Why I’m doing what I now do (aka yet another intro to VRM)
Posted on Jun 11th by William in Creative outlets, Customer service, IdealGov stuff
Dave Birch asked me to talk in a panel about “Identity and the Consumer” at the Digital Identity summit on 9 June. I kicked off with yet another introduction to buyer-centric commerce, customer-managed relationships or vendor-relationship management (VRM)…
The start point was Sabrina, a vibrant single Mum in Croydon. Mydex asked what she thought her personal data was worth to others; she thought maybe a pound? No – less than that: 50p? As we explored it further and the scale of what was happening with her personal data dawned on her she was horrified: “I’ve given it away, and it’s just spreading out there…like an STD!!”
The Mydex research suggests most people believe their personal data has only modest financial value. At the same time, most are somewhere between depressed and in denial about about what happens to it.
To me the issue isn’t about identity. It’s about dignity, power, control and value – specifically the value of personal data and who should benefit from it. The future which Ctrl-Shift is researching and advising on, and which Mydex is working flat out to help create is one where people use new personal data tools to manage and control their personal data to a far greater extent than is possible today (see VRM). They can have it independently verified or authenticated, and can share it under their control.
We call this “volunteered personal information”. Ctrl-Shift estimates flows of such data will overtake display advertising by value within seven years and and by 2020 earn ten times what Google does today (all estimates UK only).
This isn’t just about “identity”. Nor is it about “consumers”. As individuals we may consume food or energy, but we don’t consume fitness or education, we don’t consume when we manage our lives, make decisions, give permissions or help each other. As we take control of our lives and recast our relationship with the state (as the new UK Coalition believes we should) we will increasingly need control over our personal data. We might use Facebook, Google, Amazon or the Royal Bank of Scotland along the way. But we’d be ill-advised to give them control.
It takes a change in mindset to recognise and accept the individual as the only feasible and logical point of integration for the exponentially growing quantities of personal data we need to manage our lives. But once you do, you see immense advantages. We know ourselves better than outside organisations can. We can account for our own peculiarities (and then again, we may choose not to). We know our own intentions in ways external organisations cannot. We operate closest to the deeper beliefs and principles that really drive us.
There are a number of types of concern are coming to a head around this issue. One set is the diminishing returns on CRM. Another is low and diminishing responses and increasing opt-outs from direct marketing. There are a swathe of issues connected with the ineffective, expensive and intrusive “Database State” set of public-service and law-enforcement policies on health, education, transport, census and welfare.
We’ve poured too much money down the drain already, and now the government is broke. Meanwhile householders spend one and a half weeks a year (IIRC – I seem to have lost the original reference for this; think it was Consumer Focus) dealing with customer services, sorting out details and changes.
It’s a win-win-win for people, business and public services if people regain control of their personal data and can do more to manage their relationships online in a structured and scalable way. It’s every bit as important as the open/public data agenda. That’s why I’m a founder, investor and non-exec in two new enterprises:
- the research and advisory firm Ctrl-Shift, with Liz Brandt, Alan Mitchell and Paul Smith which has already worked on personal portable education records, personalisation for business services or fashio retail, and the rise and value of “volunteered personal information” and
- Mydex Community Interest Company with Iain Henderson, Alan Mitchell, David Alexander and others which has a personal data store which lets users invoke external authentication/verification and then do selective disclosure with other people and organisations.
When people are kitted out in this way, with Mydex-based or similar tools, and organisations can start to rely on authorised feeds of information from individuals there will be first immense reduction in administrative hassle and then a far larger release of entrepreneurial value. This creates new roles for identification, authentication and verification services which will compete on efficacy, design, ease of use and cost. Above all it creates a platform on which people can build new added-value “fourth-party” service providers on the side of the individual.
We had a great discussion. Some points: it’s not about ownership of data; it’s about rights and what you can do with the personal data. It isn’t about privacy (or rather there’s a limit to how far you can get by framing this as about privacy). If you say it’s about protecting value then a whole load of extra people start to understand. But beyond that it’s about dignity, control and power. At that stage you stir up a deeper sort of reaction.
Not for nothing is the WEF looking at this issue very carefully with a view to including it in the next Davos agenda. None of us yet knows whether this is in a supportive or rather more lixed light. And even as we meet the Bilderberg group is trying to get its head around issues of cybertech. But to judge by the Bilderberg guest list I very much doubt their conversation on this area was a fraction as well informed as ours in London SW1. Kim Cameron was in our group: ’nuff said.
