2007 09 24 didw

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 1

Managing the Decentralizatio

n of Identity — The VRM Revolution —

(Thank you, Phil!)


Let’s say we all get Identity worked out.

For what is all this necessary but insufficient?


We’ve got identity worked out. Now what?

We pick up the gauntlet thrown down by Chris Locke in 1999:


How do we deal with human beingswhose reach exceeds our grasp?

We take the axes out of our own heads.This is us:


To de-axe our heads, we take the wayback machine to Alvin Toffler in

1980:”The Industrial Age…violently

split apart two aspects of our lives that had always been one... production and consumption...

In so doing, it drove a giant invisible wedge into our economy, our psyches ...

it ripped apart the underlying unity of society, creating a way of life filled with economic tension."


The tension is between control and freedom.

Between dependence and independence.

We have to stop thinking of business as a way to imprison customers.

We have to stop thinking about lock-in as the best form of leverage with customers.


What does identity have to do with independence?

Nothing, unless we use it to build the opposite of a prison.

Namely a real public marketplace.Not just a bigger/better collection of private ones.


Clue: Private “social networks”do not make a marketplace.

This isn’t a market.It’s a highly managed

walled garden.


Markets are what?

And relationships are the frontier.They’re what the information age is about.

They’re what remove the axes from our heads.

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 10

To be in a relationship you have to be… What?

TrustworthyLoyal

CaringInterested

HelpfulCourteous…

Sound familiar?It’s the Boy Scout’s Law!

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 11

Scouting rules aren’t bad for a marketplace.

Scout’s Law —A Scout is:• Trustworthy• Loyal• Helpful• Friendly• Courteous• Kind• Obedient• Cheerful• Thrifty• Brave• Clean, and• Reverent.”

Scout Motto:• Be Prepared!

Scout Slogan:• Do a Good Turn

Daily!

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 12

What if sellers were good scouts?

Scout’s Law —A Scout is:• Trustworthy• Loyal• Helpful• Friendly• Courteous• Kind• Obedient• Cheerful• Thrifty• Brave• Clean, and• Reverent.”

Scout Motto:• Be Prepared!

Scout Slogan:• Do a Good Turn

Daily!

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 13

Of course we tend to see businessesas creatures other than boy scouts.

Or at least we used to.

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 14

The habitat looks a little differentin the networked world.

“I used to wrestle with alligators. Then I got nibbled to death by guppies.” — Lou Cole, former MIS director,

1986

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 15

“Somewhere along the line, we confused going to work with building a fort.” —

David WeinbergerStrip away the financial jibber-jabber

and the management corpo-speak, and here’s our fundamental image of business:

• It’s in an imposing office building that towers over the landscape.

• Inside is everything we need.• That’s good because the outside is

dangerous.• This fort is, at its heart, a place

apart. We report there every morning and spend the next eight, ten, or twelve hours inaccessible to the "real" world.

• Yet…

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 16

Since the PC, we’ve been watchingDrucker proven right.

Corporations are human communities.Managemernt is like conducting an

orchestra.Business exists to make customers and

employ people, not just to make a profit.

Workers are assets, not costs.Healthy organizations rely on everybody

learning.The modern corporation is barely more

than a century old, and still not a proven form of business life.

The primary advantages of a large corporation — access to captital,

global communications reach, providing benefits to workers — are

eroding away.

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 17

We’ve been quoting Drucker but inside companies rather than outside

them.Business is “other people’s money”

In a period of upheaeaval, change is the norm.Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and

increased constantly, or it vanishes.Making good decisions is a crucial skill at every

level.Management by objective works - if you know the

objectives. Ninety percent of the time you don't.

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives' decisions matter. This

is a dangerous mistake.Most of what we call management consists of

making it difficult for people to get their work done.

So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.

The best way to predict the future is to create it. The most important thing in communication is

hearing what isn't said.The purpose of a business is to create and keep a

customer.There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that

which should not be done at all.We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong

process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to

learn.

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 18

The customer needs to take the lead.

Because the customer is the other person with the money.

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 19

How can the customer take the lead?

With tools that make each of us both independent of sellers…

And better able to relate to sellers.Are these (and others I insult by not finding their logos)

those tools?Will these make sellers into good scouts?

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 20

For the customers to relate, they’ll need to be independent of CRM jails

Because CRM — “Customer” “Relationship” “Management” — isn’t about management of

the Drucker sort.It’s about control.

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 21

Independence isn’t about “power”.

As Neo said to the architect,It’s about choice.

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 22

The customer needs to bethe Point of Integration

Making the customer the point of integrationWill give CRM systems something real to relate

to.

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 23

VRM is the customer’s RM, for vendors.

Not of vendors. Key difference.

It’s what humanizes sellers AND buyers.It’s what turns Fort Business into whatever works

better in real markets…Where sellers and buyers are both human.

Again.

CRM VRM

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 24

VRM doesn’t exist yet.But it will.

There’s a project of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School.

See http://projectvrm.org.We have a community, a wiki, a blog, conference

calls…It grew out of this community.

http://projectvrm.org/

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 25

A few use cases…

• Fixing raising support of (and market involvment with) public broadcasting. Especially radio.

• Putting patients in control of their own health care data.

• Putting travellers in control of offerings that might come their way.

• Helping telcos and cablecos find benefits to incumbency other than customer control.

• Removing guesswork from retailing (and, in the process, killing off unnecessary advertising)

• Making messaging relationship-based.

DIDW, 24 Sept 2006 26

Let’s talk.