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May
11
I haz a Mine! Let me show you it…
Filed Under Mine!, VRMHub, VRM, Tools and applications | 1 Comment
After many years of internet existence, scattering ‘digital detritus’ as I go, I am ready for tools that help me reclaim my online personae, help me piece together my fractured identity. And then allow me to drive it forward with all of the benefits that it can bring me and to those I interact and transact with.
In the last few months, I have been thinking about what would such tools do and look like. I knew that they have to be driven by me - adding value to me and allowing me to add value, flexible and modular.
The first hint was in the white paper was about the sharing mechanism, a feeds-based VRM. Using feeds to share and distribute data - called FeedMe - has always been predicated on the existence of something like the Mine! - a structural element that allows individuals to bring together data they would like to a) have in their ‘domain’ b) manipulate and learn from and c) share with others as you see fit. A haven for data, a playground and a spring board for further online existence. The foundation for individual being the platform and for creating an ‘asset’ to be used in further interactions, relationships and transactions.. Thinking through some of the details and implications has taken longer as the Mine! incorporates the feeds based sharing as described here.
The aim is to equip individuals with tools to take charge of their data (content, relationships, transactions, knowledge), arrange (analyse, manipulate, combine, mash-up) them according to their needs and preferences and share them on their own terms whilst connected and networked on the web.
The Mine! as VRM infrastructure v.1.0.
Also in pdf (although I recommend the linked version that will be edited and revised and edit as I go along).
Apr
21
Two tales of user-centricities
Filed Under New models, VRM, Autonomy, Web/Tech | 3 Comments
I get edgy when I hear people talk about being user-centric. I once fell for it, thinking that they saw users’ wants as their starting point. Well, user-centric is an improvement on the system-centric approach where the top-down design forces users into a slot of whatever is built, no matter whether it works well or not. (Hence the phrase user-friendly applies mostly to things not designed for the user. I don’t talk about del.icio.us as being user-friendly, because its simplicity and functionality allows the user to drive the use, not the designer.)
User-centric says - ‘we are going to build a system, put the user in the centre instead of the system’. So far, so good, but this sits uncomfortably with me as a user especially as one that is used to the online tools that have changed many an old way. The tools - blogs, wikis, feeds and feed readers, BitTorrent, Flickr, Dopplr, Twitter etc - are revolutionary not just because of their functionality, bits of code or their interface, but their design for usefulness, their modularity and constant evolution. There is an element of open-endedness in their design, either accidental or deliberate, recognising that the designers cannot foresee all the uses to which people will put the tools to. The simplicity is the key, the complexity coming from usage rather than the design. In other words, they are user-driven.
A simple test of user-driven design is in the answer to a question - Can the user add value to it? Without users del.icio.us would pointless, BitTorrent empty and Flickr dead, Twitter silent.
Last year at the IIW in Mountain View, I got talking to Bob Frankston about the difference I started to see between the user-centric and user-driven. Bob, in his inimitable fashion, used the tuna salad we were having for lunch during the conversation to coin an analogy. A ready-made tuna salad is user-centric - it has been decided what goes into it, in what proportions and what order. It has been designed around me and for me but I cannot add anything to it.
Giving me ingredients, utensils and a recipe suggestion and letting me get on with it, leads to user-driven design- it can still be meant to become a tuna salad but I get to put it together, determine the proportions, skip or add ingredients. The process is driven by me and the experience makes me (hopefully) better at making the dish.
Of course, there are times for user-centric and there are times for user-driven. Not everyone wants to make everything themselves and neither is it the best or most effective way to design all systems or tools. But there are cases when only user-driven will do. And VRM is one of them.
Apr
19
Bringing identity home
Filed Under Data, VRM, Identity, Autonomy | 3 Comments
Identity is one of those elusive concepts that underpin several important debates. It appears to me that identity can be tied to a systemic view or an individual view. The former is the provenance of centralised systems and intrusive governments, the latter usually confined to the realms of philosophy or psychology. I’d argue that individual focus plays an increasingly important role in the online world as individuals drive their own identity. My aim (in working on the VRM project) is to find ways to equip them with better tools to continue to do so in all areas of their life, if they choose so.
