Doc Searls – joeandrieu.com
type: channel
description: My personal space
date: 2011-04-13T19:16:43Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
generator agent: https://wordpress.org/
items: Fourth Parties are agents. Third Parties aren’t necessarily.
items: Beyond Data Ownership to Information Sharing
items: A fresh breath
items: Ephemera and Permanence — Tweets for Life
items: One Night Stand worth $300 Million
items: Kynetx takes on Structured Browsing
items: Farewell Google Notebook, Move over SearchWiki, We need a Search Map
items: Towards User Driven Search
items: Answers to a few questions about VRM
items: The user is the platform of the future… Doc Searls @ LeWeb3

Fourth Parties are agents. Third Parties aren’t necessarily.
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2011-04-13T19:16:43Z
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: Doc Searls
subject: fourth parties
subject: Platform
subject: VRM
description: 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 →
encoded: 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 is vital and I’m knee deep in both: contracts and platforms. Doc said: Like, is the customer always the first party and the vendor the second party? Well, no. So, some clarification. First and second parties are like the first and second person voices in speech. The person speaking is the first person, and uses the first person voice (I, me, mine, myself). The person being addressed is the second person, and is addressed in the second person voice (you, your, yourself). And To sum it up, third parties mostly assist vendors. That is, they show up as helpers to vendors. The first point is great, and if you continue this further (and make the leap from parties to data providers), you get something like this: The ownership of “your” and “my” data is usually clear. However, ownership of the different types of “our” data is a challenge at best. To complicate matters further, every instance of “my data” is somebody else’s “your data”. In every case, there is this mutually reciprocal relationship between us and them. In the VRM case, we usually think of the individual as owning “my data” and the vendor as owning “your data”, but for the vendor, the reverse is true: to them their data is “my data” and the individual’s data is “your data”. Similar dynamics occur when the other party is an individual. I bring my data, you bring your data, and together we’ll engage with “our” data. We need an approach that respects and applies to everyone’s data, you, me, them, everybody.. Which is from my post on data ownership. The trick is that 1st party and 2nd party perspectives are symmetrical. We are their 2nd party and they are their 1st party. Whatever solution we come up with in the VRM world needs to work for everyone as their own 1st party. Every…

Beyond Data Ownership to Information Sharing
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2010-01-21T22:32:19Z
subject: Information Sharing
subject: Intention Economy
subject: Personal Data Store
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: Shared Information
subject: User Driven Services
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: CRM
subject: data ownership
subject: Doc Searls
subject: privacy
subject: project VRM
subject: User Driven
subject: VRM
description: 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 →
encoded: 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 the physical world, suggesting a win-lose, us-verses-them mentality that retards the development of rich, powerful services based on shared information. Anyone up for sacred cow cheeseburgers? I’m a member–and a big fan–of Steve Holcombe‘s “Data Ownership in the Cloud” LinkedIn group and I love the efforts of the Dataportability guys and am a big supporter of the Privacy and Public Policy work group at Kantara. There is a lot of good work being done by folks trying to figure out how to give people greater control over the use of data about them (privacy) and gain access to data they use or created (dataportability). Unfortunately, sometimes the arguments behind these efforts are based on who owns–or who should own–the data. This is not just an intellectual debate or political rallying call, it often undermines our common efforts to build a better system. Consider this: Privacy as secrecy is dead Data sharing is data copying Transaction data has dual ownership Yours, mine, & ours: Reality is complicated Taking back ownership is confrontational Privacy as secrecy is dead First, the data is pretty much already out there. The issue isn’t “How do we keep data from bad people,” it’s “How do we keep people from doing bad things with data?” DRM and crypto and related technology as the sole means to prevent data leakage and data abuse are failures. Sooner or later, the bad guys break the system and get the data. Sure, there are smart things we can do to protect ourselves. Just like we wear seatbelts and lock our front doors, we should also use SSL and multi-factor authentication, but we can’t count on technology to keep our secrets. We need solutions that work even when the secret is out. In fact, privacy isn’t about information we keep secret. It…

