitations etc.
Scenario Planning services are therefore likely to use many other person-centric services (such as Requests for Proposal and Problem Solving Communities) as modules of a broader, more integrated service that focuses on a specific problem.

'''Reverse Messaging/Attention marketing'''

Reverse messaging is a 'light' form of Request for Proposal/Permissions Management. Under Reverse Messaging individuals signal their willingness/wish to receive messages about specific items/brands at specific times. A reverse message says 'I am currently in the market for a ... new credit card/lawnmower/washing machine ... and I am willing to receive messages from suppliers of these items'. In most cases, these reverse messages are collated and aggregated by intermediaries who sell them on to suppliers as leads. A key part of this service is the user's ability to turn messages on and off ('I am no longer interested in offers about credit cards'). Users may also specify e-mail or IM addresses which have a life span designated and controlled by the user.

== Related Initiatives ==
=== Internet Identity ===
=== Data Portability ===
=== Relationship Cards ===

== VRM Example Uses ==
List practical, leading examples of best proposed uses for VRM. Link to Use Cases (if any)
* Personal Address Manager

== VRM Companies ==
Companies, sellers, vendors all may have existing examples of VRM. Please post them here.

== Additional Links ==
* [[VRM FAQ]]

VRM vision

2008-04-20T11:07:57Z

Iain.Henderson: /* VRM Capabilities & Standards */

VRM, or Vendor Relationship Management, is the reciprocal of CRM or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_Relationship_Management Customer Relationship Management]. VRM describes a set of tools, technologies and services that help individuals go to market and manage relationships with vendors. In turn, vendors aligning themselves to these tools, technologies and services have the opportunity to build better relationships with their customers.

The goal of VRM is to improve the relationship between Demand and Supply by providing new and better ways for the former to relate to the latter. In a larger sense, VRM immodestly intends to improve markets and their mechanisms by equipping customers to be independent leaders and not just captive followers in their relationships with vendors and other parties on the supply side of the marketplace.

== History ==
CRM systems for the duration have borne the full burden of relating with customers. VRM will provide customers with the means to bear some of that weight, and to help make markets work for ''both'' vendors and customers  in ways that don't require the former to "lock in" the latter.

* Where name came from
* Where idea came from (relationship with the Cluetrain Manifesto)
** Core concepts & shifting landscape: Internet increasing alienation between consumer and vendor, etc.
* How VRM has helped leverage (and tries to see ahead of) ideas being worked on in the identity space, etc.

=== Problems With CRM ===
* Don't get me started!

== Project VRM ==
* Berkman Center - Steering Committee
* Doc Searls, Champion
* Objectives

== Challenges for VRM ==
For VRM to work, vendors must have reason to value it, and customers must have reasons to invest the necessary time, effort and attention to making it work. Providing those reasons to both sides is the primary challenge for VRM.
* Iconoclastic anti-vendor perception
* Need killer apps

== VRM Capabilities & Standards ==

The following are generic capabilities that we see as at least some of the capabilities that will emerge to enable and empower VRM.

'''Personal Data Store(s)'''

A generic term to cover a multitude of different and often connected services that help individuals gather, store, protect, analyze, share and use information to help them make better decisions and achieve their goals more efficiently and effectively.

Personal Data Stores help individuals manage the seven core information management processes:

- Data gathering

- Data storage

- Data analytics

- Data protection and security, including identity and data validation

- Data access

- Data volunteering/input/publishing

- Data sharing

As Personal Data Stores gain critical mass they will become individualsâ first port of call when wanting to make decisions, including going to market. They will become the means by which individuals plan, administer and organize many aspects of their daily lives. They will act as the pivotal, central interface between individuals and organizations; the means and channel by which individuals choose to conduct their interactions and transactions with service providers.

Using Personal Data Stores, individuals are able to pull together their own personal databases (potentially delegating to an agent under their control) encompassing all the important aspects of their lives, including:

- administrative records and details

- contact databases: friends, family, colleagues etc

- transaction histories: products and services purchases, etc

- interaction histories: records of correspondence

- supplier data such as 'my doctor', 'my plumber', etc

- plans for life projects (trips, moving home etc)

- personal preferences e.g. 'favored' brands and organizations vs 'blacklisted' brands and organizations

- information gathered and collected to help inform decisions and actions about all the above.

These data areas may cover all the main life 'departments' such as home, health, money, general administration, transport, communications, career, social network, leisure and hobbies, etc.
Over time, Personal Data Stores will become the fulcrum of 'life management', including individuals' interactions and transactions with supplying and service organizations.

'''Personal Data Analytics'''

As individuals hold more and more data about themselves and their activities on their own databases (see Personal Data Stores) the more able they are to mine and analyze this data to generate the insights they need to make better decisions.
Personal data analytics adds value for users by:

- helping them track trends such as personal spending, calorie intake, household energy usage, car mileage, etc, etc. This could take the form of an 'annual audit' or of ongoing, bespoke or one off analytical projects

- using 'people like you' comparisons to highlight areas where their resources could be better managed

Individuals (or households) may recognize needs for consultants or services to help manage the personal data, or to interpret and maximize the data for their betterment.

'''Request for Proposal (RFP)'''

A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a message sent from an individual to a company, set of companies or market (in this case, think of using a space on the net as the "public location" or publishing base), declaring and defining a need they want to be met.

RFPs form an engagement where customers declare their needs/requirements/specifications and Vendors can respond with their offer/price/terms. This creates an environment where the consumer is given a voice and a say in the product or solution, as opposed to accepting a solution that, by it's very nature, is advantageous to the vendor.

RFPs can take many forms:

- 'one-to-one', where a named individual sends his request directly to one or more named companies

- aggregated, where many different individuals' requests are collated and passed on to companies by an intermediary. Companies then respond to these RFPs either on an individual or collective basis.

- anonymized one-to-one or aggregated, where an intermediary informs a company or set of companies that there is this number of people seeking out this particular product or service, but where the companies concerned cannot have access to their names and addresses and have to deal with these individuals via the intermediary service (until a transaction is closed).

