The document discusses the early stages of the online economy and customer empowerment. It notes that currently [1] online businesses try to make customers captive through loyalty programs and data silos, [2] Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) aims to put customers in control of their own data and relationships with companies, and [3] as this happens, the "Intention Economy" will emerge where businesses cater to what customers actually want rather than try to drive customer desires.

1. The Intention Economy:
What happens when customers
get real power
18 November 2009, Kynetx Impact
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2. Some perspective.
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3. We’re all familiar with:
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4. The universe took a while to make.
4

5. The Net’s taking some time too.
Live !
“real-time” Giant Zero!
Web !
Open! Ambient!
source!
Connectivity!
Blogging!
ISPs! RSS!
Graphical!
browsers!
Dunno!
Early open!
protocols!
Linux!
TCP/IP! NOW! Whatever!
Web!
Free!
software!
1980s ! 1990s! 2000s! 2010s! 20XXs! 2XXXs! XXXXs!
Right now we have a few light elements, a lot of heat and no galaxies.
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6. Consider the online shopping
“experience”
Doc’s wife, in 1996:
“Why can’t I take my shopping cart from one site to another?”
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7. Consider “Terms of ‘Service’” that
also haven’t changed since 1996:
You agree we aren't liable for annoying interruptions caused by you; or a third party, buildings, hills, network
congestion, rye whiskey falling sickness or unexpected acts of God or man, and will save harmless rotary
lyrfmstrdl detections of bargas overload prevention, or in the event of random siding management retrenchments,
or Elvis leaving the building. Unattended overseas submissions in saved mail hazard functions will be subject to
bad weather or sneeze funneling through contractor felch reform blister pack truncation, or for the duration of the
remaining unintended contractual subsequent lost or expired obligations, except in the state of Michigan at night.
We also save ourselves and close relatives harmless from anything we don't control; including clear weather and
oddball acts of random gods. You also agree we are not liable for missed garments, body parts, or voice mails,
even if you have saved them. Nothing we say or mumble here is trustworthy or true, or meant for any purpose
other than to feed the fears of our legal department, which has no other reason to live. Whether for reasons of
drugs, hormones, gas or mood, we may terminate this agreement with cheeful impunity, and there’s not a damn
thing you can do about it.
Accept.
Why even bother reading something you have to accept,
and which give all advantages to the seller?
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8. It’s so early that…
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9. Brick mortar businesses are
adopting what’s broken online.
It’s so early online that you have to become a “member” and
“sign in” to buy anything. SSO still isn’t here.
The old brick mortar world was free of this silly friction.
Now it’s encumbered. And it’s crazy.
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10. Loyalty cards
are the Green Stamps of our time.
The biggest press run in history was the 1966 Green Stamps Saver Book.
Green stamps were about “raising switching costs”…
“differentiation” … “driving loyalty”…
It’s all part of industrial automation gone wild.
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11. Take for example
one fine grocery store…
… with all the modern inconveniences.
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12. To check out “fast” at Shaws,
you need to operate one of these:
This is part of the cool new retail trend
of outsourcing customer support.
To the customer.
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13. Note to selves: When somebody
sells an “experience,” think of this:
“Experience” too often means vendor control of the user.
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14. A typical check-out story.
Went to Shaws, gathered a bunch of groceries.
Scanned and bagged at the “fast” self-check-out thing.
Failed to get the Shaws card discount.
Went to Customer Service.
Had 20 minutes of life sucked away.
Got a generous gift card from a Shaws human who hates the system too.
Why didn’t we learn from the Green Stamps experience?
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15. Because we’ve idealized
impersonal business.
Take for example
“Customer Relationship Management.”
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16. Do an image search for CRM
and you’ll find these:
All are ways to “acquire,” “control,” “retain,” “manage”
and otherwise “own” customers.
We talk about customers as if they were slaves. Or Worse.
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17. Where do you fit in this picture?
Right about here:
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18. The problem is the persistent belief that
the best customer is a captive one.
So we think “the best captor wins.”
And we is all of us. Not just sellers.
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19. Thus we think a “free market”
is “your choice of captor.”
