VRooMing along

A quick progress report on a number of VRM fronts.

First, lots of action around TrustFabric.org, a VRM company in South Africa. To get some background on context, start with KYC: Know Your Customer. This good-sense imperative takes on official qualities when banking is involved, or holes are left for criminals to slip through. In South Africa it takes form in the Financial Intelligence Centre Act, aka FICA (not to be confused with the U.S.’s Federal Insurance Contributions Act, which shows up on personal income taxes every year). Turns out FICA is a pain in the butt for honest folks. But with problems come opportunities. Joe Botha explains TrustFabric’s this way:

“Most of us who interact with banks, mobile phone companies and ISPs have come to fear the terms FICA and RICA. We know the pain involved in scanning and faxing copies of identity documents and proof of residence invoices. The endless duplication, which in the case of FICA often has to be repeated every three months can feel pointless and like a huge waste of our time,” says Joe Botha, CEO of TrustFabric.

TrustFabric has built a free service, which lets users securely store and selectively share their FICA documents.

Users create a TrustFabric Connect account and upload FICA documents to their Document Store. They create a unique link for each business that requires their documents. Connections to their Document Store are password protected. Users have the option to define an expiry date and receive notifications when their documents are accessed.

The Document Store service is an extension of the TrustFabric Connect service. TrustFabric Connect gives users a way to define how businesses are allowed to contact them via email, phone, text message and snail mail.

“TrustFabric is a Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) service. Businesses use CRM to manage relationships with their customers, while VRM provides customers with tools to manage relationships with businesses.” says Botha. “The new service is a natural extension of this ethos as it puts power back in the hands of the customer. It relieves both the business and the customer from the frustration, duplication and bureaucratic nightmare that is common to FICA processes.”

Here’s more on TrustFabric Connect. Here’s a story on Joe and TrustFabric. And here’s another explaining TrustFabric Connect as “a do-not-contact list that lets individuals opt-out of direct marketing, makes it easy for businesses to comply with legislation protecting customer rights and update existing customers.”

Next, relevantly, two stories on MyData in the U.K.: Consumers to have access to personal marketing data held by businesses—A new scheme, mydata, plans to “empower” consumers by giving them access to personal information held by businesses in the Guardian. Mydex is involved. I am also told that the U.K. government gets how big this is, and is taking the lead.

Gam Dias brings us vrm, fourth party and the empowered consumer, a long and thoughtful blog post. The key excerpt:

What appears to be missing is a service where vendors (manufacturers and retailers) are able to locate individuals looking for products that they might supply.Service Magic and Elance allow seekers to find providers in the Service space, yet nothing really exists yet in the consumer-product space.

vrm and the fourth party

The Fourth Party is a concept that has emerged from the VRM movement – it proposes a fourth party that acts on behalf of the Customer in the same way that a Third Party acts on behalf of the Vendor. If the Vendors are the hotel chains, airlines and car rental companies, then the third parties are Expedia, Orbitz andTravelocity and a fourth party might be the “agent” that negotiates with the travel aggregators to find the best deal.

The advantages to the customer of a four party system are huge and easily understandable. Booking my recent trip to Las Vegas involved a large number of parameters (flight times, airline options, hotel locations and star ratings, car rental companies and car sizes and above all the price parameters) – booking the trip took 3 hours and ended up with a deal for flight and hotel from Expedia and car from Hotwire. If there had been a service to whom I could have sent all the parameters and have them take care of it, then I would have paid for that and they would have probably got me a better deal if they do it all the time.

But wait… I remember a service like that from when I was a child, I think we called it a ‘Travel Agent’. But didn’t they become extinct a few years ago? Perhaps it’s time for them to re-emerge, but not only booking travel, but also handling all sorts of complex requirements, particularly bundles of goods and services. If enough people were able to publish their requests for things and there was a fee involved in finding a solution, a human outsource agent model is likely to emerge – something like the Dedicated Assistant service.