- RFPs can range from simple commodity requests (e.g. motor insurance renewal) through to complex specifications for products or services that do not even exist yet.

'''Permissions Management'''

'Permission marketing' as currently practiced is a joke. Marketers work hard to get 'permission' to communicate from the customer, and once the customer gives 'permission' the floodgates of spam are open. Future permissions are compromised by this process. Real and specific permissions with no hidden agenda or ulterior motives are necessary for success and for trust.

True Permissions management puts the individual in control â allowing the individual to specify terms and conditions and 'rules of engagement', and to maintain control over these rules of engagement -and access (e-mail, et al) at will.

Permissions management revolves around two main areas of relevance, which increase trust and effective two-way communication: receiving information and releasing information on a timely and relevant basis. Controlling the timing and the gateway, so, for example, the "new car buyer" is not barraged with car offers for years after the purchase of a new vehicle

Receiving information

Here the individual is able to specify what messages he wishes to receive from suppliers, about what, when and how.
For example, he may be planning to buy a new car in June and go on holiday in December. He therefore specifies his willingness to receive messages about new cars, in this price bracket, from these brands, in the months of April and May. Likewise, for his holiday planning: skiing not trekking, etc. (see Reverse Messaging)

At the same time, he might signal a general willingness to receive messages all year round about golf, but only from these named suppliers.

Releasing information

Over the coming years individuals will collect increasing amounts of rich personal information in their Personal Data Stores. Many organizations will be keen to gain access to various fields of this data for various purposes including marketing, research and innovation.

Permissions management will allow individuals to choose what data to release to which people (or vendors, organizations, datastores, et al), for what purposes, on what terms and conditions. For example, the individual may want to release information to:

- health researchers about certain aspects of medical history and lifestyle, on an anonymous basis, for free, for the purposes of cancer research

- details about current inventory of hardware and software to a specialist retailer/reseller, on a named but once-only use basis, for the purposes of advice on solving a computing problem and making the next best purchase

- details about brand preferences on an anonymous basis, to marketing companies, in return for a fee

'''Power of attorney services'''

There are many aspects of managing a household or a supply relationship that are tedious, time-consuming and non-value adding: renewing insurances, for example. As a result many buyers 'make do' with deals that are far from best value, just because the hassle of doing something about it so high.

With power of attorney services, individuals give agents permission to act on their behalf, within certain parameters, without the need for detailed, specific negotiation or even authorization. For example, in the case of insurance renewals, the individual may give power of attorney to the agent to sweep the market for best prices for insurance contracts with no worse terms of cover, one month before the contract is due to come to an end. The attorney service may then presents the individual with the top three choices. It may even go ahead to close the deal: all the individual then has to do is sign on the dotted line and authorize payment.

The insurance renewal example is pretty trivial, but the concept can be extended to many other areas of life including travel and transport (e.g. flight and hotel booking), home (security, maintenance and repair, etc), finances ('if savings or debt reach this level, then do that'), health, etc. This can also be applied on small-business, corporate basis, creating a VRM connection point into the enterprise.

'''Problem Solving Communities (PSCs)'''

Before finally making a purchase or carrying out a decision, most individuals need to answer a long series of questions satisfactorily These may include:

- what are the available options?

- what things do I need to do achieve my desired outcome?

- how to do x or y?

- what are the hidden pitfalls that I ought to be aware of?

- who can I trust?

- which is better for somebody in my circumstances, option A or option B?

Often, our inability to answer such questions satisfactorily is the cause of great anxiety, of mistakes (bad decisions), or simple inaction ('given that I can't answer this question, I won't go any further'). Yet, currently, there are very few sources of trustworthy, expert, customized advice that ordinary individuals can afford.

Problem Solving Communities help individuals overcome this problem by collecting the answers other people have discovered and making them available to the individual, thereby helping him avoid the need to reinvent the wheel. By answering the questions users ask â and storing the answers for re-use the next time somebody asks the same question â VRM as a process then brings economies of scale to personal decision making.
If it costs $100 to research and formulate a good answer to a certain question and the answer is used only once, then it adds $100 to the cost of the product or service (or solution) in question. However, if the same answer is used 1000 times over, the unit cost of the answer falls from $100 to $0.1: a productivity boost of 99.9%.

'''Personal Scenario Planning/Event Management'''

There are many events in our lives which we never encounter enough times for us to become expert at handling them: getting married or divorced, moving home, organizing a trip round the world, coping with the death of partner, coping with a life threatening illness or accident, etc.

Scenario Planning identifies (as best as it can) 'best practices' or at least, 'things you should think about', 'pitfalls to watch out for', 'the main steps of the process'.

For example, if you are getting married, the planning service will help you remember and consider all the things you need to organize such as venue, ceremony details, invites, catering, travel and transport, honeymoon, wedding attire, wedding presents, etc. etc.

At this level, it is a pretty generic advice service. At the next level it begins to drill down into the detail: what sorts of venues do you want and where, how much do they cost, are they available on the date in question, what are the necessary travel arrangements? Etc. This next level of detail therefore includes a wide range of information from and about suppliers, p2p reviews, etc.
The third level involves the provision of specific tools and services to help individuals actually implement their resulting decisions: book the venue, arrange the catering, send out the invitations etc.
Scenario Planning services are therefore likely to use many other person-centric services (such as Requests for Proposal and Problem Solving Communities) as modules of a broader, more integrated service that focuses on a specific problem.

'''Reverse Messaging/Attention marketing'''

Reverse messaging is a 'light' form of Request for Proposal/Permissions Management. Under Reverse Messaging individuals signal their willingness/wish to receive messages about specific items/brands at specific times. A reverse message says 'I am currently in the market for a ... new credit card/lawnmower/washing machine ... and I am willing to receive messages from suppliers of these items'. In most cases, these reverse messages are collated and aggregated by intermediaries who sell them on to suppliers as leads. A key part of this service is the user's ability to turn messages on and off ('I am no longer interested in offers about credit cards'). Users may also specify e-mail or IM addresses which have a life span designated and controlled by the user.

