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Apr
3
Enabling vs Providing
Filed Under Mine!, Individual, VRMHub, VRM, Tools and applications, Social web, Web/Tech | 3 Comments
Talking to Doc earlier this week, I tried to explain my unease with various interpretations of VRM that come thick and fast as the concepts gain traction by identifying the fundamental problem.*
It is the assumption that “the individual needs to be provided for” that I see everywhere other than on the social (or live) web where the demand side can, and often does, supply itself, where users can and often do become creators, where the audiences have become distributors, and intermediaries of all kinds are melting away from decentralised networks and direct connections. Alas, even on the web, it’s not all P2P roses - my online existence is scattered across many platforms, Google, WordPress, Flickr, Dopplr, Twitter, and many more.
Most VRM approaches or implementations I have seen involve a third party as a provider. I believe we first need to focus on changing the relationships between individuals and companies or institutions. First comes redressing the balance - manually, as it were - by helping individuals relate to companies in ways that change companies’ behaviour.
Most of all, I want to avoid using technology to address a non-technology problem, using automation or aggregation for the aspects of relationships which should be processed by a human mind. I want to avoid jumping straight into ‘industrial’ processing of data treasures found on the customer side. We need a more balanced relationships with vendors and institutions, with different tools and possibly rules of interaction. Then we can look at ways to rationalise the technology and processes that help us create and maintain those relationships.
The most common solutions for providing individuals with online services are based around centralised databases or platforms. They are suspect on security and privacy grounds even though they may be created by a trustworthy party. So, any framework or structure provided by a third party that is meant to provide a place for individuals to create, gather, manage and share data as well as allowing a degree of aggregation, connectivity, will have to have in-built checks and balances as it may ultimately expose individuals to potential data-mining (whether the more private among us like it or not!). The challenge is to separate the data storage provider and a services/application provider. If I let someone store or back up my data - reluctantly admitting it may still be necessary for now - I would want them to store my data only, and not push or even provide any other apps based on that data. I should then be able to choose and apply whatever application I want, to my data, at my convenience.
Jason Scott of ASCII has a juicy way of putting this:
This is about your data. This is about your work. This is about you using your time so that you make things and work on things and you trust a location to do “the rest” and guess what, here is what we have learned:
- If you lose your shit, the technogeeks will not help you. They will giggle at you and make fun of your not understanding the fundamental principles and engineering of client-server models. This is kind of like firemen sitting around giggling at you because you weren’t aware of the inherent lightning-strike danger of improperly bonded CSST.
- Since the dawn of time, companies have hired people whose entire job is to tell you everything is all right and you can completely trust them and the company is as stable as a rock, and to do so until they, themselves are fired because the company is out of business.
- You are going to have to sit down and ask yourself some very tough questions because the time where you could get away without asking very tough questions with regard to your online presence and data are gone.
And his advice further into the wonderful rant is even juicier:
- Insult, berate and make fun of any company that offers you something like a “sharing” site that makes you push stuff in that you can’t make copies out of or which you can’t export stuff out of. They will burble about technology issues. They are fucking lying. They might go off further about business models. They are fucking stupid. Make fun of these people, and their shitty little Cloud Cities running on low-grade cooking fat and dreams. They will die and they will take your stuff into the hole. Don’t let them.
…but is no less sound for it!
Please, let’s have more of enabling and less of mere providing.
* as described in the paper A VRM journey.
cross-posted from VRM Hub
Feb
23
VRM Hub Open Space
Filed Under VRMHub, VRM, Events | Leave a Comment
Another in the series of VRM Hub events, an open space event is planned for 30th March, registration opened here.
Here is the page for the event itself.
See you there!
Feb
11
February VRM Hub meeting
Filed Under VRMHub, VRM, Admin, Events | Leave a Comment
The next VRM Hub meeting is on Thursday 26th February, 6-9pm at the same venue as the last month - GfK NOP building in Southwark, Room 15, 9th floor, Ludgate House, 245 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 9UL (map).
The topic will be further discussion of VRM - ideas, concepts, definitions, explanations etc, - a follow up on the game playing at the January session. Those who didn’t take part, do not fear, we have detailed notes on the results of January Game Playing.
Feb
2
VRM journey
Filed Under New models, VRMHub, Individual, VRM, Autonomy, Projects, Personal, Music | 2 Comments
For those who follow my VRM escapades, I have tried to capture what VRM is about and why I am working on it. So here is my paper (and manifesto) A VRM journey.
Loosely speaking, apart from my consolidate position on VRM, this is what it’s about (as summed up by my friend Carrie):
- ‘Social media’ is limited and people are outgrowing it
- There is demand from growing number of people for more control over their online ’stuff’
- There are benefits to users and ‘vendors’ for re-working the current imbalanced relationship
- Some tools are being developed to make that a reality
- It will be a hard slog but there is a call to arms for users to even out the balance; the most open vendors will also benefit - bringing more certainty to their future in this uncertain economic climate
Here is the PDF version for those who prefer a non-web format.
Dec
6
January VRM Hub meeting
Filed Under VRMHub, VRM, Events | Leave a Comment
In the last two years I have discovered that the idea of VRM appeals to most on an instinctive level. People respond in different ways and with different ideas and interpretations of what VRM means and how to go about making it happen. This means people get involved, which is good. It also means people bring their more or less complete understanding, which is sometimes challenging.
I thought it would be useful to spend some time exploring what VRM means to each of us. So I decided to dedicate the January VRM Hub meeting to discovering together the various aspects of what VRM means to people who rally behind it. It might help us explain it better to others, and collaborate more effectively together on how to make it happen.