The fourth party also gets around the problem faced by Aggregators (such asKelkoo and Nextag) – to ensure that the consumer is presented with all the offers available. With a fourth party, their value will be to ensure this.

the future state

Once this starts to scale and requests are in millions and billions, then eventually the dedicated assistants will need to be augmented with more automated service that respond faster and are perhaps able to bid at auctions or take advantage of limited time / quantity deals, then my belief is that we will see Agent Technology doing our bidding online. I’ll be watching this space closely for many reasons.

David Dorf in Oracle’s Insight-Driven Retail Blog writes a nice post about VRM titled CRM vs. VRM. He calls VRM,

…a reverse CRM of sorts.  Instead of vendors managing their relationships with customers, customers manage their relationships with vendors.

Your shopping experience is not really controlled by you; rather, its controlled by the retailer and advertisers.  And unfortunately, they typically don’t give you a say in the matter.  Yes, they might tailor the content for “female age 25-35 interested in shoes” but that’s not really the essence of you, is it?  A better approach is to the let consumers volunteer information about themselves.  And why wouldn’t they if it means a better, more relevant shopping experience?  I’d gladly list out my likes and dislikes in exchange for getting rid of all those annoying cookies on my harddrive.

He adds,

The closest thing to VRM I can find is Buyosphere, a start-up that allows consumers to track their shopping history across many vendors, then share it appropriately.  Also, Amazon does a pretty good job allowing its customers to edit their profile, which includes everything you’ve ever purchased from Amazon.  You can mark items as gifts, or explicitly exclude them from their recommendation engine.  This is a win-win for both the consumer and retailer.

So here is my plea to retailers: Instead of trying to infer my interests from snapshots of my day, please just ask me.  We’ll both have a better experience in the long-run.

I should add that it’s been VRM+CRM from the start, though “vs” works in this case. (And we’re working on setting up the next VRM+CRM workshop. Hope David and some Oracle folks can make it.)

Alan Patrick writes VRM, Loopt and the Reverse-Groupon Effect. “…the thing that keeps me interested in VRM is that part of me thinks that if (i) the power of today’s web was harnessed (ii) with modular product design ansd (iii) the sheer numbers online now, it may become a reality.”

On Twitter @ScottEustace suggests that Seth Godin‘s Show me the (meta) data is a VRM post. Could be. Says Seth,

Who owns the trail of digital breadcrumbs you’re leaving behind?

Is understanding who you know and how you know them and where you visit and what you’re interested in and what you buy worth anything?

Perhaps you should own it. Richard Thaler’s provocative idea shouldn’t be that provocative, and it represents a significant business opportunity. He argues that you (not some company) ought to own your caller history, your credit card history, etc. If it was available to you as a machine-readable file, you could easily submit it to another company and see if there was a better deal available. You could make your preferences and your history (you, basically) portable, and others could bid for a chance to do better for you.

This is an idea that feels inevitable to me, and I think that entrepreneurs shouldn’t wait for the government to require it. There are already services that scrape financial pages (like Mint), but it could go further. We need software on our phones that can remember where we go and what we do, software for our browsers that can create profiles that save us time and money, and most of all, software for our email that gets ever smarter about who we are and who we’re connecting to.

Data about data is more important than ever, and being on the side of the person creating that data is a smart place to be.

Can’t get much more VRooMy than that.

In his Loyalty Blog, Mark Sage suggests that the Pizza Express app is a glimpse into the future of VRM. A long excerpt:

This is a really interesting feature that both Pizza Express and Square have in common – the provision of customer data back to the customer – and it is becoming increasingly common as customers begin to expect their data to be collected, but increasingly consider it “their” data. When I shop at Tesco I know they are tracking my purchases, however when I go online and see new products added to my favourites list it begins to actually feel like my data.

This trend of providing information back to customers and giving them access to and ownership of it is also gathering pace.