== Related Initiatives ==
=== Internet Identity ===
=== Data Portability ===
=== Relationship Cards ===

== VRM Example Uses ==
List practical, leading examples of best proposed uses for VRM. Link to Use Cases (if any)
* Personal Address Manager

== VRM Companies ==
Companies, sellers, vendors all may have existing examples of VRM. Please post them here.

== Additional Links ==
* [[VRM FAQ]]

VRM vision

2008-04-20T11:05:28Z

Iain.Henderson: /* VRM Capabilities & Standards */

VRM, or Vendor Relationship Management, is the reciprocal of CRM or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_Relationship_Management Customer Relationship Management]. VRM describes a set of tools, technologies and services that help individuals go to market and manage relationships with vendors. In turn, vendors aligning themselves to these tools, technologies and services have the opportunity to build better relationships with their customers.

The goal of VRM is to improve the relationship between Demand and Supply by providing new and better ways for the former to relate to the latter. In a larger sense, VRM immodestly intends to improve markets and their mechanisms by equipping customers to be independent leaders and not just captive followers in their relationships with vendors and other parties on the supply side of the marketplace.

== History ==
CRM systems for the duration have borne the full burden of relating with customers. VRM will provide customers with the means to bear some of that weight, and to help make markets work for ''both'' vendors and customers  in ways that don't require the former to "lock in" the latter.

* Where name came from
* Where idea came from (relationship with the Cluetrain Manifesto)
** Core concepts & shifting landscape: Internet increasing alienation between consumer and vendor, etc.
* How VRM has helped leverage (and tries to see ahead of) ideas being worked on in the identity space, etc.

=== Problems With CRM ===
* Don't get me started!

== Project VRM ==
* Berkman Center - Steering Committee
* Doc Searls, Champion
* Objectives

== Challenges for VRM ==
For VRM to work, vendors must have reason to value it, and customers must have reasons to invest the necessary time, effort and attention to making it work. Providing those reasons to both sides is the primary challenge for VRM.
* Iconoclastic anti-vendor perception
* Need killer apps

== VRM Capabilities & Standards ==

The following are generic capabilities that we see as at least some of the capabilities that will emerge to enable and empower VRM.

'''Personal Data Store(s)'''

A generic term to cover a multitude of different and often connected services that help individuals gather, store, protect, analyze, share and use information to help them make better decisions and achieve their goals more efficiently and effectively.

Personal Data Stores help individuals manage the seven core information management processes:

- Data gathering
- Data storage
- Data analytics
- Data protection and security, including identity and data validation
- Data access
- Data volunteering/input/publishing
- Data sharing

As Personal Data Stores gain critical mass they will become individualsâ first port of call when wanting to make decisions, including going to market. They will become the means by which individuals plan, administer and organize many aspects of their daily lives. They will act as the pivotal, central interface between individuals and organizations; the means and channel by which individuals choose to conduct their interactions and transactions with service providers.

Using Personal Data Stores, individuals are able to pull together their own personal databases (potentially delegating to an agent under their control) encompassing all the important aspects of their lives, including:

- administrative records and details
- contact databases: friends, family, colleagues etc
- transaction histories: products and services purchases, etc
- interaction histories: records of correspondence
- supplier data such as 'my doctor', 'my plumber', etc
- plans for life projects (trips, moving home etc)
- personal preferences e.g. 'favored' brands and organizations vs 'blacklisted' brands and organizations
- information gathered and collected to help inform decisions and actions about all the above.

These data areas may cover all the main life 'departments' such as home, health, money, general administration, transport, communications, career, social network, leisure and hobbies, etc.
Over time, Personal Data Stores will become the fulcrum of 'life management', including individuals' interactions and transactions with supplying and service organizations.

'''Personal Data Analytics'''

As individuals hold more and more data about themselves and their activities on their own databases (see Personal Data Stores) the more able they are to mine and analyze this data to generate the insights they need to make better decisions.
Personal data analytics adds value for users by:
- helping them track trends such as personal spending, calorie intake, household energy usage, car mileage, etc, etc. This could take the form of an 'annual audit' or of ongoing, bespoke or one off analytical projects
- using 'people like you' comparisons to highlight areas where their resources could be better managed

Individuals (or households) may recognize needs for consultants or services to help manage the personal data, or to interpret and maximize the data for their betterment.

'''Request for Proposal (RFP)'''

A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a message sent from an individual to a company, set of companies or market (in this case, think of using a space on the net as the "public location" or publishing base), declaring and defining a need they want to be met.

RFPs form an engagement where customers declare their needs/requirements/specifications and Vendors can respond with their offer/price/terms. This creates an environment where the consumer is given a voice and a say in the product or solution, as opposed to accepting a solution that, by it's very nature, is advantageous to the vendor.

RFPs can take many forms:

- 'one-to-one', where a named individual sends his request directly to one or more named companies
- aggregated, where many different individuals' requests are collated and passed on to companies by an intermediary. Companies then respond to these RFPs either on an individual or collective basis.
- anonymized one-to-one or aggregated, where an intermediary informs a company or set of companies that there is this number of people seeking out this particular product or service, but where the companies concerned cannot have access to their names and addresses and have to deal with these individuals via the intermediary service (until a transaction is closed).
- RFPs can range from simple commodity requests (e.g. motor insurance renewal) through to complex specifications for products or services that do not even exist yet.

'''Permissions Management'''

'Permission marketing' as currently practiced is a joke. Marketers work hard to get 'permission' to communicate from the customer, and once the customer gives 'permission' the floodgates of spam are open. Future permissions are compromised by this process. Real and specific permissions with no hidden agenda or ulterior motives are necessary for success and for trust.

True Permissions management puts the individual in control â allowing the individual to specify terms and conditions and 'rules of engagement', and to maintain control over these rules of engagement -and access (e-mail, et al) at will.

