Keep Calm And Get A Relationship

The whole Facebook-Cambridge Analytica debacle can be read as a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from people who like to see the internet as a wild west awaiting their control. But there is an important lesson for anyone using data.

First - why the fuss? There are already plenty of laws and forthcoming rules to prevent the misuse of data.

The General Data Protection Regulation explicitly states that someone's data cannot be used or stored without their express permission, for example.

So, even if you were to grant a company permission to use your data, you can't grant permission to them to use your friends’ data. A company can't ask for that or use that. Even Facebook realised this was a share too far in 2014 and ended the practice (which had until then been employed by 'abusive apps').

However, the argument is that all that data has already been hoarded by the bad guys. But GDPR will make every item they hoard subject to compliance. So even in the case of old data (which  loses its salience by the second in any event) the hoarder must make it easy for anyone to remove their consent and retrieve their data.

That's going to be a challenge for bad actors. And when the auditors come calling they will face fines for every single data point. And these are fines at the scale of 'put you out of business'.

The short term issue for Facebook and, therefore, for much of digital marketing and communications, is the breach of trust. This is based on the notion that we didn't understand the scale of what could be done with the posts and likes and comments we gave away in exchange for better connection with people and information that was useful or interesting to us.

Facebook could act on this, at least re the instance of Fake News. They could set their engineers to work creating an algorithm to automatically add links to fact-checking or cross-checking validated sites.

They could of course do the same for their adverts. Imagine the potential to cut through the lies...

However, these are only solutions if you have difficulty filtering truth from deceit. In reality we humans have a brilliantly well-developed ability to see through bull.

Large parts of our brains are dedicated to sorting the trustworthy from the cheats. (Martin Novak's Super Co-operators says this was essential to our ability to live in co-operative societies). Target me with all the propoganda you like, I won't be voting Nazi.

So we do have a responsibility in this as individuals. We choose what we are willing to believe, and we must ensure we apply our innate abilities to spot the fraudulent at all times.

And naturally - any business or organisation handling data must do so with care and with all due respect for the owner. It is this respect for the owner that points to the most critical learning.

If the digital industry takes one thing from Facebook's woes, it should be this:

Since the value of data rapidly decays, the relationship with the human behind the data is always going to be of far greater value than the data assets themselves.

Data is not the relationship. It is the output of a relationship. Get one.

By what and by whom do we want to be remembered?

Forbes reported this week that 'CMOs must prepare for the next technology revolution’.

The revolution in question is the shift from org-owned CRM (customer relationship management processes) to customer-owned VRM (Vendor Relationship Management - as Doc Searls has pioneered ).

This 'revolution' is, of course, far less tech/tool related than described. It is for more attitudinal and requiring of cultural shift (as often the case, observers confuse correlation with causality).

The basic notion is that the customer gets to own their data and share it with whom they choose to their own ends and benefit (as opposed to the organisation laying claim to customer data). 'Personal' is one example of the output of such a cultural shift in thinking.

All of which surfaces some questions about data ownership that have been gnawing at me.

What is the difference between your actions being recorded in a digital database - and being recorded by our human collective memory?

Do human memories decay faster, do digital ones do a worse job of delivering context (and therefore meaning)? These are the 'technical issues'. They are questions of effectiveness.

By what and by whom do we want to be remembered?

Let's set aside for the moment that memory and data may be different things - that memory may be the story through which we understand the data stored in our and other people's collective memory. In my view that applies equally to data stored in databases; it makes no sense without a story applied to it, derived from experience and with context.

By whom or what is it anything from 'ok' to be remembered, all the way through to 'desirable' to be remembered?
We want our friends and families to remember us. Is this different from data being stored in a database. If so, how and why?
We want our favourite restaurants and hotels to remember us.
We want society to remember us.
We want posterity to remember us.

Throughout history the remembering has been done by other humans, creating context around the data in the stories they tell, write, record and film.

So why not have Google storing your data? Why not Facebook? Why not the brands you consume? Perhaps they can record the source material more accurately than has been possible. The stories that make the data comprehensible, that gives it its context, will still require humanising.

I ask these questions because I think we need to be clear about what the risks and benefits of who owns data really are.

Related articles

• VRM, Fourth Party and the Empowered Consumer (realtea.net)
• CRM Strategist Brent Leary on Social Media and Customer Relationship Management (VIDEO) (bizblog.blackberry.com)
• Will Data Collection on User Behavior Be Forced to End Soon? (readwriteweb.com)

How will they market the 10th Anniversary Cluetrain?

