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.