Permissions management revolves around two main areas of relevance, which increase trust and effective two-way communication: receiving information and releasing information on a timely and relevant basis. Controlling the timing and the gateway, so, for example, the "new car buyer" is not barraged with car offers for years after the purchase of a new vehicle

Receiving information

Here the individual is able to specify what messages he wishes to receive from suppliers, about what, when and how.
For example, he may be planning to buy a new car in June and go on holiday in December. He therefore specifies his willingness to receive messages about new cars, in this price bracket, from these brands, in the months of April and May. Likewise, for his holiday planning: skiing not trekking, etc. (see Reverse Messaging)
At the same time, he might signal a general willingness to receive messages all year round about golf, but only from these named suppliers.

Releasing information

Over the coming years individuals will collect increasing amounts of rich personal information in their Personal Data Stores. Many organizations will be keen to gain access to various fields of this data for various purposes including marketing, research and innovation.

Permissions management will allow individuals to choose what data to release to which people (or vendors, organizations, datastores, et al), for what purposes, on what terms and conditions. For example, the individual may want to release information to:

- health researchers about certain aspects of medical history and lifestyle, on an anonymous basis, for free, for the purposes of cancer research
- details about current inventory of hardware and software to a specialist retailer/reseller, on a named but once-only use basis, for the purposes of advice on solving a computing problem and making the next best purchase
- details about brand preferences on an anonymous basis, to marketing companies, in return for a fee

'''Power of attorney services'''

There are many aspects of managing a household or a supply relationship that are tedious, time-consuming and non-value adding: renewing insurances, for example. As a result many buyers 'make do' with deals that are far from best value, just because the hassle of doing something about it so high.

With power of attorney services, individuals give agents permission to act on their behalf, within certain parameters, without the need for detailed, specific negotiation or even authorization. For example, in the case of insurance renewals, the individual may give power of attorney to the agent to sweep the market for best prices for insurance contracts with no worse terms of cover, one month before the contract is due to come to an end. The attorney service may then presents the individual with the top three choices. It may even go ahead to close the deal: all the individual then has to do is sign on the dotted line and authorize payment.

The insurance renewal example is pretty trivial, but the concept can be extended to many other areas of life including travel and transport (e.g. flight and hotel booking), home (security, maintenance and repair, etc), finances ('if savings or debt reach this level, then do that'), health, etc. This can also be applied on small-business, corporate basis, creating a VRM connection point into the enterprise.

'''Problem Solving Communities (PSCs)'''

Before finally making a purchase or carrying out a decision, most individuals need to answer a long series of questions satisfactorily These may include:

- what are the available options?
- what things do I need to do achieve my desired outcome?
- how to do x or y?
- what are the hidden pitfalls that I ought to be aware of?
- who can I trust?
- which is better for somebody in my circumstances, option A or option B?

Often, our inability to answer such questions satisfactorily is the cause of great anxiety, of mistakes (bad decisions), or simple inaction ('given that I can't answer this question, I won't go any further'). Yet, currently, there are very few sources of trustworthy, expert, customized advice that ordinary individuals can afford.

Problem Solving Communities help individuals overcome this problem by collecting the answers other people have discovered and making them available to the individual, thereby helping him avoid the need to reinvent the wheel. By answering the questions users ask â and storing the answers for re-use the next time somebody asks the same question â VRM as a process then brings economies of scale to personal decision making.
If it costs $100 to research and formulate a good answer to a certain question and the answer is used only once, then it adds $100 to the cost of the product or service (or solution) in question. However, if the same answer is used 1000 times over, the unit cost of the answer falls from $100 to $0.1: a productivity boost of 99.9%.

'''Personal Scenario Planning/Event Management'''

There are many events in our lives which we never encounter enough times for us to become expert at handling them: getting married or divorced, moving home, organizing a trip round the world, coping with the death of partner, coping with a life threatening illness or accident, etc.

Scenario Planning identifies (as best as it can) 'best practices' or at least, 'things you should think about', 'pitfalls to watch out for', 'the main steps of the process'.

For example, if you are getting married, the planning service will help you remember and consider all the things you need to organize such as venue, ceremony details, invites, catering, travel and transport, honeymoon, wedding attire, wedding presents, etc. etc.

At this level, it is a pretty generic advice service. At the next level it begins to drill down into the detail: what sorts of venues do you want and where, how much do they cost, are they available on the date in question, what are the necessary travel arrangements? Etc. This next level of detail therefore includes a wide range of information from and about suppliers, p2p reviews, etc.
The third level involves the provision of specific tools and services to help individuals actually implement their resulting decisions: book the venue, arrange the catering, send out the invitations etc.
Scenario Planning services are therefore likely to use many other person-centric services (such as Requests for Proposal and Problem Solving Communities) as modules of a broader, more integrated service that focuses on a specific problem.

'''Reverse Messaging/Attention marketing'''

Reverse messaging is a 'light' form of Request for Proposal/Permissions Management. Under Reverse Messaging individuals signal their willingness/wish to receive messages about specific items/brands at specific times. A reverse message says 'I am currently in the market for a ... new credit card/lawnmower/washing machine ... and I am willing to receive messages from suppliers of these items'. In most cases, these reverse messages are collated and aggregated by intermediaries who sell them on to suppliers as leads. A key part of this service is the user's ability to turn messages on and off ('I am no longer interested in offers about credit cards'). Users may also specify e-mail or IM addresses which have a life span designated and controlled by the user.

== Related Initiatives ==
=== Internet Identity ===
=== Data Portability ===
=== Relationship Cards ===

== VRM Example Uses ==
List practical, leading examples of best proposed uses for VRM. Link to Use Cases (if any)
* Personal Address Manager

== VRM Companies ==
Companies, sellers, vendors all may have existing examples of VRM. Please post them here.

== Additional Links ==
* [[VRM FAQ]]

Compliance Committee

2008-04-01T14:21:01Z

Iain.Henderson:

The objective of the Compliance Committee is to
'''Create and oversee VRM compliance program'''

The background to this proposal is that we suspect that, over time, applications or organisations may claim to be 'VRM' practitioners, but not in fact be so (i.e. they do not comply with one or more of the core principles). As such, we wish to have ways and means of limiting the impact of these false claims.