Offline, we have the crowd who argue about identity in the political sphere, where the debate is really about privacy, rights of the individual, the relationship between the state and its citizens, efficacy of various methods of authentication and security implications. This involves fighting the Big and Bureaucratic Brother in all his shapes and guises, and his equally overbearing cousin the national database or register.
Online, we have the identity gangs within Identity Commons, Identity 2.0 and other identity related projects. Let’s look at Dick’s articulate case for digital identity, Identity 2.0. Without going into too much details, I believe the objective is to mimic the modern identity that revolves around photo IDs (passport, driving license, student card etc) in our online identity transactions. In other words, to enable the user to have the kinds of benefit in the online environment that identity management affords us in the offline world. The requirements for that are scalability of trust, privacy, re-usability, less fragmented identity, convenient ways of accessing and managing one’s identity, secure and private handling of sensitive or private information. For example, the same way your driving license proves your age and allows you to buy alcohol legally, Identity 2.0 is about you being able to prove claims relevant to your online transactions. On another level it is making it more convenient to manage what is currently an ‘identity’ scattered across the net – the ubiquitous logins with passwords, one for every time you deal with someone who created a platform to a) interact or transact with them and b) offer some functionality/capability in exchange for your data. The requirements for that is to be simple & open.
This is all good, as Doc is fond of saying, but this is not the kind of identity I had in mind when thinking about where to start with VRM and how identity relates to it.
According to Dick Hardt identity is what I say about me and what others say about me. The latter being more trustworthy, it makes sense to identify myself through referring to someone who can corroborate what I say. I am therefore defined by external, verifiable and validated statements, facts and information – identifiers. Dick defines his identity as consisting roughly of address, date of birth, URLs of blogs he writes, emails he uses, phone numbers, banks, airlines, clothes and car brands he uses, books, movies and magazines he likes.
These are all shortcuts to what constitutes Dick Hardt as a person, they put his identity in a recognisable frame of reference and allow him to participate in identity transactions.
In the offline world identity is really third-party driven, to put it crudely, we are what our papers say we are. Your birth certificate attests to your date of birth, your utility bills to your residence, your diploma to your education etc etc. It has been so because our identity management has had several fundamental features – it is centralised, system-centric and it is read-only. We are used to deriving our authority and credibility from a system that grants and confirms it. It is important that we can do that as the only way we can transact in a hierarchical environment is via authorisation from the level above us. (a definition of hierarchy is that in order to interact with somebody on the same level I have to go via a superior level).
Whatever the web turns out to be, it is not a hierarchy. It is a network, i.e. a heterarchy, a network of elements in which each element shares the same “horizontal” position of power and authority, each playing a theoretically equal role. This has impact on how my identity is defined and who defines it. From blogs to social network profiles, people are learning how to define their thoughts and ideas, record their lives in multimedia formats, share their experiences, swarm around causes and defy companies, institutions and authorities. From linky love to P2P, they are bypassing traditional media and distribution channels, learning the ways of direct connections.
People online build and destroy reputations, create and squander careers, establish themselves as experts or celebrities. That’s the bird’s eye view. The closer look reveals emergence of self-defined (and self-driven) identities. By writing I learn to articulate my thoughts better, by sharing I learn to differentiate from, as well as identify with, others. I become aware of myself and my preferences in ways that in the times before the web were available to a select few - writers, artists, politicians and the more articulate celebrities. We have ways of connecting with others who become validators and authenticators of our self-defined and persistent identities. The challenge is to understand and find how to evolve and use those for other than communication and information transactions.
And yet, instead we build platforms – vestiges of offline identity - third-party defined spaces designed to ‘contain’ bits of your identity. They clash with my ability as an individual to define and drive my identity. Over time I learn to manage who I am and as more tools and networks emerge my fractured existence, scattered across others’ silos becomes more obvious. The silos are a result of various platforms vying for my data, offering bits and pieces of functionality that I find useful and empowering. It got me where I am now as an ‘empowered’ individual. However, a picture of fractured identity emerges.