A fresh breath
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2010-01-02T04:09:32Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: 2009
subject: 2010
subject: Azigo
subject: Doc Searls
subject: happy new year
subject: kynetx
subject: project VRM
subject: scanaroo
subject: SwitchBook
subject: the mine!
subject: User Driven Services
subject: VRM
description: This last year (2009) was the most challenging ever for me, both personally and professionally. Good times, tough problems, people that transformed my heart, and ideas that changed my perspective. It wasn’t always easy, but each challenge had its own … Continue reading →
encoded: This last year (2009) was the most challenging ever for me, both personally and professionally. Good times, tough problems, people that transformed my heart, and ideas that changed my perspective. It wasn’t always easy, but each challenge had its own reward. I’m looking forward to writing a bit more this year, opening the conversation up about portable contexts and user driven services. My work with Project VRM and the Kantara Initiative‘s Information Sharing and User-Managed Access Work Groups will continue to be a big part of that. I’m also looking forward to some interesting new product and service releases, from SwitchBook, MyDex, The Mine!, and others in the VRM community, as well as updates and innovations from Scanaroo, Kynetx and Azigo and others. Also, Doc Searls‘ upcoming book on the Intention Economy promises to be an intriguing read. It should be a good year for VRM. Best of luck to you and for your own plans for 2010. May it be a stand-out year for all of us.

Ephemera and Permanence — Tweets for Life
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2009-08-14T07:21:32Z
subject: Shared Information
subject: At-Will
subject: At-will information sharing
subject: Creative Commons
subject: Doc Searls
subject: Facebook
subject: flow-by web
subject: Kantara Initiative
subject: live web
subject: On-the-Record
subject: On-the-record information sharing
subject: UD-VPI
subject: UMA
subject: User Driven & Volunteered Personal Information
subject: User Managed Access
subject: YouTube
description: Respectfully, Doc, I think you underestimate the value of the permatweet. I’m still haunted by hearing that users get a maximum number Twitter postings (tweets) before the old ones scroll off. If true, it means Twitter is a whiteboard, made to … Continue reading →
encoded: Respectfully, Doc, I think you underestimate the value of the permatweet. I’m still haunted by hearing that users get a maximum number Twitter postings (tweets) before the old ones scroll off. If true, it means Twitter is a whiteboard, made to be erased after awhile. The fact that few know what the deal is, exactly, also makes my point. Not many people expect anybody, including themselves, to revisit old tweets. The flow-by web is great for sampling the current pulse of selected friends, an ephemeral dipping of the news ladel into a current river of updates. Yet it is also a place where people share things they often don’t share elsewhere, which makes it a great fishing pond for lightweight pointers to interesting media. I have often used my own tweet stream–or others’–as a reference point when looking for websites or YouTube videos I first saw in the update stream. This happens consistently with media that’s fun enough to tweet but not important enough to blog. Often, in ordinary conversations, I find myself referring to resources I linked to in a prior tweet. Sometimes I just piont them to my Twitter account. Other times, I look it up myself and email the link. Perhaps that works for me more than most because I don’t tweet that frequently, so my history is relatively compact. However, everyone’s tweets stick around, see My First Tweet as a case in point. In fact, it is perhaps more problematic that people consider these tweets gone, when, in fact, they are not. Even though it is possible to delete your tweets from you stream history, it doesn’t remove them from all the downstream syndicators and third-party clients. People should have more control over the lifetime of our shared information. In particular, it seems to me that people should be able to share information in one of two modes: at-will and on-the-record. At-will posts can be erased by the owner at will, whenever they want, thus avoiding those embarrassing photos–and the resulting oppression from the fut…