Ted Shelton brought together a small group for dinner in London last night (for which many thanks) including one Doc Searls.

If you've hung around this blog for any length of time you'll know I regularly reference Doc's ongoing work (particularly re the Vendor Relationship Management) and his seminal contribution to the now 10-year-old Cluetrain Manifesto.

A 10th anniversary Cluetrain is about to go on sale.
Doc told me something I didn't realise about the new edition: It will contain a new chapter each by each of the original co-authors (Chris Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Rick Levine) PLUS a chapter by the man who has become known as 'the fifth Beatle' of the cluetrain: JP Rangaswami.

JP works at BT in London and writes the exceptional Confused of Calcutta. His insights will be a huge addition.

So: Five new chapters. Updates learned from 10 years of post-cluetrain thinking.

A must buy.

I did warn Doc (pictured top) the world will be watching to see how this book is marketed.

One thing seemed sure from what Doc said last night - there's no online preview of the new elements before it goes on sale in print. It won't even be available on kindle at launch.

Embarrassing oversight? Or a clue to some of the new content of the book?
I'm confused by how it may fit with The Because Effect JP has referenced on many occassions (and with which I agree).

In this example that would play out as 'you don't make money with content, you make money because of it'.

The original cluetrain was (and remains) free to read online.

Perhaps the way for the launch of an updated cluetrain to generate most conversation among converts is to do exactly what we don't expect - a straightforward print-first launch?

Whatever the case the reality is the five authors have done their thinking outloud over the past decade. There may be few surprises for those on board.

But that this thinking has been distilled and decanted into one small book is likely to make it incendiary stuff for a whole new generation.

Who will you do a favour by buying a copy?

The motley crew in the lower of the iphone-rendered images with this post show (amid the blur...) l-r Ted Shelton, myself, John Willshire and Doc.

Mobile operators. Take a seat before you read this

The VRM project had a bit of a bash this week.
The key learnings from it are brilliantly summed up by Chris Carfi at the Social Customer Manifesto in The Principles of VRM

Among the implications of these Doc Searls pointed out is:
"A free customer is more valuable than a captive one".

What's your relationship like with your customer? Do you like to think in terms of capture, lock-in, owning relationships?

Take a look.
Mobile Operators (among others) are advised to sit down first.

Doc speaks:

Lean-too marketing: Interesting products + interested people

There are some companies that impress me. Some ways of doing business that any company can do, but most don't.

We're familiar that there's a raging battle for attention going on (or as I prefer to think of it, a battle for intention).In short, there's so much stuff to choose from we, as a default, lean away from it all.

Occasionally, very occasionally, something comes along which is interesting enough for us to lean towards. We shuffle forward on our seats and peer a little closer.

Ooooh! That looks interesting...

And then we make the effort to find out more.VodPod was one such for me. Qik is my current squeeze.

In both cases my attention (hard enough to grab) turned to intention (I'm going to stop peering at it and start acting) through one simple thing. The company leaned forward, too, towards me. Lean-too marketing.

In the case of vodpod it happened like this.Qik is now getting the big up for similar reasons!

I mentioned a hold-up in the sign-up process in a tweet on twitter. I didn't complain to the company. In fact, I'd have probably given it up as a bad job... if it wasn't for the fact that Qik is listening.

More importantly, the human beings who make up Qik are listening.

This is the bit all companies are capable of. Anyone can search summize, for example and see what people are saying about them on twitter (with other conversations to be added soon, according to their site).

But listening isn't enough. As this encounter with a Toyota youth marketer amply illustrates. Be sure to read the comments!

No, the clever (read blindingly obvious) bit is to actually respond to the act of listening - that is to take part in the conversation. To make like a social critter.

Small, very human, interactions make all the difference. Mark Earls at Herd understands this. David Armano at Logic + Emotion is working towards it (see his post describing how one act of kindness by a Disney employee earned that company $100,000).

Jackie Danicki gets this, too. It's why, in her role as Director of Marketing at Qik, she's not only monitoring what people are saying about Qik, she's reacting to it and responding to it.

She saw I was having problems and took the time and trouble to track down my gmail address (available on this blog and other places, but certainly not in that tweet!)

She got an sms sent out to me with the relevant link.

