VRM as a quest for happiness
Minimal exchange of relevant data improves transaction quality; less of the bad stuff, more of the best
I’ve spoken at two VRM events recently – the first, the October meeting of the London-based VRM Hub group; the second, the Unlocking the see-saw conference on the 3rd of November.
At the October VRM Hub meeting, I spoke briefly about my own perceptions of VRM, and re-affirmed my thesis that VRM should be seen as a means of improving peoples’ happiness rather than simply a tool for data control freaks. Not, of course, should the latter group be excluded, but the ramifications of even thinking about VRM in the context of large organisations go far beyond better data exchange mechanisms. Carrie has posted some notes from my talk on the VRM Hub blog, which provide an excellent summary – and save me from repeating things here.
Alec Muffett also captured the meeting on video, and I’ve embedded the first of the series below – it’s worth watching the others, too, to see the entirety of the discussion.
Download this video in QuickTime format (54.8Mb)
Videos from the Unlocking the see-saw conference are forthcoming, and so I’ll withold a more egocentric report until they arrive. In the meantime, Doc Searls’ photos of the event should provide ample distraction.
For more on what was talked about, take a look at these posts from Jonathan MacDonald, Richard Muscat, Graham Sadd and this from Alan Patrick:
There is a debate about whether VRM can be executed by the users alone, or whether it needs to tempt suppliers to collaborate (ie either the gross value of serving all those VRM'ers is sufficienly alluring, vs. There has to be a giveaway to make suppliers use it). Any supplier will have to invest in new equipment /processes to serve VRM customers, so will be looking at +ve ROI.
One thing which excites me about VRM is the fact that some of the implementation can be remarkably lightweight. I’d argue that it’s investment in processes which is where large organisations will struggle. Smaller ones, on the other hand, ought to be able to take this stuff and run.
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Alan Patrick, conferences, data, economics, London, personal data, VRM, VRMHub
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About Peter Parkes
I’m an entrepreneurial twenty three year old, part of the team at we are social, a conversation agency based in London.
On this site, I blog mainly about communication, design, technology and the arts, and their impact on society. I also write the Skype blog.
Interesting post. I asked you to give a little kick off talk at our VRM Hub October meeting because I am interested in what the members of VRM Hub community think about VRM. I hope to have many more people talking about their perspective over the next months/year.
Also, I asked you to be on the ‘user panel’ at the Unlocking the see-saw conference because I saw you as a social web user of the kind that will potentially drive the use of VRM tools.
As you know, my position is that without the pressure from the ‘demand side’ companies have no reason to act in customer/user interest.
And as I have said many times in the last year, companies are welcome to come onboard, but VRM implementation, such as it is, must not depend on them to start making VRM a reality.
You may have noticed that the ‘vendor panel’ at the conference last Monday had seven vendors willing to discuss VRM in public. They wouldn’t be there if they didn’t think I cared about the ’supply side’ but they are also convinced that VRM will be driven by users. How else will they themselves be able to convince the companies they work for that this is important enough to change companies behaviours and in some cases business models, if there is no market pressure to yield to?
Yes, smaller companies should have it easier to change but the big ones will make bigger waves. That’s why I have set up VRM Labs where companies can play, share and experiment at will.
My point was that bigger organisations will have more process-changing to do, whereas this will be less of an issue for smaller ones; I didn’t intend to count the big guys out by any means – and absolutely agree that they have the opportunity to make a big impact.
Do you think there’s a role for guerilla VRM implementation in the bigger and uglier organisations, though?
“Do you think there’s a role for guerilla VRM implementation in the bigger and uglier organisations, though?”
I think you misunderstand me - I mean that there is nothing to implement until users start using tools that can bring about VRM and more importantly, until they start driving those tools. At the moment, it’s all conjecture and anyone ’selling’ VRM (rather than evangelising) to companies is selling snake oil.
My point is that I want organisations, business, companies to implement VRM but at the moment we(or at least I) don’t know what that will mean! It is a simple case of putting the horse before the cart. And I believe the user is the horse. I find it frustrating and astonishing that people can’t see that.
Peter - I see your point as a theoritetical size, scale and flexibility one rather than what Adriana is answering which is the (perfectly valis) practical ‘what happens next issue’.
I have to say I agree with your hunch about the slimmer organisations….
We should extend this thought when we next speak…I like your thinking.
Blogged here too:
http://www.jonathanmacdonald.com/?p=1955
[...] Jones, with whom I promptly went off to a pub. Alec Muffett shot video of the whole thing. More at Peter’s post, and [...]
Hi Peter,
For info, Alan Mitchell and I had a useful dialogue with The DMA a few weeks back that might shine a light on what type of organisation might engage first. They got in touch after we had written a ‘direct marketing needs to be re-invented with VRM inside’ article.
In short, their view is that 98% of their members will think VRM is poisonous to them, but that the smartest 2% or so already get it - and that if we go to them we may find we are pushing on an open door. So, next task….build some credible, scaleable tools and go and knock on those doors.
Cheers
Iain
@ Adriana – when I asked about ‘guerilla VRM’ I really wanted to gauge your views on user-driven disruption within organisations; I’m sure there are examples from the early days of ‘corporate’ blogging where employees blogs eventually drove the organisation in question to consider exploring social software.
@ jMac – you’re right. My point was principally a dig at ‘big company’ process fetishism.
@ Iain – who’s going to make the first move? :)