Our proposal is that:

1) We develop a series of statements of good/ best practice in the areas that define VRM (see below *), build those into a process through which organisations can be assessed on a five point scale. Each statement would have to be 'owned' by a VRM expert and would include:

- the statement of good practice itself (e.g. data within a VRM application will be portable).

- 5 answer options (ranging from 'never heard of this practice = 0 to 'yes we do this and can prove it' = 100%)

- detailed compliance text explaining the practice and issues around it in detail

* VRM practices could be clustered, for example, into:

- Individual (user)-centrism
- ability to generate a 'win-win' for buyer and seller
- approach to personal information (portability etc)
- use of open standards
- overall transparency of service offering

This would allow a 'VRM index' score to be generated at overall level, for each subject area, and for each individual practice. These scores then drive compliance (e.g. scores below 35% are non-compliant, scores below 65% are 'pending and scores 65 and above are compliant). They also drive benchmarking, i.e. to what extent is my application VRM compliant, which in turn drives improvement activity and the consulting/ services activities that go along with that.

The score also becomes a published reputation with a reputation/ compliance mark provided. We'd run a white list (VRM compliant) and a black list (were compliant but are no longer so) with the bit in between being 'pending assessment'.

2) We establish an entity that owns the VRM Compliance and Benchmarking Program, which could be Berkman, could be hosted by the Liberty Alliance or could be a new entity. This is a key step and obviously feeds into the VRM Organisation work stream.

3) We make the VRM Compliance/ Benchmarking assessment available in two forms.

a) a face to face assessment of large organisations which we'd outsource to organisations which specialise in assessing and from which the entity above would earn revenues (a % of the assessment charge).

b) a 'lite touch' self-assessment variant typically for smaller businesses/ non-profits.

4) Over time, and as VRM applications and standards emerge, we develop a complementary technical compliance program in which applications are physically tested to ensure compliance to a specific, pre-agreed technical standard.

Hope that helps give a flavour of what we have in mind.

Compliance Committee

2008-04-01T14:17:06Z

Iain.Henderson:

The objective of the Compliance Committee is to
'''Create and oversee VRM compliance program'''

Our proposal is that:

1) We develop a series of statements of good/ best practice in the areas that define VRM (see below *), build those into a process through which organisations can be assessed on a five point scale. Each statement would have to be 'owned' by a VRM expert and would include:

- the statement of good practice itself (e.g. data within a VRM application will be portable).

- 5 answer options (ranging from 'never heard of this practice = 0 to 'yes we do this and can prove it' = 100%)

- detailed compliance text explaining the practice and issues around it in detail

* VRM practices could be clustered, for example, into:

- Individual (user)-centrism
- ability to generate a 'win-win' for buyer and seller
- approach to personal information (portability etc)
- use of open standards
- overall transparency of service offering

This would allow a 'VRM index' score to be generated at overall level, for each subject area, and for each individual practice. These scores then drive compliance (e.g. scores below 35% are non-compliant, scores below 65% are 'pending and scores 65 and above are compliant). They also drive benchmarking, i.e. to what extent is my application VRM compliant, which in turn drives improvement activity and the consulting/ services activities that go along with that.

The score also becomes a published reputation with a reputation/ compliance mark provided. We'd run a white list (VRM compliant) and a black list (were compliant but are no longer so) with the bit in between being 'pending assessment'.

2) We establish an entity that owns the VRM Compliance and Benchmarking Program, which could be Berkman, could be hosted by the Liberty Alliance or could be a new entity. This is a key step and obviously feeds into the VRM Organisation work stream.

3) We make the VRM Compliance/ Benchmarking assessment available in two forms.

a) a face to face assessment of large organisations which we'd outsource to organisations which specialise in assessing and from which the entity above would earn revenues (a % of the assessment charge).

b) a 'lite touch' self-assessment variant typically for smaller businesses/ non-profits.

4) Over time, and as VRM applications and standards emerge, we develop a complementary technical compliance program in which applications are physically tested to ensure compliance to a specific, pre-agreed technical standard.

Hope that helps give a flavour of what we have in mind.

Compliance Committee

2008-03-30T21:01:00Z

Iain.Henderson:

The objective of the Compliance Committee is to
'''Create and oversee VRM compliance program'''

Our proposal is that:

1) We develop a series of statements of good/ best practice in the areas that define VRM (see below *), build those into a process through which organisations can be assessed on a five point scale. Each statement would have to be 'owned' by a VRM expert and would include:

- the statement itself
- 5 answer options (ranging from 'never heard of this practice = 0 to 'yes we do this and can prove it' = 100%)
- detailed compliance text explaining the practice and issues around it in detail

* VRM practices could be clustered, for example, into:

- Individual (user)-centrism
- ability to generate a 'win-win' for buyer and seller
- approach to personal information (portability etc)
- use of open standards
- overall transparency of service offering

This would allow a 'VRM index' score to be generated at overall level, for each subject area, and for each individual practice. These scores then drive compliance (e.g. scores below 35% are non-compliant, scores below 65% are 'pending and scores 65 and above are compliant). They also drive benchmarking, i.e. to what extent is my application VRM compliant, which in turn drives improvement activity and the consulting/ services activities that go along with that.

The score also becomes a published reputation with a reputation/ compliance mark provided. We'd run a white list (VRM compliant) and a black list (were compliant but are no longer so) with the bit in between being 'pending assessment'.

2) We establish an entity that owns the VRM Compliance and Benchmarking Program, which could be Berkman, could be hosted by the Liberty Alliance or could be a new entity. This is a key step and obviously feeds into the VRM Organisation work stream.

3) We make the VRM Compliance/ Benchmarking assessment available in two forms.

a) a face to face assessment of large organisations which we'd outsource to organisations which specialise in assessing and from which the entity above would earn revenues (a % of the assessment charge).

b) a 'lite touch' self-assessment variant typically for smaller businesses/ non-profits.

4) Over time, and as VRM applications and standards emerge, we develop a complementary technical compliance program in which applications are physically tested to ensure compliance to a specific, pre-agreed technical standard.

Hope that helps give a flavour of what we have in mind.