We are going to take a playful approach to this and many thanks to
Johnnie Moore for agreeing to facilitate/run the game, and to GfK NOP for providing the venue. Johnnie works with all sorts of companies on collaboration and is going to use one of two of his favourite games to help us explore ideas together. He warns there’s a serious risk of having a few laughs and some danger of unexpected learning.
Sign up here, as usual.
Reminder: VRM Hub Christmas drinks will be on 15th December at Crosskeys pub in Chelsea.
Nov
14
VRM Hub November evening meeting
Filed Under VRMHub, VRM, Events | Leave a Comment
Our next meeting is on Thursday 27th November, 6-9pm at the same venue as the last month - GfK NOP building in Southwark, Room 15, 9th floor, Ludgate House, 245 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 9UL (map).
Our speaker for this session will be, Nick Buckley, who kindly arranged the venue for VRM Hub until next February. He will talk about what the shift in balance of power between vendors and customers might mean for Market Research and where this might lead to real change rather than incrementally “adaptive adoption” of VRM. As always, I’ll encourage Nick to come at this from his personal perspective as a market research expert but also as someone who has observed the web and its impact on individuals.
I don’t have a link for Nick who is in the process of setting up a blog to continue to share his insight with the world. Good stuff. 
Look forward to seeing you there, sign up here.
Oct
23
VRM Hub meeting in October
Filed Under VRMHub, VRM, Events | Leave a Comment
We have a venue and a speaker for this month’s VRM Hub evening gathering. We are meeting at GfK NOP office, Room 15, 9th floor, Ludgate House, 245 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 9UL (map). Thanks to Nick Buckley we will be able to use a meeting room at GfK NOP office up to the end of February. Many many thanks!
Also, we have a speaker for this meeting - read a person who kicks off the discussion - Peter Parkes, a veteran member of the VRM Hub community and a social web (power)user will be talking about ‘VRM and the battle for relevancy’. His site is Peter Parkes and he is part of the team at we are social.
I don’t think this is about whether VRM relevant or not - one of the things very clear to me from talking to people about VRM for the last two years is that it is very relevant. The issue is how, not why. So interested in Peter’s take on it.
If we end up talking about something else that’s fine too. But at least now we have a speaker, er, topic to kick around.
So please do join the discussion, which will start at 6pm, carry on until about 9pm. Then we might retirw to a nearby pub, which is what usually happens. Look forward to seeing you there. Sign up here.
cross-posted from VRM Hub
Oct
16
VRM Hub conference update
Filed Under VRMHub, VRM, Admin, Events | Leave a Comment
A few good pieces of news for the London VRM Hub conference on 3rd November:
Doc Searls, the VRM godfather, will be at the Unlocking the see-saw conference, talking about VRM principles as part of the introductory hour before the user panel and the vendor panel discussions.
Mike Nutley, the editor-in-chief of the New Media Age magazine will be joining the ‘vendors’ panel, commenting on how VRM impacts branding & marketing.
And finally, thanks to the generous support of iCrossing we will be able to network drinks following the afternoon sessions as well as refreshment during one of the breaks. This makes a difference to me as VRM Hub normally operates on less than a shoe-string.
For those who missed it, here is the conference programme: Unlocking the see-saw and registration.
Look forward to seeing you there.
Oct
8
VRM Hub annoucements
Filed Under VRMHub, Events | Leave a Comment
Over at the VRM Hub blog, there is some news about our monthly gatherings. In short, for each meeting we will have a topic to focus on and a speaker for 15 minutes to kick off the discussion. Both will be announced with on each meeting’s sign up page and on the VRM Hub.
For those of Media Influencer readers who are interested in VRM and the Mine!, I will continue to write on these topics, in fact, I am stepping up the volume on VRM Hub and the Mine! project respectively. So please bookmark or subscribe to the VRM Hub feed and the Mine! project feed, if you wish to follow. I will cross-post for a while but eventually, the VRM action will happen there.
Oct
3
Tuttle club hosts VRM roundtable
Filed Under VRMHub, VRM, Social web, Projects, Events | Leave a Comment
I am a fan and supporter of the Tuttle Club and what Lloyd has done for the social media scene in London can be seen from the popularity of the gatherings every Friday morning from 10am till about 1pm. I have two pieces of news to share regarding the Tuttle Club/Social Media Cafe.
First, the Friday morning meetings are moving from Coach & Horses to the ICA club (as part of what Lloyd calls Phase II). The weekly sign up wiki is here.
Secondly, on 10th October the Social media cafe meeting will be morph into a VRM roundtable at around 12.30pm. The idea is to bring VRM to the attention of the social web network in London and as a forerunner to the VRM Hub conference in November.
For more information feel free to email me at adriana dot lukas at gmail dot com.
Look forward to seeing you there!
cross-posted from VRM Hub
Sep
17
VRM Hub meeting in September
Filed Under VRMHub, Events | Leave a Comment
This month’s VRM Hub meeting will be on 25th Sept, Thursday, 6-9pm, at Smollensky’s in the Strand, where we have booked a couple of long tables behind the bar.
Sign up here.
Sep
16
VRM Hub conference in London 2008
Filed Under Mine!, VRMHub, VRM, Social web, Events | Leave a Comment
I am organising a half-day conference in London on 3rd November this year, reaching out to those interested in redressing the balance of power between customers and vendors, people and businesses.
The event is called Unlocking the see-saw (link to the full programme with registration).