Centralised database(s) of identity information and its verification, authentication etc is based on a hierarchy mindset. In a heterarchy, each node is self-defined first and then defined by its relationships. I want to have an identity that evolves and exists in a network, i.e. a structural heterarchy. Why not start by ‘defragging’ identity by outsourcing its definition to individuals as they are capable of creating much richer identities than any system.
To my amazement I often see logins and passwords to various sites and platforms described as “identity”. I don’t think of them as my identity, but as things that I currently need to access bits of my scattered identity, at best they are my meta-identity. (Btw, by self-defined identity I am not referring to self-asserted identity which still relates to identifiers of the kind I’d call meta-identity. I am looking for ways of establishing identifiers that are part emergent, part validated by relationships rather than by a systemic-level third parties designed to do that. Let’s not have a ‘centralised’ trust, let’s have distributed one.)
What I want is option (with set of tools) for individuals taking charge of their identities.* And on the web that starts with exercising sovereignty over my data. This alternative must be networked and not third party dependent or platform based. As I have said before, there are only two ‘natural’ online platforms - the individual and the web.
But what about authentications and authorisations that are needed for transactions, aside from all the fluffy social empowering self-publishing identity utopia? …I hear you cry. As is often the case on the web, there may be other ways to skin the authentication cat than using identity. The key is in realising that authorisation and identity are related but separate.
Authentication is the act of establishing an identity - this is separate from the existing identity approach where the focus is on collection and disbursement of bits of data to do with someone. The cheap and cheerful explanation of this is that you can authenticate with a password (i.e. something that only you know). However, that password need not reveal anything about you/your identity. It just reveals that you are someone who knows the password. Therefore, authentication is free to be separate from identity. They are in separate but related domains. Have I mentioned that they are separate?
I owe this point to Alec who explains:
Traditionally authentication is one-or-more of three things.
- something you KNOW, e.g, you KNOW the password
- something you HAVE, e.g, you HAVE the door key,
- something you ARE, e.g, you ARE a 4-star general on an army base
The latter tends to be a bit weak, as authentication goes, in my experience it is prone to social hacking. Good authentication might be combining something like: KNOWING the password that UNLOCKS the certificate that you HAVE on the laptop, that permits a remote website to challenge you and get the response it expects, since it KNOWS that you have your certificate on your laptop…
In short, let me have a go at my identity myself, on my own terms, the web way, without intermediaries, ‘trusted’ parties and hierarchical non-direct ways. Locking me into new ‘better’ platforms, offering ’services’ to manage my meta-identity is like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. Instead, give me tools, flexible and modular, to reclaim my digital personae, help me piece together my fractured identity. And then allow me to drive it forward with all of the benefits that it can bring me and to those I interact and transact with. Learn to live with the unpredictability and emergent juicy goodness that comes from my independence and lack of your control over me. Finally, let me learn from my mistakes, my first uncertain steps with my data sovereignty. Without those how can I ever learn to fully value privacy, security and engage in mutually beneficial interactions?
*I plan to cover this in more detail in the upcoming white paper on the infrastructural level elements (the Mine! and FeedMe) that enable people to reclaim their data, manage and share them on their own terms whilst being connected, networked and part of the web.
Apr
16
Scratch your VRM itch meeting follow up
Filed Under VRMHub, VRM, Identity, Events | Leave a Comment
Yesterday was a good day. Great people, splendid venue and discussions about VRM. What’s not to like? The VRM Hub working meeting Scratch your VRM itch took place in the club room at the October Gallery in London.
Here are some good notes on the proceedings as recorded by industrious Paul Hodgson. (Although Paul points out he’s more of a post-industrious guy. Heh.) More amendments to follow by the rest of the crew.
The next meeting is being planned for the first half of June. Rock on, as they say.