Compliance Committee

2008-03-30T20:58:43Z

Iain.Henderson:

The objective of the Compliance Committee is to
'''Create and oversee VRM compliance program'''

Our proposal is that:

1) We develop a series of statements of good/ best practice in the areas that define VRM (see below *), build those into a process through which organisations can be assessed on a five point scale. Each statement would have to be 'owned' by a VRM expert and would include:

- the statement itself
- 5 answer options (ranging from 'never heard of this practice = 0 to 'yes we do this and can prove it' = 100%)
- detailed compliance text explaining the practice and issues around it in detail

* VRM practices could be clustered, for example, into:

- Individual (user)-centrism
- ability to generate a 'win-win' for buyer and seller
- approach to personal information (portability etc)
- use of open standards
- overall transparency of service offering

This would allow a 'VRM index' score to be generated at overall level, for each subject area, and for each individual practice. These scores then drive compliance (e.g. scores below 35% are non-compliant, scores below 65% are 'pending and scores 65 and above are compliant). They also drive benchmarking, i.e. to what extent is my application VRM compliant, which in turn drives improvement activity and the consulting/ services activities that go along with that.

The score also becomes a published reputation with a reputation/ compliance mark provided. We'd run a white list (VRM compliant) and a black list (were compliant but are no longer so) with the bit in between being 'pending assessment'.

An example of the above can be seen at my hobby-horse site, the Trust Index. If you are happy to go down the route that Brett and I propose I am happy that The Trust Index be absorbed into VRM benchmarking (some of the dimensions are relevant as is the assessment infrastructure), or at worst learned from.

2) We establish an entity that owns the VRM Compliance and Benchmarking Program, which could be Berkman, could be hosted by the Liberty Alliance or could be a new entity. This is a key step and obviously feeds into the VRM Organisation work stream.

3) We make the VRM Compliance/ Benchmarking assessment available in two forms.

a) a face to face assessment of large organisations which we'd outsource to organisations which specialise in assessing and from which the entity above would earn revenues (a % of the assessment charge).

b) a 'lite touch' self-assessment variant typically for smaller businesses/ non-profits.

4) Over time, and as VRM applications and standards emerge, we develop a complementary technical compliance program in which applications are physically tested to ensure compliance to a specific, pre-agreed technical standard.

Hope that helps give a flavour of what we have in mind.

VRM Workshop 2008

2008-03-21T18:58:05Z

Iain.Henderson:

The first ProjectVRM Workshop (tag [http://technorati.com/tag/pvrmw2008a pvrmw2008a]) will be hosted by ProjectVRM and the [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu Berkman Center], here at [http://harvard.edu Harvard University], on 25-26 June. (As of 20 March 2008 this is tentative, but it will become firm if we agree on the dates.)

Our model is the [http://iiw.idcommons.net/index.php/Main_Page IIW -- Internet Identity Workshop], an outstanding and highly productive workshop that has been happening twice a year since 2006. VRM was a big topic at the last one, and perhaps the next one too. This VRM workshop is posed as the first at which the VRM conversation finally breaks off on its own from incubation at the IIWs.

The main purpose of the workshop is to work on development: moving code forward, and bringing existing code together. Also for the various committees to get together in physical space to move their work forward as well.

There won't be a cost to the event, but our budget is minimal, so basically what we'll be doing is making use of a small block Harvard classrooms at a time when school is out of session.

If you can come, please add your name to the attendee list. If working with a wiki is daunting for you (as it is for most people), please send me your name and I'll add it to the list. My email: dsearls AT cyber.law.harvard.edu

- Doc Searls

Attendee List:

[http://doc.searls.com Doc Searls]<br>
[http://www.mediainfluencer.com Adriana Lukas]<br>
[http://xri.net/=charles-andres Charles Andres]<br>
[http://land-com.net Dean Landsman]<br>
Iain Henderson

Februrary 20 2008 Conference Call

2008-02-21T14:59:09Z

Iain.Henderson: /* Compliance Committee (Iain) */

==Conference Call Notes==
Drafted by Joe Andrieu, February 20, 2008

==IRC==
#vrm at chat.freenode.net

==Other Calls==
[[Category:conference call]]
[[:Category:conference call]]

==Attendees==
*Joe Andrieu
*Dean Landsman
*Drummond Reed
*Deb Schultz

==Previous Action Items==
#Forward presentation deck to vision committee - Charles Andres - Feb 6 - Done
#Ping Dean about Vision committee to schedule a meeting about objectives, next steps - Keith Hopper - By Friday Feb 8. - DONE
#Schedule an IP policy discussion - Joe Andrieu - by Friday Feb 8. - Done
#Download components to new CMS website - Charles Andres - by Friday Feb 15. - Done.
#Send out link to notes to steering committee - Joe Andrieu - Feb 6 - Done

==Notes==
===Vision Committee (Dean)===
Website CMS is now up. Many thanks to Sean Bohan.

Keith and Dean are looking to put some teeth in that. They'll talk more once Dean is healthier and Keith is back from IMA.

===Standards Committee (Joe)===
We had the IP conversation. Working outline of Change of Address use. Moved the conversation to the main list.

===Organization Committee (Doc)===

Need to get Doc to be a bit more proactive. He has mentioned he knows he needs to put more time in and will be making an effort.

===Usage Committee (Adriana)===

These were the items to mention in the call:
* VRM Hub meeting on 27th February - looking forward to seeing Doc there. Quite a few [http://vrmhub.pbwiki.com/February+meeting+sign+up people signed up] so far.

* The usage side falls under two rough categories - the geeks/developers who are able and willing to contribute to VRM technology and infrastructure (as they also will be the first users)
and people in business who see the need for a shift and are ready to engage with VRM. To that end we are:

* Organising a small working event (35 people) in London for people who are already following VRM, currently scheduled for 15 April, titled 'Scratch your VRM itch'. The objective is to examine why people got involved in VRM, what appeals to them and what ideas/plans they have to make it happen. The result should be specific action for them to take within their own spheres of influence - business or individual - to move VRM vision forward from the user side. More details to follow soon, just flagging it up.