Within websites and applications for example you are increasingly given the option to login via social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. While you still login, connecting via a social network provides a subtle change. You are actually granting permission to that application to connect to you rather than the other way round. At any time, I can review my relationships with different applications and simply close them down by removing the authorisation. I can also look at the permissions I’ve granted to those applications and change what information they can see.

There has been a transfer of power within identity management. It’s now my identity and I can choose who has access to it, how much access they have and when I want to end it.

Imagine this trend being extended to all your interactions.

Within a supermarket loyalty programme for example you could link your purchase history to an app from a CPG manufacture like Unilever. You’d be doing this in the full knowledge that Unilever could then access your purchases and provide you with relevant offers (or reward points). You’d be choosing how to use your information for your benefit.

This is a really amazing thought and something that has been termed VRM or Vendor Relationship Management…

Google is also ahead of this curve, with its Data Liberation Front. Says the Data Liberation team,

The Data Liberation Front is an engineering team at Google whose singular goal is to make it easier for users to move their data in and out of Google products. We do this because we believe that you should be able to export any data that you create in (or import into) a product. We help and consult other engineering teams within Google on how to “liberate” their products. This is our mission statement:

Users should be able to control the data they store in any of Google’s products. Our team’s goal is to make it easier to move data in and out.

People usually don’t look to see if they can get their data out of a product until they decide one day that they want to leave. For this reason, we always encourage people to ask these three questions before starting to use a product that will store their data:

1. Can I get my data out at all?
2. How much is it going to cost to get my data out?
3. How much of my time is it going to take to get my data out?

The ideal answers to these questions are:

1. Yes.
2. Nothing more than I’m already paying.
3. As little as possible.

There shouldn’t be an additional charge to export your data. Beyond that, if it takes you many hours to get your data out, it’s almost as bad as not being able to get your data out at all.

We don’t think that our products are perfect yet, but we’re continuing to work at making it easier to get your data in and out of them. Visit our Google Moderator page to vote on and add suggestions on what you’d like to see liberated and why.

And that’s pretty darned VRooMy too.

Are you in charge of what you buy, or is it vice versa?

That’s the question of the day, at least for me.

Toward being in charge of what you buy, we have Buyosphere, which is a VRM company. I know that, because Tara Hunt runs it and has been working from the start to imbue it with VRM ideals.

Toward what you buy being in charge of you, we have OwnerIQ, which is about each of us being reducible to the “brands” we own, and which I just wrote about over here.

OwnerIQ’s pitch is to advertisers, basically. Also pitching advertisers are all the third parties current;y tracking you on the Web. Here’s SelectOut.org‘s list of companies currently following me in one of my browsers (with a table of html copied and pasted):