Apr
7
The five stages of customer relationships
Filed Under VRM, Social web, Advertising | Leave a Comment
How’s that for ‘user generated content’?! Eat your heart out, creative agencies. 
It is hard to maintain ‘it’s not us v. them‘ attitude when it is so easy to recognise and identify with the symptoms in the video…
Bonus link: Article by Knowledge Wharton Getting Engaged: Advertisers Search for Their Voices on YouTube
Apr
5
On CRM being the right answer to the wrong question and on camera lenses
Filed Under New models, VRM, Business | 1 Comment
Tomas Kohl is on the roll:
The real question was, indeed, how do we as a company manage to treat our customers with some sense of dignity without actually bothering to zoom in on them from the extreme wide angle (customer base, segments) to telephoto (households, individuals). Hence the effort to power up the operational CRM with capabilities of analytical CRM (that is, building some sort of number-based insight into the scary X-gigabyte swarm of operational data).
But the analytical CRM cannot build any meaningful “insight” into who your customers really are while treating the customer data as any other kind of transactional data. We humans are made of shape-shifting bits. We don’t stay transactional very long.
One of the reasons VRM may not be the best term (although there is good logic behind it) is that VRM is not just ‘flipping’ CRM but refocusing companies to a picture bigger than the transaction.
Companies look at the world around them, their markets and customers as if through a camera lens, their focus firmly set to macro or fish-eye. They only care about a narrow shot, zooming close, thinking pixels with replace understanding. (cp demographics, data harvesting, analytics etc) or receding far away from it (market research, analyst reports, industry-wide papers etc). The resulting distortion is familiar to anyone dealing with business.
The bigger (and richer) the company, the more expensive lens it can afford - one of those large long ones on professional cameras - the more distance from the object of their focus. Small companies have ‘cheaper’ cameras and end up being closer to what surrounds them although the camera makes sure they are not part of the picture.
To push the analogy even further, cameras are now widely available and affordable. Everyone can buy one and use it with reasonable competence. Amateurs can occasionally achieve good results with little digital cameras too and so photography is no longer the domain of the professionals. It is the same with tools that capture data and understanding of trends and behaviours - online simple, modular but effective tools match and outperform the lumbering business IT systems.
So companies are not the only ones capable of taking photos, we all can do that, often better than them.
The camera analogy brings out another aspect of companies’ interaction with the world - at arms length, from behind the camera. In my view, they should be part of the picture, swapping the camera with other photo snappers.
Apr
5
April VRM Hub meeting
Filed Under VRM, Events | Leave a Comment
The next monthly VRM Hub meeting will be on Thursday, 24th April, 6-9pm, Coach & Horses in 29 Greek Street, in the private room on the top floor.
After a couple of meetings in offices (Google and Sun) kindly arranged by VRM supporters, I am taking the meeting back to a pub. And not just any pub, Coach & Horses has a good pedigree - the Private Eye lunches for the last 30 years and Social Media Cafe Friday mornings as of this year.
Sign up here.
Mar
25
What’s in a social network? A Facebook by any other name would be as useless… discuss
Filed Under Identity, VRM, Autonomy, Social web, Web/Tech, Trends | 2 Comments
A friend shared with me a link to this article about how pointless Facebook is.. and while we are at it the whole social networks malarky etc etc…despairing how some people around her are taking refuge, er, applauding wisdom contained within.
I am not an indiscriminate fan of social networks and some of Fabrizio’s gripes have a point especially the one about privacy… although he does come across as an old cranky, dare I say it, web-o-phobe. His objections against Facebook and social networks are not entirely unreasonable and from a personal perspective justified. I would just add that if others subscribe to them too enthusiastically, without further thought, I fear it says more about them, than the nature of social networking. So let’s have that further thought, shall we?
1. The whole thing of social networking is mere bullshit to me.
I would agree that Facebook is pretty pointless in terms of its applications and overall usefulness for a blogger geek like me is zero. However, that is a far cry from social networking being mere bullshit. It is a phenomenon that is worth noting and dismissing it will make you only more ignorant of what is truly happening.