* Continuing conversations with various individuals and companies and gathering them around [http://vrmhub.pbwiki.com/ VRM Hub monthly meetings] in London. There is also a Facebook group called VRM Hub to keep people in the loop.

* Attending [http://barcamp.org/BarCampNYC3 Barcamp NYC3] on 15/16th March in Brooklyn, talking about VRM and hopefully getting some geeks interested.

Regarding driving usage the focus ought to be on the user, as without widespread adoption there won't be much to demonstrate to companies. Bringing business along from the start is important both for resources and ultimately the VRM reality but I do believe it all starts from the individual.

Note: I posted this to the usage group, for those interested in an
[http://www.mediainfluencer.net/2008/02/power-to-the-persons-redux/ alternative approach] to the use cases.

===Compliance Committee (Iain)===

VRM Compliance/ Benchmarking

Brett and I circulated a proposed direction for VRM compliance and benchmarking several weeks ago.

In a previous group call Doc said he was happy with it, and since then we have had a number of other positive responses and some suggested minor tweaks - all of which we agree with.

The barrier to progress is around having an organisational entity which would own the compliance programme. That remains an issue that will perhaps come up in the call today.

In terms of timing, I have mixed views' on whether 'VRM compliance' is something that we/ the market would benefit from now, or that it is best left until the market develops further. The upside to doing sooner rather than later is that the process of defining compliance would necessarily make us produce much tighter definitions of what VRM is/ is not. The downside is that there is no VRM application that requires compliance testing right now.

It would be good to get feedback from the group as to the collective view of when it would be beneficial to have a compliance programme in place.

===Events===
Doc had mentioned a potential event on the East Coast in June. Deb requests a date later in the month.

Bart is also kicking butt in the EU, with invitations to folks to join him. If you can make it, please do.

===Open Discussion===
Committees seem to have sapped the momentum and no synergy.

Deb suggested using the same time slot (alternating Wednesdays) for committee meetings.

She also suggested that she's not quite sure how we want to describe VRM. So, we err on the side of waiting. But maybe we should just dive in.

Dean seconds that. Some peculiar sense about not being sure how to blog about it. A question of point of reference. Dean has numerous examples, very much Doc's style of talking about things, but that's not Dean's style. So that makes it a bit harder. And there is a part of him that wants to write position papers and such.

Deb points out however, that Chris and Adriana and others have blogged VRMy stuff. But she has some questions about what it means to say "hey that's VRM" in contexts where we see it happen. She has erred on the side of caution.

What do we mean by VRM? We need a second level of a little bit more structure.

Dean suggests that he & Deb put a position piece together. Dean has access to Doc, so we'll run it by him and see if he likes it. Deb says that would be great. And that she's ready to dive in as editor. Dean will take a first draft, an outline.

===Action Items===
#Send query on email list about use of main list. Is that working better? - Joe - By Friday Feb 22, 2008
#First draft position paper - Dean - By Friday Feb 29, 2008.

==Next Meeting==
[[March 5 2008 Conference Call]]

Februrary 06 2008 Conference Call

2008-02-06T18:40:25Z

Iain.Henderson: /* Usage Committee (Adriana) */

==Conference Call Notes==
Drafted by Joe Andrieu, February 6, 2007

==IRC==
#vrm at chat.freenode.net

==Other Calls==
[[Category:conference call]]
[[:Category:conference call]]

==Attendees==
*Joe Andrieu
*Charles Andres
*Iain Henderson
*Keith Hopper

==Continuing Action Items==
# Proposals from committee chairs. Monday 12/17. Dean, Joe, Doc, Adrianna, Ian.
# Starting email/invite to all the groups from committee chair to kickstart the conversation.
# Respond with vision statement. 12/31/2007. All steering committee members.
# Follow up with Doc re: wiki & spam. Joe. 12/12.

==Notes==
===Vision Committee (Dean)===
Collected a lot of data, but need to organize a bit more, both in terms of what we are doing and what we should do with the vision statements from everyone.

Keith recommends weaving the new "public facing" web page into the vision committee, on the basis that if the vision work is about clearly communicating the VRM vision, it would seem to include a proper online presence.

===Standards Committee (Joe)===
Use Case write up is online with a framework and first pass with the Change of Address use case. I'd like to get feedback from other committee members, rev the online pages, then open it to a wider audience.

[[Use Cases]]

===Organization Committee (Doc)===
No report at this stage.

Compliance committee is waiting for movement here. Brett & Iain submitted a proposal and still need some direction regarding the organizational decisions.

Standards committee also needs closure on IP-related issues.

There have been other organizations that have spun-out. One current project, such as Stop Bad-Ware, is at Berkman and has had a bit more success defining itself. Maybe we can learn something from that.

===Usage Committee (Adriana)===
There is now a UK social meeting. Next meet 27th of Feb, see link http://www.mediainfluencer.net/2008/01/vrm-meeting-in-london/

And an upcoming EU Identity conference and associated VRM "unconference".

We also have the upcoming IIW in May.

Since we know these are coming, we could start doing more planning. However, it seems that we need to get Doc to make some commitments about one option or another.

Note, Iain set up a public Google Calendar and sent to the group; but message bounced - will look into it and re-send.

http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=YmE3OTNlMGxtcGY4Y2hiOGJkbWN1bGQ3MWNAZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ

===Compliance Committee (Iain)===
Proposal has been made. We're still waiting for clarity on which organisation a compliance capability would sit under.

===Challenges with Google Groups for subcommittees===
Folks have been having problems with signing up to the committee list and that seems to have throttled back the conversations.

# We encourage folks to sign up for as many groups whose conversations they might find interesting. Such "silent" or associate membership doesn't imply that one has "signed up" to do work, but is a good way to open the conversation a bit.
# Let's work through the technical barriers and make sure that all of the committees are functioning smoothly from an IT standpoint. The rest of our lives are competition enough, we don't need tech problems further constraining folks involvement.

===Difficulties with sustaining energy & enthusiasm===
It seems that the split into committees may have isolated a bunch of conversations that were previously generating a lot of activity and energy. It would be great to find ways to reconnect that energy back into a larger conversation and get Doc to dive in a bit more often as an internal advocate and promoter.

