Category Archives: Vendor Relationship Management

Ten Years Later

Ten years ago I wrote a blog post that captured a key architectural insight at the core of VRM: putting the user at the center of integration not only improves the quality of services, it simplifies our systems. The article captured the gestalt of VRM and helped catalyze a range of conversations that still shape the VRM approach.

Since then, we have seen a lot of progress. Here are a few standout examples. Continue reading

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Beware the Plan of Sauron

The “Master App” can’t magically make it all work. On the project VRM blog, Doc Searls recently suggested that the killer app for VRM is the “Master App”. In response, on the Project VRM email list, Jim Pasquale suggested it’s … Continue reading

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Google sees the value of Free Customers

This is fascinating: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/google-bringing-trueview-ads-apps-games-147558 Google has an ad program on YouTube that let’s users skip ads and they are now extending it to other ad formats. Even though it is the same old advertising game–something that could use some fixing–what’s … Continue reading

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It all starts with sharing…

From kindergarten through our professional life, sharing binds us together as friends, colleagues, and collaborators, so perhaps it should be no surprise that online sharing through services like Facebook, Twitter, and email shapes our online social life. Yet sharing online … Continue reading

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Trust Me… Things Change.

Trust is complicated. But for some reason, online trust mechanisms assume it is outrageously simple. For example, firewalls imply that once you’re in the network, you’re trusted. It’s baked into the framing of the problem. Similarly, Trust Frameworks assume that … Continue reading

Posted in Information Sharing, Personal Data Store, Shared Information, User Driven Services, Vendor Relationship Management | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Fourth Parties are agents. Third Parties aren’t necessarily.

Fourth Parties is a powerful, but sometimes confusing term. In fact, I think Doc recently mischaracterized it in a recent post to the ProjectVRM mailing list. Normally, I wouldn’t nitpick about this, but there are two key domains where this … Continue reading

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World Economic Forum and Personal Data as an Asset Class

At this last week’s Personal Data Deep Dive in Palo Alto, I had a chance to talk with some of the folks working with the World Economic Forum about their recent report Personal Data: The Emergence of a New Asset Class. … Continue reading

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Constellations of Privacy

Privacy issues dominate the global debate about protecting the rights of individuals online. Yet, the conversation almost entirely misses a vital point: public or private isn’t a black or white choice and it never has been. Sociologists have long recognized … Continue reading

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Asymmetry by Choice

Perhaps the most powerful form of asymmetric information is missing from JP Rangaswami’s post addressing whether the web is making us dumber. I agree with the core point of JP’s article, but I think he oversimplifies the argument on asymmetry … Continue reading

Posted in Information Sharing, Personal Data Store, ProjectVRM, Shared Information, User Driven Services, Vendor Relationship Management | 4 Comments

Beyond Data Ownership to Information Sharing

The question of who owns our data on the Internet is a challenging problem. It can also be a  red herring, distracting us from building the next generation of online services. The term “ownership” simply brings too much baggage from … Continue reading

Posted in Information Sharing, Intention Economy, Personal Data Store, ProjectVRM, Shared Information, User Driven Services, Vendor Relationship Management | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 22 Comments