Company	Cookie Set?	Opt-Out
24 7 Real Media		Opt-Out of this Network
33 Across		Opt-Out of this Network
Accuen Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Acxiom		Opt-Out of this Network
Adap.tv		Opt-Out of this Network
Adara Media		Opt-Out of this Network
AdBrite		Opt-Out of this Network
AdBuyer		Opt-Out of this Network
AdCentric (Cossette)		Opt-Out of this Network
AdChemy		Opt-Out of this Network
adConductor		Opt-Out of this Network
Adconion		Opt-Out of this Network
AdGear		Opt-Out of this Network
AdInterax		Opt-Out of this Network
Adition Technologies AG		Opt-Out of this Network
AdJug		Opt-Out of this Network
AdJuggler		Opt-Out of this Network
AdMeld		Opt-Out of this Network
AdMotion		Opt-Out of this Network
adnetik		Opt-Out of this Network
Adnologies		Opt-Out of this Network
Adotube		Opt-Out of this Network
Adperium		Opt-Out of this Network
Adroit Interactive		Opt-Out of this Network
AdShuffle		Opt-Out of this Network
AdSpeed		Opt-Out of this Network
AdTech		Opt-Out of this Network
Advertising		Opt-Out of this Network
AggregateKnowledge		Opt-Out of this Network
Akamai		Opt-Out of this Network
AlmondNet		Opt-Out of this Network
Anonymous Media		Opt-Out of this Network
AOL Behavioral Advertising		Opt-Out of this Network
AOL Sponsored Listings		Opt-Out of this Network
AppNexus		Opt-Out of this Network
Atlas Technology		Opt-Out of this Network
AudienceScience		Opt-Out of this Network
BeenCounter		Opt-Out of this Network
BidPlace		Opt-Out of this Network
Bizo		Opt-Out of this Network
BlueKai		Opt-Out of this Network
brand net		Opt-Out of this Network
BrightRoll		Opt-Out of this Network
Brilig		Opt-Out of this Network
BTBuckets		Opt-Out of this Network
BuySight		Opt-Out of this Network
BuzzLogic		Opt-Out of this Network
BV! Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Casale Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Chango		Opt-Out of this Network
Channel Intelligence		Opt-Out of this Network
Choice Stream		Opt-Out of this Network
Clearspring		Opt-Out of this Network
ClickDistrict		Opt-Out of this Network
Cobalt Group		Opt-Out of this Network
Cognitive Match		Opt-Out of this Network
CONTEXTin		Opt-Out of this Network
Convertro		Opt-Out of this Network
Cox Digital Solutions		Opt-Out of this Network
CPMStar		Opt-Out of this Network
CPX Interactive		Opt-Out of this Network
Crimson Tangerine		Opt-Out of this Network
Criteo		Opt-Out of this Network
Cross Pixel Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Dapper		Opt-Out of this Network
DataLogix		Opt-Out of this Network
DataXu		Opt-Out of this Network
Datran Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Demand Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Demdex		Opt-Out of this Network
Dotomi		Opt-Out of this Network
Double Verify		Opt-Out of this Network
e-planning		Opt-Out of this Network
Think Realtime		Opt-Out of this Network
Effective Measure		Opt-Out of this Network
Efficient Frontier		Opt-Out of this Network
Eloqua		Opt-Out of this Network
EMC		Opt-Out of this Network
Engage:BDR		Opt-Out of this Network
eXelate Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Experian Marketing Services		Opt-Out of this Network
Exponential Interactive		Opt-Out of this Network
EyeWonder		Opt-Out of this Network
Facilitate Digital		Opt-Out of this Network
FetchBack		Opt-Out of this Network
Fireclick		Opt-Out of this Network
Flashtalking		Opt-Out of this Network
Forbes Media Extension		Opt-Out of this Network
FOX Audience Network		Opt-Out of this Network
Freewheel		Opt-Out of this Network
Full Circle Studies		Opt-Out of this Network
Glam Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Google		Opt-Out of this Network
Groupon		Opt-Out of this Network
Hurra Communications		Opt-Out of this Network
i-Behavior		Opt-Out of this Network
