project VRM – joeandrieu.com
type: channel
description: My personal space
date: 2015-02-17T04:01:52Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
generator agent: https://wordpress.org/
items: Beware the Plan of Sauron
items: Beyond Data Ownership to Information Sharing
items: A fresh breath
items: One Night Stand worth $300 Million
items: Welcoming 2009
items: More on Level 4 Platforms
items: Pricing for Charities: Pay-What-You-Want and VRM
items: Tufte would be proud–the world through new (data) eyes
items: Europe continues to lead privacy conversation with IP ruling

Beware the Plan of Sauron
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2015-02-17T04:01:52Z
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: Uncategorized
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: Lord of the Rings
subject: project VRM
subject: Sauron
subject: startups
subject: VRM
description: 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 →
encoded: 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 more of a mixing board than a master app. Jim’s right. The “master app” reminds me of what I call “The Sauron business model,” a term I coined after watching over one hundred and twenty 60 second pitches at two different Startup Weekend Santa Barbara events in the last two years. With all of those pitches in rapid succession, the pattern popped right out. For those of you who might not be Lord of the Rings fans, Sauron was the bad guy hell-bent on unifying everything in Middle Earth under his brutal rule, and wanted that hobbit’s ring to do it: Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. [quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Ring] What I saw repeated again and again and again in those pitches at Startup Weekend were hopeful entrepreneurs who earnestly believed that if they could just unify all of a person’s [insert unique idea here], they could provide a ground breaking new service that would transform the world. Just like Sauron, all they needed was that One Thing to make it all work… Creating the only singular view of an individuals financials, MyFinances.com will make it easy for people to instantly waste less–and make more–money! Bringing together all of a user’s vendors into one coherent dashboard, people will finally be able to make smart choices that both save money and create more value, while vendors get better access to the right customers at the right time! Giving users control of their identity across a…

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.

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…

Welcoming 2009
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2009-01-01T22:47:21Z
subject: Intention Economy
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: 2009
subject: New Years
subject: project VRM
subject: user-driven markets
subject: VRM
description: Happy New Year! I am looking forward to 2009. There has been lots of change, both professionally and personally, this year, putting me (and SwitchBook) on a trajectory for amazing things in the year ahead. One of my New Year’s … Continue reading →
encoded: Happy New Year! I am looking forward to 2009. There has been lots of change, both professionally and personally, this year, putting me (and SwitchBook) on a trajectory for amazing things in the year ahead. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to create–and help to create–the world’s first VRM applications in 2009. There are more than a few in the works, at various stages of development. After a long gestation, I believe several are ripe for coming to market. It’s fun working with a community of like-minded folks to create something grander and better than one could have alone. That’s a big part of the joy of open source and it is a huge part of what Doc Searls brings to Project VRM. It’s a great crowd. I’m excited about what we’re doing together and I hope you’ll join us in 2009, in some way, large or small.

More on Level 4 Platforms
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2008-07-08T04:54:29Z
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum
subject: Level 4 Platform
subject: Marc Andreessen
subject: Marc Canter
subject: Peter Coffee
subject: Platform
subject: project VRM
subject: Salesforce.com
subject: VRM
subject: VRM2008
subject: VRMWorkshop2008
description: If you’re going to bet your company on a platform, pick the open one. That was my advice last month at the Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum on Platforms. It turned into a lively debate (you can check out the audio for … Continue reading →
encoded: If you’re going to bet your company on a platform, pick the open one. That was my advice last month at the Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum on Platforms. It turned into a lively debate (you can check out the audio for the June 8 2008 event), almost inevitably pitting me against Peter Coffee of Salesforce.com, with Marc Canter rallying the forces of small business and openness in his inimitable style: caustic, irreverent, and sourcing no small amount of passion. One small side effect of the debate was that, at times, it slipped unavoidably into a referendum on Salesforce.com rather than an insightful discussion of the merits of open verses closed systems and how companies can reasonably navigate their choices. Pulling back from that focus on Salesforce left more than a few unanswered issues. Peter Coffee contacted me after the event and asked to keep the conversation going, which sounds like a great idea. So, here’s a reprise of my presentation on June 14. Open Platforms and Standards Level 4 Platforms FTW This article is about open platforms and what an entrepreneur should think about when choosing a platform for their business. Two Questions When choosing a platform, you’ll want to consider two major questions: Will it do what you need? Will it last long enough for you to do it? The first is a matter of features and functionality, and must be evaluated on a case-by-case business for each business. Since I don’t know your business, I won’t spend much more time on this question. The second question is about longevity. Will the platform itself be available as long as your business needs to use it? Will it be stable and robust enough on a moment-to-moment basis? Is there a self-sustaining community of developers and integrators to help you continue to help your company adjust as business needs change over time? In other words, will the platform continue to be able to provide value for your business in the long term? What it means to be Open In talking about open platforms,…