==Next Meeting==

[[category:conference call]]

Februrary 06 2008 Conference Call

2008-02-06T18:37:59Z

Iain.Henderson: /* Usage Committee (Adriana) */

==Conference Call Notes==
Drafted by Joe Andrieu, February 6, 2007

==IRC==
#vrm at chat.freenode.net

==Other Calls==
[[Category:conference call]]
[[:Category:conference call]]

==Attendees==
*Joe Andrieu
*Charles Andres
*Iain Henderson
*Keith Hopper

==Continuing Action Items==
# Proposals from committee chairs. Monday 12/17. Dean, Joe, Doc, Adrianna, Ian.
# Starting email/invite to all the groups from committee chair to kickstart the conversation.
# Respond with vision statement. 12/31/2007. All steering committee members.
# Follow up with Doc re: wiki & spam. Joe. 12/12.

==Notes==
===Vision Committee (Dean)===
Collected a lot of data, but need to organize a bit more, both in terms of what we are doing and what we should do with the vision statements from everyone.

Keith recommends weaving the new "public facing" web page into the vision committee, on the basis that if the vision work is about clearly communicating the VRM vision, it would seem to include a proper online presence.

===Standards Committee (Joe)===
Use Case write up is online with a framework and first pass with the Change of Address use case. I'd like to get feedback from other committee members, rev the online pages, then open it to a wider audience.

[[Use Cases]]

===Organization Committee (Doc)===
No report at this stage.

Compliance committee is waiting for movement here. Brett & Iain submitted a proposal and still need some direction regarding the organizational decisions.

Standards committee also needs closure on IP-related issues.

There have been other organizations that have spun-out. One current project, such as Stop Bad-Ware, is at Berkman and has had a bit more success defining itself. Maybe we can learn something from that.

===Usage Committee (Adriana)===
There is now a UK social meeting. Next meet 27th of Feb, see link http://www.mediainfluencer.net/2008/01/vrm-meeting-in-london/

And an upcoming EU Identity conference and associated VRM "unconference".

We also have the upcoming IIW in May.

Since we know these are coming, we could start doing more planning. However, it seems that we need to get Doc to make some commitments about one option or another.

===Compliance Committee (Iain)===
Proposal has been made. We're still waiting for clarity on which organisation a compliance capability would sit under.

===Challenges with Google Groups for subcommittees===
Folks have been having problems with signing up to the committee list and that seems to have throttled back the conversations.

# We encourage folks to sign up for as many groups whose conversations they might find interesting. Such "silent" or associate membership doesn't imply that one has "signed up" to do work, but is a good way to open the conversation a bit.
# Let's work through the technical barriers and make sure that all of the committees are functioning smoothly from an IT standpoint. The rest of our lives are competition enough, we don't need tech problems further constraining folks involvement.

===Difficulties with sustaining energy & enthusiasm===
It seems that the split into committees may have isolated a bunch of conversations that were previously generating a lot of activity and energy. It would be great to find ways to reconnect that energy back into a larger conversation and get Doc to dive in a bit more often as an internal advocate and promoter.

==Next Meeting==

[[category:conference call]]

Februrary 06 2008 Conference Call

2008-02-06T18:36:51Z

Iain.Henderson: /* Compliance Committee (Iain) */

==Conference Call Notes==
Drafted by Joe Andrieu, February 6, 2007

==IRC==
#vrm at chat.freenode.net

==Other Calls==
[[Category:conference call]]
[[:Category:conference call]]

==Attendees==
*Joe Andrieu
*Charles Andres
*Iain Henderson
*Keith Hopper

==Continuing Action Items==
# Proposals from committee chairs. Monday 12/17. Dean, Joe, Doc, Adrianna, Ian.
# Starting email/invite to all the groups from committee chair to kickstart the conversation.
# Respond with vision statement. 12/31/2007. All steering committee members.
# Follow up with Doc re: wiki & spam. Joe. 12/12.

==Notes==
===Vision Committee (Dean)===
Collected a lot of data, but need to organize a bit more, both in terms of what we are doing and what we should do with the vision statements from everyone.

Keith recommends weaving the new "public facing" web page into the vision committee, on the basis that if the vision work is about clearly communicating the VRM vision, it would seem to include a proper online presence.

===Standards Committee (Joe)===
Use Case write up is online with a framework and first pass with the Change of Address use case. I'd like to get feedback from other committee members, rev the online pages, then open it to a wider audience.

[[Use Cases]]

===Organization Committee (Doc)===
No report at this stage.

Compliance committee is waiting for movement here. Brett & Iain submitted a proposal and still need some direction regarding the organizational decisions.

Standards committee also needs closure on IP-related issues.

There have been other organizations that have spun-out. One current project, such as Stop Bad-Ware, is at Berkman and has had a bit more success defining itself. Maybe we can learn something from that.

===Usage Committee (Adriana)===
There is now a UK social meeting.

And an upcoming EU Identity conference and associated VRM "unconference".

We also have the upcoming IIW in May.

Since we know these are coming, we could start doing more planning. However, it seems that we need to get Doc to make some commitments about one option or another.

===Compliance Committee (Iain)===
Proposal has been made. We're still waiting for clarity on which organisation a compliance capability would sit under.

===Challenges with Google Groups for subcommittees===
Folks have been having problems with signing up to the committee list and that seems to have throttled back the conversations.

# We encourage folks to sign up for as many groups whose conversations they might find interesting. Such "silent" or associate membership doesn't imply that one has "signed up" to do work, but is a good way to open the conversation a bit.
# Let's work through the technical barriers and make sure that all of the committees are functioning smoothly from an IT standpoint. The rest of our lives are competition enough, we don't need tech problems further constraining folks involvement.

===Difficulties with sustaining energy & enthusiasm===
It seems that the split into committees may have isolated a bunch of conversations that were previously generating a lot of activity and energy. It would be great to find ways to reconnect that energy back into a larger conversation and get Doc to dive in a bit more often as an internal advocate and promoter.

==Next Meeting==

[[category:conference call]]