One Night Stand worth $300 Million
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2009-02-23T06:43:23Z
subject: Intention Economy
subject: Personal Data Store
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: Abhijit Nadgouda
subject: Doc Searls
subject: iface thoughts
subject: Jared Spool
subject: One Night Stand
subject: project VRM
subject: Vendor Releationship Managment
subject: VRM
description: In the ProjectVRM Standards Committee discussions, we’ve talked quite a bit about a “One Night Stand” use case, where a personal data store is used with an online retailer and all personal data is erased–as much as possible–after the transaction. … Continue reading →
encoded: In the ProjectVRM Standards Committee discussions, we’ve talked quite a bit about a “One Night Stand” use case, where a personal data store is used with an online retailer and all personal data is erased–as much as possible–after the transaction. Teleconference 2008 06 18 Teleconference 2008 07 02 Teleconference 2008 08 13 Teleconference 2008 09 24 Teleconference 2008 10 08 Face to Face 2008 October The premise is simple: if users know they are safe giving personal data, they will give it more freely. Limits on long term data mining (and its attendant offensive behavior of junk mail, spam, and telemarketing) paradoxically increase data sharing and enhance the ability of vendors to provide more meaningful engagement at the moment of the transaction. Less long term data retention leads to more real-time data provided by users, resulting in better customer experiences, and more profit for vendors. Until recently, this was a theoretical argument, a belief by those of us promoting VRM. As Doc Searls puts it, “A free customer is more valuable than a captive one.” Now we have evidence of just how valuable that can be. Jared Spool shares with us the real-world example of a redesign in the direction of the “One Night Stand” that created $300 million in value in the first year: [excerpt edited for brevity. see full article for details] The form was simple. The fields were Email Address and Password. The buttons were Login and Register. The link was Forgot Password. It was the login form for the site. It’s a form users encounter all the time. How could they have problems with it? The problem wasn’t as much about the form’s layout as it was where the form lived. Users would encounter it after they filled their shopping cart with products they wanted to purchase and pressed the Checkout button. It came before they could actually enter the information to pay for the product. “I’m Not Here To Be In a Relationship” We were wrong about the first-time shoppers. They did mind register…

Kynetx takes on Structured Browsing
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2009-02-08T07:47:48Z
subject: Identity
subject: Intention Economy
subject: Personal Data Store
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: User Driven Search
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: ad blockers
subject: Adaptive Blue
subject: data rights management
subject: Doc Searls
subject: Glue
subject: information cards
subject: kynetx
subject: MyDex
subject: open source
subject: open standards
subject: OpenID
subject: Phil Windley
subject: privacy
subject: r-button
subject: rbutton
subject: relationship services
subject: search map
subject: Skype
subject: structured browsing
subject: SwitchBook
subject: User Driven Services
subject: VRM
subject: web augmentation
subject: Yahoo Toolbar
description: Doc Searls recently brought my attention to a White Paper by Phil Windley, about his company, Kynetx. It does a good job explaining the thinking behind their architecture, and raises some questions that, for me, challenge some underlying assumptions and … Continue reading →
encoded: Doc Searls recently brought my attention to a White Paper by Phil Windley, about his company, Kynetx. It does a good job explaining the thinking behind their architecture, and raises some questions that, for me, challenge some underlying assumptions and business choices. Problem Domain The distributed nature of the web is a big part of its power–nobody needs to ask permission from a central authority to use it or create with it. However, that disaggregation limits the cohesion for sophisticated uses, leaving users to hobble together ad-hoc mash-ups of value from multiple, diverse service providers. For example, the average travel planner spends 29 days from their first query to their first purchase. No tool I know of facilitates that entire process effectively. Solving this problem in a general way—while retaining the authority of the individual and the flexibility of open systems—is perhaps the greatest opportunity for VRM. The personal data store and VRM relationship services are two prongs of an architectural shift for enabling this kind of aggregation while remaining open. Once you put the user in the driver’s seat, with coherent controls over the flow and the data, the experience can integrate around the user, even as they drive anywhere on the Internet. Solution Kynetx’s solution is built on one primary capability: A rules engine (and language) for contextual customization based on strong identity-based claims, using the user-centric Identity of Information Cards. This puts Kynetx squarely in the web augmentation service business. Adaptive Blue (and their Glue product) is perhaps the most sophisticated approach to this space, but Yahoo’s Toolbar also augments web pages, as does Skype (putting its SkypOut button on any phone # it recognizes), and the granddaddies of all web-augmentation services are the ad blocker plug-ins that remove banner ads on websites. I distinguish web augmentation from web media enhancements, like PDF and Flash and Java, in that the lat…