Networking on Facebook, MySpace and other silos is like taking driving lessons. There is no recognisable direction. It seems kind of pointless unless you know that it is just learning and practising. Facebook and MySpace seems a lot like that to me. But once people work out how to drive, how to operate the machine and how to get from point A to point B, they will be able to decide what the B is and get around on their own. And that’s when the real fun starts.
2. It’s not the right way to communicate with my friends.
Again, half-right. Just because face to face is still hard to beat, doesn’t mean other ways of communicating are not useful or often better in some contexts, e.g. writing a book is a much better way of communicating one’s ideas, theory or sum of knowledge, then a series of chats in a bar… although it is usually a good start. I am a big advocate of online communications because it enables people to define their thoughts in ways they rarely get to do in an offline social context.
That said, Facebook is not an ideal place for that but it helps people to piece together a record of their life. Self-selected and therefore some might say ‘manipulated’ but as I am keen on people to learn about themselves and their identity, I see it as a feature not a bug. There is a post to be written about a stage when people discover that being themselves brings greater rewards than manipulation of their image, but that’s for another time.
Also, social networks are not pointless for communication with friends, if hardly of much use for early bloggers. It is great to find a long lost friend, knowing they exist is better than losing contact with them forever. And a phone is definitely not the best way of communicating either! Social networks enable one-to-many communication for individuals - unheard of before the age of the web unless you were a politician or an author or a celebrity - in short, had some sort of institutional backing whether politics or the media. I can communicate efficiently and persistently with people in my contact list and let them expand on that communication if they are interested.
The main issue I have about the statement that it’s not the right way to communicate with one’s friends is the subsequent presumption that a phone call or a chat in a bar are the right ways. Since that is the only ‘human’ ways people communicate?! What about the wonderful tradition of letter-writing? Is that not a worthwhile communication with a friend even thought it’s not in a bar or over the phone? This goes deeper to the nature and diversity of communication, which makes such utterances short-sighted or blinkered (check the appropriate box). Stinks of an old fart, if you pardon the pun.
There is no reason why we can’t develop ‘human’ dimension in our communications online equivalent to the meeting of minds we experience in human contact offline. Not much to do with social networks as such, see my point about ‘learning how to drive’ above. The way to get there is to differentiate carefully and correctly - and this is going to take some time methinks - between what bits can and should be automated, what bits can and shouldn’t be automated and which bits we have been forcing technology to handle inadequately. I think the serenity prayer sentiments apply just fine here too:
God grant me curiosity to use my brain where irreplaceable, the skill to design and develop technology to assist it and the wisdom to know the difference.
3. I don’t want others to know too many things about me.
I couldn’t agree more. Privacy is a fine thing and until we are the ones who determine what goes out and what stays in, it will be mostly a delusion. Our privacy is protected about the same way a pretty young girl is safe in hands of a pimp held in check by a few hastily drafted rules that are actually very hard to enforce. As long as he’s seen keeping his hands of her, he’s left alone. But she’s still at his mercy and there is not much she can do if he decides to sell her on. Substitute data and information about you and you’ve got the picture.
On the other hand we have the wonders of connectedness and sharing which are very fine things too. It’s what made the web what it is today (in a good way). So to hoard and isolate would be overshooting although the ability to do so should be part of the deal, if that’s what I chose. It is about the right balance and like in any balanced ‘relationship’ it takes two to tango. At the moment, my data is held ransom in an abusive relationship and the fact that I get ’something’ out of it, doesn’t justify the imbalance of power. I should be the one making a decision about - and bear the consequences of - what happens to my data and by extension to my privacy, not Facebook or any other silo or platform. The problem is we have no way of doing that. Yet.
Finally, as Alec is points out security is a policy and so is privacy - what is private to me, may not be to you and vice versa. So what sense can a uniform set of rules or system make in a decentralised environment where a) it is near impossible to enforce and b) the distributed and persistent nature of our communication makes privacy an awkward bolt-on when it should be integral to our behaviour. The more people learn what privacy means and understand its merits and the price of its abuse, the better ‘policies’ they can devise for themselves.