Even though the Net is now in the middle of everything.
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20. Every captor is also a silo
for storing customer data.
So a “free market” becomes “your choice of data captor.”
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21. So the hospitality market
looks like this:
All your data for each, and from each, is captive in each.
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22. “Social” systems are silos too.
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23. We’ve broken out of silos before.
One example:
Novell and the NOS blew that all up in the 80s.
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24. And look what the Net blew up
in the 90s:
But…`
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25. We’re still in the past.
Live Web!
Ubiquity! Giant Zero!
Open! “Social”
source! whatever !
RSS!
ISPs!
Graphical!
browsers!
Dunno!
Early open!
protocols!
Web!
TCP/IP! NOW! Whatever!
Free!
software!
1980s ! 1990s! 2000s! 2010s! 20XXs! 2XXXs! XXXXs!
We need to keep building out the Net.
And the Net is personal. Not just social.
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26. How do we prove that a free customer
is more valuable than a captive one.?
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27. One solution is
Vendor Relationship Management
That’s how each of us manages relations with them…
at least as well as they think they’re relating to us.
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28. VRM is the reciprocal of CRM.
VRM
CRM
It will work together with CRM.
Or without it.
Either way, sellers will have to deal for real with
empowered customers.
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29. With VRM, the individual is the point
of integration for his or her own data.
… and the point of origination for what’s done
with it.
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30. Here is some
of what we want VRM to do.
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31. Manage our own health care data.
This is a tall order, and very long term.
But there are some great people working on, for
example, personal health records (PHRs).
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32. Issue a “personal RFP”
to whole markets, on the fly.
For example, send a message saying you need a 200w 220-110
converter
in Amsterdam on a Sunday afternoon…
— without giving any more than the required information.
Scott Adams calls this “broadcast shopping.”
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33. Assert useful Terms of Service.
That are ours instead of theirs.
You agree we aren't liable for annoying interruptions caused by you; or a third party, buildings, hills, network
congestion, rye whiskey falling sickness or unexpected acts of God or man, and will save harmless rotary
lyrfmstrdl detections of bargas overload prevention, or in the event of random siding management retrenchments,
or Elvis leaving the building. Unattended overseas submissions in saved mail hazard functions will be subject to
bad weather or sneeze funneling through contractor felch reform blister pack truncation, or for the duration of the
remaining unintended contractual subsequent lost or expired obligations, except in the state of Michigan at night.
We also save ourselves and close relatives harmless from anything we don't control; including clear weather and
oddball acts of random gods. You also agree we are not liable for missed garments, body parts, or voice mails,
even if you have saved them. Nothing we say or mumble here is trustworthy or true, or meant for any purpose
other than to feed the fears of our legal department, which has no other reason to live. Whether for reasons of
drugs, hormones, gas or mood, we may terminate this agreement with cheeful impunity, and there’s not a damn
thing you can do about it.
Accept.
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34. Have governance of and by
— and not just for — the people
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35. Create a new business model
for free media.
Free media include…
Non-commercial broadcasting
Blogs, podcasts
Music…
Anything that’s either free on purpose or too easy to
“steal.”
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36. For example,
on the Public Radio Player…
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37. We’ll reform retail by giving customers
their own tools of engagement.
Customers won’t be able to price everything.
But they will be able to drive supply more directly.
And they will become platforms for whole new
business categories.
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38. A new service category will appear.
Fourth-party services will be customer-driven.
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39. There will be no limit to the number
or power of 4 th parties.
It’s a big, green field. Built on the customer.
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40. So, for example, with hotels…
Fourth parties can represent, intermediate,
or otherwise help out.
So, as this business expands…
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41. The Intention Economy
will get real.
It will be based on what customers actually want.
Rather than the “attention economy” of guessing
what customers want.
… or “driving” customers (like cattle) to want stuff.
As a result…
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42. The advertising bubble
will burst.
No, it won’t go away. We’ll always need some.
It just won’t the business model of first resort.
At best it will be the reciprocal of customers advertising
what they want.
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43. Let’s talk.
http://projectvrm.org
doc@searls.com
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