Would you or your company do as much? Are your employees empowered to make judgements for themselves on the right thing to do? The kind of small, human, right-things-to-do that earned Disney $100,000?

Here's the killer: The Qik download didn't work (I've been pointed at another member of the team to try to work out why - they haven't given up on me yet, so I'm not giving up on them!).

So what am I raving about Qik for? It can't be for the quality of the product - because I haven't actually experienced it yet.

It's for the quality of the people.

I therefore, personally blind to the product itself (though I have heard good things from people I trust), commend to you, Qik.

Tell your friends...

Image by Stephen Poff

Recommending the thoughts of JP Rangaswami...

JP Rangaswami (one of my personal recommendations in the Rock Stars of Web2.0 list) has been considering the idea of twitter 'tweets' as recommendations.
I've had my own musings about marketing in this medium. Among others.
JP's take is to define what makes a recommendation different from an advert.
He says:

1. The tweet must be unbiased, it must be about an entity that is in no way connected financially with the tweeter
2. The tweet must be clear in signalling something sufficiently positive about the entity
3. The tweet must be actionable, it must link to somewhere that the tweetee can do something about the recommendation
4. Most importantly, a tweet becomes a recommendation when the tweetee decides it is one

He says his fourth point is the most important. I'd argue it could stand alone. It stands out and alone because it is the one that is all about how much you trust the recommendor. Trust is what transforms what might otherwise be seen as an advert into a valued recommendation.

We build that trust on a whole super-structure of metadata. The ability of one factor to bring that house of cards tumbling down will vary from instance to instance (and it is a precariously constructed structure, one which requires we don't lean too heavily on its walls, or over load it by piling card after card on top).

Yes it helps if there is no financial connection between you and the product or service you recommend if you want me to trust your recommendation, but not as much as it matters that I trust (or don't trust) your opinion in the first place.

I'll take the chef's recommendation in his restaurant, for example. I'm particularly likely to take it if he knows my taste. And I'll take a friend's recommendation on the right mobile phone package for me - even if he works for one of the operators. I trust him to do the right thing for me more than for the organisation he has a financial interest in.

I'm not that fussed about number 2, the clarity issue. In the conversational mode of twitter you can always ask for clarification. A recommendation would typically require this.

Even number 3 is of low importance to me. Adding links is a kind of nice-to-have, make-life-easy function. But we have google. And we like to control our own user experience. Direct links are fine if helpful - but lead me to your checkout page on amazon and I might gag.

No, for me, point 4 is king: "a tweet becomes a recommendation when the tweetee decides it is one".

The tweetee makes that decision based on whether or not they trust the tweetor, and whether or not the tweetor is talking about something they are interested in today.

In fact, the most effective manifestation of this is when the tweetee is the tweetor (sorry!) ie the person wanting a recommendation is seeking a recommendation. I ask my network of trust which small wifi-enabled decent-sized keyboard device to buy, they tell me the asus eeepc.

And it is this that led me to the idea of Conversations of Intent

It's very much inline with Doc's VRM (I believe) and also with JP's conclusion:
"It is the “follower” who imbues the “tweeter” with the “recommender” tag about a particular class of social object."

So here I am sharing the thoughts of JP Rangaswami, Doc Searls, Hugh MacLeod and Mark Earls. You can choose to treat this as recommendation. But only if you trust me.

Marketing is not something you do to people.

Identity: Complexity or opportunity? Depends who is asking the question?

Tuesday proved to be a really interesting day at the VRM (Vendor Relationship Management) day Adriana Lukas organised at the October Gallery in Old Gloucester Road, London.

Some concepts/deployments of VRM-style models got a little air time: pintarget.com (please try it, they'd love your feedback), Paoga's My Sorting Office (which takes the spam out of email and gives you some control over vendors by allowing consumers to set up multiple temporary email accounts through which they can receive pitches from vendors without revealing their own ID.) and I liked BoxedUp's approach which ex FT man Chris Osbourne describes as 'Del.icio.us for products'.

And these are all worthy manifestations of the spirit of vrm.

But I particularly liked Adriana's own grappling with the creation of an infrastructure on which an ecosystem of such manifestations could evolve.

Growing from readily available tools and concepts (RSS, igoogle etc) it raised questions about how multiple personality facets could be shared – in a user-driven way. (Something my white paper on multiple digital identity and the long tail explores a little)

It sounds kind of mad that someone might want to expose facets of their digital identity in the form of 1000s of rss feeds (possibly more) of data about themselves, shared with whom they choose when they choose.

