Presentation on VRM I gave at the Strategic Communication CBA Conference in San Antonio, TX (US Strategic Command - Department of Defense) on October 28.

1. Vendor Relationship Management:
welcome to the citizen-centric future
by Tara ‘missrogue’ Hunt

2. The direction of signals has changed.

3. 2.0
1.0
• passive audience
• very little information
gathering (generalized)
• mass messages
• silos of data (where
there is any)
• interactive audience
• a great deal of
information gathering
• mass messages (but
targeted)
• silos of data
• interactive audience
• information/data
gathered by all parties
• personalized messages
• citizen-centric
• transportable data
3.0

4. Current issues with signals
• noise wins over signal - as more content is produced, it gets harder and
harder to wade through the messages
• lack of trust - what is truth? who has a stake in it?
• data silos - nobody is sharing important information that could help people
discover the right messages
• data ownership - who owns the data? where does it go? can I access it? can
I bring it with me? I don’t want another silo.

5. needed: a framework that works to cut through
the noise, gives citizens autonomy/choice and
allows for data to travel with the user.

6. VRM(vendor relationship managment):
the reciprocal of CRM (customer relationship management)

7. customer control
vendor control
transactions
relationships
VRM

8. vendor-controlled + transactional (today’s market)
mass media
impersonal
little measurement
passive users
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkOHsjZKBB0

9. vendor-controlled + relationships (minority report)
personalized
targeted
very measured
passive users
scene from minority report

10. customer-controlled + transactional (me-ville/free-ville)
customer in control
no loyalty (what’s in it for me?)
no measurement
active users

11. customer-controlled + relationships (VRM)
VRM intends to improve markets and their mechanisms by
giving customers tools to have more control over their buying
decisions so that they are no longer at the mercy of the
vendors and other parties on the supply side of the
marketplace.
Project VRM at Harvard: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/
Main_Page
customer driven
loyalty/relationships
measured (with permission)
active users

12. Current day marketing
No specified need
broadcasted...

13. random noise. so much filtering that we ignore
even the useful messages that are trying to get
through.

14. In the Minority Report
“I need a haircut”

15. still too much noise. defensive filtering wastes
time + energy. decisions are impossible.

16. me-ville/free-ville
“I need a haircut”
VENDORS
bids
made
based on
customer
worth
I
choose
best
bid

17. good for me, but not scalable for vendors. also
not great for people who lose the coin toss. those
with more status/money will get better deals + a
new type of ‘social class’ will be born.

18. vendor relationship management
“I need a haircut”
my
filters:
*social
*price
*reviews
*taste
*popularity
*past
experience
*my
particular
need
*trust or
values
etc.
clear
choice
VENDORS

19. good for me AND for vendors.

20. VRM good for business & government:
• much better understanding of market (real-time, accurate to behavior data);
ability to collect data as preferences change (long range relationships)
• 100% opt-in of customers/citizens increases attention and trust as well as all-
around accountability
• focus on innovation
• discourages monopolies (allowing for more businesses to grow); no more ‘too
big to fail’
• citizen/customer information isn’t locked into silos; redundant systems make
way for interconnected systems

21. VRM good for customers/citizens
• personal needs served better
• healthy competition means that customers get treated better and companies
work harder to win attention
• no more filling in forms over and over and over again
• convenient
• autonomy - identity travels with the individual - authentication is opt-in
• two way handshake means much fewer mistakes/less fraud & identity theft/
smoother transactions

22. VRM good for countries
• decrease in overhead associated with paperwork and missing information
• more democratic; decreases the power of lobbyists and interest groups,
giving a more representative idea of the country
• reduction in fraud and identity theft also reduces the costs everyone bears,
which was 7 cents of every dollar spent in 2006[1]
• accounting for intangible wealth and costs (social, informational, health, etc)
driving the GDP
• citizen-driven encourages engaged, informed citizens (filters set up personally
help the right information get through)
[1] http://www.sas.com/news/analysts/mercator_fraud_1208.pdf

23. VRM has wide-reaching possibilities
• Media
• Shopping
• Knowledge management
• Government services
• Healthcare
• Transportation
• Employment services
• Education
• Border & Customs Agencies
• Census, & more...

24. VRM building blocks
• PERSONAL: portable identities (controlled by the individual)
• Identity
• Official (validated by official/state entities)
• Social (validated by social interaction)
• Preferences
• Authorization
• GENERAL: standardized data

25. John Clippinger on Customer-Centric Identity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_CdsopNc9M
http://www.ideasproject.com/idea_person.webui?id=4423

26. “Official” Identity
• Birth Certificate
• Driver’s License
• Insurance Records
• Health Care Card
• Health Records
• Credit Records
• Passport
• Nexus Card
• Social Security
Number
• Education
• Marriage Records
• Birth Records
• Work History
• Published Works
(ISBN)
• Address (& history)
• Phone number (&
history
• etc.
“Social” Identity
• Social Network &
Connections
• Followers/
Audience
• Published Works
• Authority
• Influence
• Attention
• Trust
• Nicknames
• Images
• Notable
contributions
• Social History
• Volunteerism
• Activity on SN’s,
blogs
• etc.
Verified by
Official Agencies
Verified by
Social
Connections
Identity
two-way
handshake

27. The makeup of a person’s identity is more than
what’s on paper. It also includes their social
currency.
Q: how can we validate social currency?
OpenID.net + OpenSocial?