Pricing for Charities: Pay-What-You-Want and VRM
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2008-03-09T22:01:41Z
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: charities
subject: Dean Karlan
subject: John List
subject: Nine Inch Nails
subject: Pay-What-You-Want
subject: project VRM
subject: Radiohead
subject: VRM
description: Charitable giving has an intriguing relationship with rational pricing theories. The supply of charitable products is essentially inexhaustible. Price of a charitable gift is not based on supply and demand, with curves meeting at an efficient clearing price. And yet, … Continue reading →
encoded: Charitable giving has an intriguing relationship with rational pricing theories. The supply of charitable products is essentially inexhaustible. Price of a charitable gift is not based on supply and demand, with curves meeting at an efficient clearing price. And yet, there is a competitive marketplace connecting patrons and charities. From schools and radio stations to global conservation and intervention, millions of charities compete for attention and dollars. In my last post, I argued that markets are about more than prices. So too is the world of charities. Today the NYT reports on current research by John List and Dean Karlan investigating how and why people give, and what makes them give more or less to a particular cause at a particular time. A good read. The research highlights several unique influences on charitable giving, with many lessons about which conversations matter most. In particular, people give for that “warm glow” rather than for any perceived material return. Perhaps that isn’t a surprise, but when connected to economics it changes the conversation. It turns out that matching donations, from employers for example, are valued more as a social trigger than as an economic motivator. People give until the trigger is reached–until they’ve met the socially determined mark for making a difference–and they don’t give more just because a match is a greater multiplier, even though economic theory would suggest the greater multiplier would create more giving. So one of the questions for charities is how then do you maximize the warm glow and the amount of giving it triggers? And not suprisingly, ROI calculations and traditional economics have little to do with it. At Project VRM, we’ve talked a lot about how markets are more than transactions, more than just prices. Markets are conversations and relationships. That makes much of List & Karlan’s research applicable to all of VRM, and especially for Doc Searls‘ efforts to reinvent our relationship with Pub…

Tufte would be proud–the world through new (data) eyes
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2008-02-17T12:51:06Z
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: Hans Rosling
subject: Noah Brier
subject: postVRM
subject: project VRM
subject: third world
subject: Tufte
subject: VRM
description: Rarely does presentation of statistical data make me say “wow” out loud. This did. Hans Rosling talking about the state of the world: third world, health, wealth, changes over time. Great data. Great presentation. Worth thinking about. In addition to … Continue reading →
encoded: Rarely does presentation of statistical data make me say “wow” out loud. This did. Hans Rosling talking about the state of the world: third world, health, wealth, changes over time. Great data. Great presentation. Worth thinking about. In addition to the impactful visualization of the worldwide transitions in wealth & health since 1960, Hans also makes extremely clear the dangers of averaging over too large of a data set. I can only begin to highlight how critical that is in understanding the future of the web, search, and Internet services. Centralized views of the world, such as those underlying Google’s PageRank and the Semantic Web, presume too much about finding the “one true answer”. For Google, it means trying to find the “best” results for a simple keyword query–for some verson of “everyone”. For the semantic web, it means trying to connect all the meta-data and data on the web to provide one true verson of reality that can be reasoned over. And yet, we know that trying to make all of the people happy all of the time is a recipe for failure: it can’t be done. Hans makes this clear in terms of dealing with the ails of the world: poverty and life expectancy. Planning for HIV in the top quartile of Africa needs to be profoundly different than how we deal with it in the bottom quartile. So beware of average approaches. Beware of universals. Instead, find the solution that is properly contextualized, preferably customized for each individual. That’s the direction of VRM (Vendor Relationship Management), by the way. Figure it out for the individual user first, then find ways to use technology to scale efficient solutions. Averages need not be applied. Monolithic approaches to marketing and product development need not apply. Micro-focus at a mega scale. Tip of the hat to Noah Brier for the Hans Rosling presentation at TED.

Europe continues to lead privacy conversation with IP ruling
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2008-01-22T16:29:11Z
subject: Identity
subject: European Union
subject: IP addresses
subject: privacy
subject: project VRM
subject: VRM
description: The EU is years ahead of the US in user rights and privacy. For a VRM example, see the UK’s Buyer-Centric Commerce Forum. Now, according to the Washington Post, an EU judge has pushed the privacy envelope even further, saying … Continue reading →
encoded: The EU is years ahead of the US in user rights and privacy. For a VRM example, see the UK’s Buyer-Centric Commerce Forum. Now, according to the Washington Post, an EU judge has pushed the privacy envelope even further, saying “IP addresses are personal data“: BRUSSELS — IP addresses, strings of numbers that identify computers on the Internet, should generally be regarded as personal information, the head of the European Union‘s group of data privacy regulators said Monday. This will be interesting to watch…