But that's likely because those of us who didn't grow up in the digital age see complexity where digital natives may see the opportunity for self-expression (in a psychological self-deterministic way)

For example,

World 1.0 question: How can I simplify the management of all these multiple identities?

World 2.0 question: Where are the tools that allow me to express all the subtleties of me?

I think Adriana may be on the right track with her infrastructure approach. Build something on which others can express; a fitness landscape for the evolution to begin on. That's where the value will emerge.

And it's kind of the world2.0 solution, isn't it?

Asus EEEPC. Unique problem? And a message for the supply chain...

My pursuit of an asus eeepc looked like it had resulted in success yesterday. A nice white one turned up as promised from ebuyer uk ltd. £250 plus a chunk for 'next day' delivery.
Sadly the small thing of beauty failed to er... function. Charged it up last night. Tried it for the first time at the Coach and Horses today (free wifi in Greek St, London) and found that while it sought and connected to wifi a treat, it did bugger all else.

Pretty much any click anywhere resulted in a frozen screen.

(Stick with this long-winded whine. There is a bigger-picture point in this somewhere...).

So I called ebuyer who started the returns process very efficiently (though still waiting to hear if they will actually pick up the offending article as their t&cs suggest) and put me through to tech support.
And tech support couldn't really help, didn't know enough about the model. But they gave me a number for Asus (0870 120 8340 in the UK).

And when I called them they seemed equally baffled. We tried the old reboot and reset factory settings thing and... no change.

The tech support team at asus claimed they had never heard of anything like my case (Dan Thornton picked up my tweets and kindly checked the eeepc wiki and forums to confirm that was likely to be true).

Lucky old me. I've been in a dash to get my hands on one of these since some twittering at the weekend because I want use it while in Berlin. I'm speaking at Mobile Internet on Monday (flying on Sunday) so...
What the hell to do now? It's a struggle to find these beasts at the mo. Tried ringing my local toysrus... out of stock, no idea when the next ones are in. PC World/Curry's et al... only stock them online with week-long delivery times.

So I found one tonight at laptopsdirect.co.uk which also offers to deliver on Saturday for a wince-inducing £24.95 extra. And they charge extra for using a credit card. No like.

Still, beggars can't be choosers etc. (or should that be customers stuck with faulty items in need of rapid replacement can't be choosers... can you see where this is going yet?)

Laptopsdirect offer a pre-delivery check for another chunk of cash. Seems odd to ask for cash to make sure the thing they are selling you is actually fit for purpose... but I'd been bitten once. So I was tempted... but surely I can't get two on the trot that are screwed?

Not even I could be that unlucky.
If that does happen (and Im sure there will be updates to this exciting story) I suggest you don't sit next to me on the flight from Stansted on Sunday night.

UPDATE (Mar 28) oh gee... shock of shocks, Laptopsdirect don't actually have any to fulfill my order CANCEL!!!. My return with ebuyer is now sorted to my convenience (well done ebuyer, minor moan, I did have to chase you some more...) So I found another supplier who responded to an email to say yes they had it in stock and yes they would get it delivered to me by 12noon tomorrow... can you wait? Company in question? efficientpc.co.uk.

UPDATE 2 (Mar 29) efficientpc.co.uk come up with the goods. The next day delivery arrives at 10am, I charge up the eeepc and... it works. I'll be staying in touch with it while at that conference, after all. Top work efficentpc fellas!

Oh yeah, why this long, long moan?
Strikes me that playing your role as a consumer can be painful? Just way too painful at times. Why am I making all the running?

One - this started off with me screaming out into twitterland that I wanted one of these things. Asus should have acknowledged that - a chance to cash in on the intention economy. You'd think a maker of always on-always connected kit would do better...

Two, I wanted to find out how 'unique' my asus eeepc problem really was? So go ahead, share your experiences, share with others you think might have comments. And not just the bad stuff - rave if it's rave worthy. We often accuse the brands and the marketers of spin. Let's make sure we don't fall into the same trap as consumers.

Three: A message to the supply chain:
When we, your financial life-support system, have a faulty product that we've spent our hard earned cash on, we want a replacement when we need it. Not on your schedule or according to your rules. We don't want to distinguish between distributors and retailers - we don't give a damn for your distinctions... Honestly, we don't. Get used to it. Organise for it.