Infectious Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Inflection Point Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Insight Express		Opt-Out of this Network
Intent Media		Opt-Out of this Network
interCLICK		Opt-Out of this Network
Invite Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Jumptap		Opt-Out of this Network
Keyade		Opt-Out of this Network
Lijit		Opt-Out of this Network
LiveRail		Opt-Out of this Network
Lotame		Opt-Out of this Network
Lucid Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Magnetic		Opt-Out of this Network
Maxpoint Interactive		Opt-Out of this Network
Media Innovation Group		Opt-Out of this Network
Media6degrees		Opt-Out of this Network
mediaFORGE		Opt-Out of this Network
MediaMath		Opt-Out of this Network
MediaMind		Opt-Out of this Network
Mediaplex		Opt-Out of this Network
Meebo		Opt-Out of this Network
Microsoft Advertising		Opt-Out of this Network
Millennial Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Mindset Media		Opt-Out of this Network
MindShare		Opt-Out of this Network
Mixpo		Opt-Out of this Network
Monster.com		Opt-Out of this Network
MyBuys		Opt-Out of this Network
MyThings Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Navegg		Opt-Out of this Network
Netmining		Opt-Out of this Network
Newtention		Opt-Out of this Network
Next Performance		Opt-Out of this Network
Nextag		Opt-Out of this Network
Nielsen		Opt-Out of this Network
Nugg.ad		Opt-Out of this Network
Omniture		Opt-Out of this Network
OpenX		Opt-Out of this Network
Optimax Media Delivery		Opt-Out of this Network
Outbrain		Opt-Out of this Network
OwnerIQ		Opt-Out of this Network
OxaMedia		Opt-Out of this Network
PeerSet		Opt-Out of this Network
PointRoll		Opt-Out of this Network
PrecisionClick		Opt-Out of this Network
PredictAd		Opt-Out of this Network
Proximic		Opt-Out of this Network
Publishers Clearing House		Opt-Out of this Network
Pubmatic		Opt-Out of this Network
Pulse360		Opt-Out of this Network
Quantcast		Opt-Out of this Network
QuinStreet		Opt-Out of this Network
Quisma		Opt-Out of this Network
RadiumOne		Opt-Out of this Network
RapLeaf		Opt-Out of this Network
Red Aril		Opt-Out of this Network
Reedge		Opt-Out of this Network
RewardTV		Opt-Out of this Network
richrelevance		Opt-Out of this Network
Ringleader Digital		Opt-Out of this Network
Rocket Fuel		Opt-Out of this Network
Rovion		Opt-Out of this Network
Safecount		Opt-Out of this Network
SageMetrics		Opt-Out of this Network
ScanScout		Opt-Out of this Network
Smart AdServer		Opt-Out of this Network
Snoobi		Opt-Out of this Network
Specific Media		Opt-Out of this Network
SpongeCell		Opt-Out of this Network
Struq		Opt-Out of this Network
Switch Concepts		Opt-Out of this Network
Tapad		Opt-Out of this Network
Target		Opt-Out of this Network
TargusInfo		Opt-Out of this Network
Tatto Media		Opt-Out of this Network
TellApart		Opt-Out of this Network
Teracent		Opt-Out of this Network
TidalTV		Opt-Out of this Network
Epic Marketplace		Opt-Out of this Network
Traffiliate		Opt-Out of this Network
Travel Ad Network		Opt-Out of this Network
Triggit		Opt-Out of this Network
Tumri		Opt-Out of this Network
Turn		Opt-Out of this Network
Underdog Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Undertone Networks		Opt-Out of this Network
ValueClick Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Veruta		Opt-Out of this Network
Vibrant Media		Opt-Out of this Network
Vindico		Opt-Out of this Network
Visible Measures		Opt-Out of this Network
VoiceFive Networks		Opt-Out of this Network
Wall Street on Demand		Opt-Out of this Network
Walmart		Opt-Out of this Network
Weborama		Opt-Out of this Network
Webtrekk		Opt-Out of this Network
[x+1]		Opt-Out of this Network
XA.Net		Opt-Out of this Network
XGraph		Opt-Out of this Network
Xtend Media		Opt-Out of this Network
YuMe		Opt-Out of this Network
Ziff Davis		Opt-Out of this Network