So back to my point about how social networks are the ‘learning wheels’ for our identity online. Social networking is not bullshit, just like driving in a parking lot of a driving school is not pointless. Just see it in the context of the web and the individual and the picture get more interesting, if also more tricky and longer term.
It is about ability to manage one’s own data and network. Even social networks built on closed platforms cannot diminish the first giddy experience of creating a profile that consists of more than a username and data serving the platform owner more than the user. It is the control, the flexibility, the fun and play, the ease of communication and technology that makes the whole experience dynamic and mildly addictive. At the moment, not much else matters to the users - that is why privacy and security is a nice to have, rather a must have. I believe that will change as people get accustomed to more control over their online environment.
I want to be there when they want something more - their own car and their own choice of the destination - to push the driving school metaphor to its limits. Cue VRM hoping to equip people with tools that enable them to take charge of their data, provide context for it, learn from them and pass the knowledge on as they see fit.
Mar
19
Back to VRM basics
Filed Under VRM, Personal | 2 Comments
Tonight I went to the Beers & Innovation event about VRM - many thanks to Ian Delaney for putting together a splendid meeting. The conversations were worthwhile, good questions were asked, some, I hope, might even have been answered! I trust that people present had a sense that this is something that not only makes sense to them but something they can be part of themselves. Which is kind of the whole point.
On the way home, I stopped at a local corner shop. It has been run by a lovely Indian family since times immemorial, it stays open very late and being in Chelsea’s King’s Road it stocks some unusually posh and varied stuff for a corner shop. Obviously know their customers and their needs.
I only recently returned from the US and haven’t yet used my UK wallet. I got some sunflower and rye bread (£1.99) convinced I had enough change to cover that. As I came to pay for it, I realised that was not the case. All I had was a rather large note. Not good. As I fumble in my wallet, the shop assistant says.
It’s ok, tomorrow.
I say: Sorry? What do you mean?
He says: It’s ok, you can pay tomorrow.
I thank him profusely, assuring him that I live round the corner and will definitely be back tomorrow.
He says: I know you, it’s ok.
To put this into context - there was an ATM in the shop, so he could easily have suggested I get a smaller note out. Or he could have made me buy something more to add to the amount. He didn’t, instead he made things easy for me, he risked not being paid at all and showed me the kind of trust that is thought extinct in places like London.
Now, I am not sure this is VRM but I am sure as hell it is a relationship! After an evening of fruitful but rather complex and far fetched pontifications, it was good to get to (VRM) basics.
Mar
14
BarcampNYC3
Filed Under VRM, Events, People | Leave a Comment
Tomorrow I’ll be at BarCampNYC3, which will take place at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, where I plan to do a session on VRM. And looking forward to seeing Tracy Sheridan there too.
Mar
7
VRM Hub meeting in NYC
Filed Under VRM, Events | Leave a Comment
Just added another to the collection of VRM Hub meetings, this time in the US. An informal gathering in New York, on Friday 14th March. Sign up wiki here.
Mar
7
Beers & Innovation 14: VRM
Filed Under VRM, Web/Tech, Events | Leave a Comment
Another VRM event, this time NOT organised by me.
New Media Knowledge Beers & Innovation event with focus on VRM.
Date: 18th March
Time: 18:00 - 20:30
Venue: CC Club, Unit 33, Trocadero Basement Entrance, Piccadilly, London
Price: £25
Announcing the next in our series of early-evening topical debates for members of the digital industry, featuring top speakers, free drinks and a laid back atmosphere.
At the next event, we’ll be tackling the topic of VRM, vendor relationship management. Turning traditional relationships between individuals and companies on the their head, VRM promises a future where we’ll decide when and how brands get in touch.
The panel:
JP Rangaswami - CIO BT Global Services and Confused of Calcutta
Adriana Lukas - Media Influencer and Big Blog Company
Alan Patrick - Broadstuff and Broadsight
Now you know. Hope to see you there.
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London VRM meetings