Farewell Google Notebook, Move over SearchWiki, We need a Search Map
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2009-01-19T05:02:59Z
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: Search
subject: User Driven Search
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: advanced search
subject: Complex Search
subject: Doc Searls
subject: Google
subject: Google Notebook
subject: search map
subject: SearchWiki
subject: SwitchBook
subject: VRM
subject: VRMWorkshop
subject: VRMWorkshop2009
subject: Wikia
description: Alas, a noble experiment has been slayed by the relentless hand of corporate focus. Google has announced its web-clipping scrapbook Google Notebook will no longer be actively developed. I’ve mentioned Google Notebook briefly in the past, as a tool for … Continue reading →
encoded: Alas, a noble experiment has been slayed by the relentless hand of corporate focus. Google has announced its web-clipping scrapbook Google Notebook will no longer be actively developed. I’ve mentioned Google Notebook briefly in the past, as a tool for helping with user-driven searches (more) — or complex searches as I used to call them. Unfortunately, Google never connected the notebook with Search, despite it being a reasonable solution for keeping track of the kind of discoveries you find when doing advanced searches at a lot of different websites. Instead, Google suggests you try one of their other products: If you haven’t used Notebook in the past, we invite you to explore the other Google products that offer Notebook-like functionality. Here are a few examples, all of which are being actively improved and should meet your needs: SearchWiki – We recently launched a feature on Search that will let you re-rank, comment, and personalize your search results. This is useful when you’ve found some results on Google Search that were really perfect for your query. You can read about how to use SearchWiki in this blog post. Google Docs – If you’re trying to jot down some quick notes, or create a document that you can share with others, check out Google Docs. Tasks in Gmail – For a lightweight way to generate a todo list or keep track of things, we recently launched Tasks in Gmail Labs. Google Bookmarks – For a tool that can help you remember web pages that you liked and access them easily, take a look at Google Bookmarks. You can even add labels to your bookmarks to better organize and revisit them. Sigh. Google Notebook fit a unique spot in the Google product portfolio, and as you can see in the comments on the announcement, a lot of people will miss it. It’s too bad we don’t have our Search organizer product ready, I’d love to swoop in and save the day for all those wayward soles stuck without their Google Notebook. The future holds promise… Still, there something to b…

Towards User Driven Search
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2008-07-12T07:52:14Z
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: User Driven Search
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: Adriana Lukas
subject: Doc Searls
subject: Google
subject: SwitchBook
subject: VRM
subject: VRMWorkshop
subject: VRMWorkshop2008
description: It is time to give users more control over Search. At VRM2008 in Munich and at IIW in Mountain View, I started a conversation about User-Driven Search, the premise: what would it mean for users to truly drive their searches? … Continue reading →
encoded: It is time to give users more control over Search. At VRM2008 in Munich and at IIW in Mountain View, I started a conversation about User-Driven Search, the premise: what would it mean for users to truly drive their searches? User-driven is a new term that came out of the VRM community riffing on the meaning of user-centric development and user-centric identity. User-centric is a nice term, but it could be construed as limiting. For example, user –centric definitely implies that that the user is at the center of attention and the focus of the architecture, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the user is in charge of the experience. That’s a key distinction. Not just tuna salad Adriana explains this difference between user-centric and user-driven as metaphorically the difference between buying ready-made tuna salad or picking and choosing your own ingredients and making the tuna salad yourself. When I first talked with Doc about user-driven instead of user-centric, Jim Carrey’s The Truman Show immediately sprang to mind: from birth, Truman is the protagonist in a huge reality show revolving around him… only he doesn’t know it. The climax of the show is Truman discovering the rest of the world and confronting his father/producer. Clearly the Truman Show is Truman-centric… but it is most definitely not Truman-driven. It’s about impetus and authority For me, user-driven means that the user provides the impetus and is the controlling authority throughout the transaction. Sure, sometimes there is negotiation or collaboration with others… the user isn’t omnipotent, after all. However, the user is in charge of creating his or her own experience. This fits with user-constructed or customized solutions, like the tuna salad recipe. However, it has implications far beyond the limits user-created or user-customizable architectures. Is the user initiating the experience? Is the user’s moral authority the primary control throughout the system? Is the system transparent to users, enabli…