I’ll find a better way to paste that pile in later. Meanwhile, it says enough.

We are at a choice point, right now. Either we’re in charge of our lives, and of what we do in the marketplace, or the guesswork mills are.

Free customers are more valuable than captive ones. That’s why VRM will succeed, sooner or later.

Personal RFP

Terry Heaton just pointed me to this post by Seth Godin. A couple paragraphs:

Any wasting asset–a restaurant table, a seat at a conference, a wasting box of fish–can be efficiently used instead of wasted if we use technology to identify and coordinate buyers.

Synchronizing buyers to improve efficiency and connection is a high-value endeavor, and it’s right around the corner. It will permit mesh products, better conferences, higher productivity and less waste, while giving significant new power to consumers and those that organize them.

Seth’s talking about aggregation here: people getting together in groups to assert demand. This is a good idea, but I don’t think it’s VRM. Not exactly, anyway.

VRM starts with one customer, expressing demand in his or her own ways, rather than in aggregate, or in ways provided by one commercial system or another. (For example, this blog is my own way of publishing. I’m not using Facebook or Twitter or anybody’s system.)

We don’t yet have a single, canonical VRMmmy way to issue a personal RFP, or to have it heard. Rather than explain what a personal RFP is, let’s just lift the whole entry from the page by that title in the ProjectVRM wiki:

An RFP is a buyer-initiated procurement protocol used by businesses, governments and other large organizations. It is, literally, what the letters stand for: a Request For Proposal. Among a suite of similar TLAs (three letter acronyms) that begin with “Request for” — RFI (Request for Information), RFQ (Request for Quotation), RFT (Request for Tender) — RFP is the most familiar.

RFPs, however, are about as personal as heavy construction. They’re something only big organizations do.

In a VRM context, however, an RFP is something an individual should be able to do in the open marketplace. An individual should be able to issue an RFP that says, for example,

– “I need a stroller for twins in Glasgow in the next three hours.” – “I need a ThinkPad T60 power supply near SFO this afternoon.” – “I need to rent a minivan that seats six and has a roof rack in Salt Lake City next week.” – “I need wheel rims for a 1967 Peugeot 404.” – “I need a 200 watt 220-110 volt power converter in Copenhagen this afternoon”

[Scott Adams calls this] “broadcast shopping.”

The customer can also provide a sum he or she is willing to pay. He or she should be able to do this in a way that is secure and involves minimal disclosure of personal information.

There are many ways this can be done now, through non-substitutable websites and services. Craigs List and eBay both provide means for requesting products. Twitter does too. And Etsy.

What makes a personal RFP a VRM protocol is the substitutability of the services answering the request. The customer should be able to express demand in the open marketplace rather than only within a single intermediary’s silo or walled garden.

Personal RFPs can be thought of as a form by which demand advertises to supply, rather than vice versa. It involves no guesswork about what the customer wants, or whether there is money on the table.

As matters currently stand, there is an enormous sum of demand — such as the RFPs mentioned above — that can result in MLOTT (Money Left On The Table) if the supply side fails to hear the demand and complete a sale. There is no equivalent of the RFP, RFI and RFQ for individuals. Yet the demand exists. Money is there. What we need is the table.

That table is a set of protocols, rituals and systems for routing requests from demand to supply, and responses back. Setting up that table is a primary challenge for VRM.

There are sites that do this. RedBeacon is one. But can we imagine issuing a personal RFP without an intermediary like RedBeacon?

We’ve visited this question before. Wondering what we’ve learned in the (nearly) two years since then.

What makes a VRM tool VRM?

Andrew Bogusky‘s New Conscious Consumer Bill of Rights post just came to my attention, thanks to this tweet by @jamiedsmith, who adds “Needs more symmetry of power for consumers though”.  All due respect to Andrew’s efforts (and he deserves much), I think the only way to get symmetry of power for consumers is by turning them into full-power customers—with their own tools. That’s what we’ve been working on in the VRM development community.

Several years ago I put up a list of ten principles of VRM. That was before we had most of the tools in development today. So now I’d like to post instead a list of characteristics that define VRM tools. As usual, these are provisional:

1. VRM tools are personal. As with hammers, wallets and mobile phones, people use them as individuals,. They are social only in secondary ways.
2. VRM tools help customers express intent. These include preferences, policies, terms and means of engagement, permissions, requests and anything else that’s possible in a free market (i.e. the open marketplace surrounding any one vendor’s silo or walled garden for “managing” captive customers).
3. VRM tools help customers engage. This can be with each other, or with any organization, including (and especially) its CRM system.
4. VRM tools help customers manage. This includes both their own data and systems and their relationships with other entities, and their systems.
5. VRM tools are substitutable. This means no vendor of VRM tools can lock users in.

So, tell me how to improve the list, or suggest a better one.