28. • Music played
• Music shared
• Movies/television watched
• Movies/television shared
• Purchase history
• Returns
• Price range
• Payment type
• Articles read
• Articles shared
• Articles bookmarked
• Articles linked to
• Search history
• People paid attention to (connection/
read/shared/conversations/etc)
• Subjects paid attention to
• Books read
• Books liked/shared
• Places traveled to
• Airlines frequented
• Hotels frequented
• Jobs searched
• etc.
Preferences

29. Our preferences are what we produce ourselves,
explicitly, through choice or voice, or implicitly,
through lack of attention. Taste data can be
recorded actively or passively.
Q: our preferences are what are truly stuck in
silos, but shouldn’t necessarily be tied to our
identities (only need to be validated by one
person - me). What incentives can we give to
free our taste data?
hTaste? OpenTaste?

30. • Birth Certificate
• Driver’s License
• Insurance
Records
• Health Care Card
• Health Records
• Credit Records
• Passport
• Nexus Card
• Social Security
Number
• Marriage Records
• Birth Records
• Work History
• Published Works
(ISBN)
• Address
• Phone
• etc.
• Social Network
& Connections
• Followers/
Audience
• Published Works
• Authority
• Influence
• Attention
• Trust
• Nickname(s)
• Images
• Notable
community
contributions
• Social History
• Password
• etc.
Authorization
+ preferences

31. The biggest issue around authorization is
education. There is a high risk of fraud and this is a
complicated subject. Confusion will limit adoption.
Q: how do we educate the public about
authorization as well as put in anti-fraud
protections without making it too
complicated?
OAuth?

32. my
authorized
data
goods/services
just right for me
+ updates to my
history/preferences

33. In order for this transfer to occur smoothly, the data
needs to be standardized.
Q: can we agree on standards as a
community (grassroots efforts, not top-
down)?
Microformats? RSS? XML?

34. International implications (mobile)
• KENYA - Safaricom’s M-Pesa: "Within two weeks of the launch over ten
thousand account holders were registered and more than $100,000 had
been transferred" Michael Joseph Safaricom CEO
• UGANDA - Cell phone credit transfers (Ethan Zuckerman)
• FrontlineSMS:Credit - free and open source phone modules (DC)
• IRAN - The ‘Green Revolution’ transmitted worldwide via mobile phones
(using mobile phones to gather/protest/report goes back
to 1999)
• Worldwide, we are seeing citizens disintermediate systems
with cell phones (economically and politically) to creatively
get things done. Imagine what they can do with more powerful
tools...

36. Future international visions (and questions)
• Is the ‘digital divide’ an issue when we jump from mobile to 2018
versions of technology that will be part of our bodies? (presumably
inexpensive and intuitive - eliminating both the economic and knowledge gap
- Compaine (2001))
• With portable reputations, law abiding, hard working, community contributing
citizens from all over the world can move about freely - will the idea of
borders change with this mobility? If so, what will they look like?
• As we are able to seamlessly integrate our interactions in the offline world
with the online world (becoming ‘One world’ as Kevin Kelly, Wired.com, says),
how can we prevent science fiction like Total Recall, Enemy of the State,
Minority Report, etc (all representing worlds where citizens and governments
are at war) from happening? A: 100% opt-in (like a driver’s license or a
passport)

37. sixth-sense: wearable gestural interface
http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/

38. Questions? Answers to questions I posed?

39. Where credit is due:
• Doc Searls (founder), Christopher Carfi (vrm diagram), Judi Clark, Joe Andrieu,
Elias Bizannes, Elliot Noss, Kaliya Hamlin, Bart Stevens + everyone who works
on the VRM project that I lurk in daily: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/
Main_Page
• The OpenID.net foundation, OAuth.net and the many people who have
contributed to and been part of the discussion around these important projects.
• Scott Kveton for inviting my former agency, Citizen Agency, to help form the
early ramblings on Open Taste (no longer online)
• Microformats.org, the W3C and Tim Berners-Lee for all of their thinking around
the semantic web and standardized data.
• Alistair Croll, who I discussed this with at length and who pointed me in smart
directions so I could come to this conclusion.
• Alexandra Samuel who recommended that I speak here. HUGE thanks!

40. licensing:
share/remix/spread ... but don’t forget to attribute.
http://slideshare.net/missrogue

41. contact me:
Tara ‘missrogue’ Hunt
author, strategist
horsepigcow@gmail.com
@missrogue
montreal, quebec, canada
514-679-2951
http://www.horsepigcow.com
http://thewhuffiefactor.com