Answers to a few questions about VRM
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2008-06-13T14:45:21Z
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: CRM
subject: Doc Searls
subject: FAQ
subject: Shopatron
subject: user-driven commerce
subject: VRM
description: Pignerol Antoine recently asked some questions about VRM and I thought I’d answer them publicly. Is VRM really different from social CRM ? Yes, although exactly how depends on how you define social CRM. Based on my understanding, I would … Continue reading →
encoded: Pignerol Antoine recently asked some questions about VRM and I thought I’d answer them publicly. Is VRM really different from social CRM ?<o></o> <o></o>Yes, although exactly how depends on how you define social CRM. Based on my understanding, I would suggest that VRM is first and foremost about providing value for the user with any vendor, as opposed to using social networking tools with a particular vendor. VRM is vendor agnostic and silo-adverse. The goal is to catalyze the development of tools for individuals through protocols and standards that let them work with any vendor seamlessly, without loss of functionality or services.<o></o> Does VRM work with a CRM ?<o></o> Sure. A CRM is a company-centric system. Every company should pay attention to its customers and CRM is currently the best-of-class thinking on the enterprise-side for how to do that. Different VRM services act on behalf of the individual, yet still require connecting to enterprise systems. For things to be seamless, VRM services should marry into CRM services for fulfillment.<o></o> Can VRM be implemented in all kinds of business?<o></o> Yes. Any business can support VRM services and be compliant with general VRM principles. Ultimately, it will be as easy for a small company to be VRM compliant as it is for a small company to run a blog or a wiki today. That takes some level of technical sophistication, but it is within grasp of any company that wants to invest a small amount of effort using freely available open source tools. Eventually, VRM will be available in the same way.<o></o> What’s needed for VRM to work ?<o></o> <o></o>We need to work through electronic marketplace issues from customers’ perspectives, with attention to the full power of relationships, finding consistent ways to create new value through the network. For the Standards Committee, that means a public conversation starting with users and requirements. Once that is vetted in an open source manner, we can explore particular im…

The user is the platform of the future… Doc Searls @ LeWeb3
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2007-12-13T08:33:18Z
subject: Identity
subject: Personal Data Store
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: Doc Searls
subject: LeWeb3
subject: VRM
description: I love Doc Searls. Few people inspire the future as well as Doc, especially when he is on a tear. Here’s a delightful short (<5 min) romp in an interview at LeWeb3 in Paris about the future of the web … Continue reading →
encoded: I love Doc Searls. Few people inspire the future as well as Doc, especially when he is on a tear. Here’s a delightful short (<5 min) romp in an interview at LeWeb3 in Paris about the future of the web and the critical importance of making user-centric open systems the core of a ubiquitously connected future. (Think VRM and The User As the Point of Integration) A few gems: What is meta about life transcends what is meta about electronics. We have to look to solve problems for ourselves. What really matters is our indendence, our freedom, our ability to act on our own Enjoy!