Wouldn't it have been nice if the girls at Asus had said, "look, we can see your problem. This is clearly such a rare and unusual case, you know what, instead of trotting out our usual 'we don't deal with the public (that'd be me then) line, and telling you to return our faulty goods to the retailer we supplied, we're going to courier you a replacement right now, to where-ever you are.
We'll worry about the return later. Our retailer has got your address and cash after all.

"You've got nothing but a broken laptop from us."

Wouldn't it be nice? Hello! Wouldn't it be reasonable?

Like Tomi and Alan say at Communities Dominate Brands: Companies from Mars, Customers from Venus.

Social Shopping? Think Conversations of Intent

Social Shopping seemed to be all the buzz at last week's AdAge conference in New York. I wasn't there, but my self-selecting trusted news filter (that'll be blogs and twitter) kept me up to date moment by moment.

And as I mentioned in a throw-away line previously there is some sense in this because it combines the social tools/media/networks where all the 'eyeballs' happen to be, with the intention to buy (which is demonstrably lacking from most 'social networks').

Example? Bloomingdales in New York offers booths in which you can get a snap taken of you in the clothes you are thinking of buying. Does my bum look big in this? The wisdom of the crowds will pass judgement thanks to pictures sent instantly to your friends.

This kind of real time validation of choice has its place, no doubt. But it seems little more than a surface scratcher against the many opportunities which arise if you look at your consumer as someone rather more than a spending machine ( think converged buying/selling/marketing/creating/designing/inspiring individual).

I've been talking about two key elements of marketing recently: Conversation and Intention.

We often talk about "cutting through the clutter" and the "battle for attention" created by the proliferation of channels.

I'm thinking it is now less about the battle for attention and more about Conversations of Intent. Being the place where intention is expressed could be incredibly valuable.

My posts about trying to buy a car illustrate part of this, the part where I am expressing intent (apparently into an echoey void, as it happens - but there are fixes for that).

My post about buying an Asus EEEPC illustrate another part, the part where I am not only expressing intent, I'm seeking advice and navigation.

In both cases not one single advert was clicked. I had conversations (in the case of the car I tried and failed to initiate one with dealers... they have a long road to travel).

Both beg questions about the traditional role of the (even in-context, related, uber targeted) ads, especially online.

The value has been created by the fact that conversation within trusted networks is enabled.

All very Facebook Beacon, you may argue. But there is a crucial distinction. The initiation of the conversation is with the person who intends to make the purchase. It is a Conversation of Intent. And that's more in tune with Vendor Relationship Management thinking, as proposed by Doc Searls.

Social networks - any group within them - only create value you can easily measure when they self-organise with purpose. Groups that just have a bit of a chat don't create that instant value - the members don't even click on those carefully targeted ads. (They do, of course, create a longer term 'social ties' value which may be activated when 'the purpose' dawns on the group...)

Within twitter, those I follow and who follow me have a certain level of trust in each others ideas and opinions - it's writ large in how you go about deciding who you will follow. You find them interesting because they are interested in things you are interested in...

When I ask a question of that group another self-forms within it - one which is available right now (there's that value of synchronous communication and the value of those in a group who are willing to drop everything to help out that Stowe Boyd references).

What we end up with is a self-forming group which, by its very actions, defines a value-creating purpose.

The purpose in the case of my EEEPC purchase was to help me buy a small wireless device. It could as easily have been to find a good hotel, restaurant, car, piece of software, or to force down the level of tax on UK petrol!

And this all happens in a very fine conversation enabler ( conversations of intent, after all, require the easy ability to initiate conversation).

The self-forming group of purpose has three other important elements for 'social shopping'.
It has to:

a) be interested in me
b) be interested in what I'm expressing intent about
c) drop everything (no matter how briefly) to join in a conversation about it right now.

These may be the key factors in enabling the social shopper, provided we allow the 'consumer' to take the lead - for them to initiate the Conversation of Intent.

I am part of a community, therefore, I buy.

There are some Forrester stats that do the rounds. I quote them myself when speaking. Up to 70% of all purchase decisions are made based on word of mouth.
The more I think about marketing and advertising in the networked world, the more I start to believe that figure is a lie.
It's nowhere near high enough.
Every purchase decision I make of any significant value is made based on word of mouth. Do you call it word of mouth if the conversation is entirely online? You do as far as I'm concerned.
Especially if you're using a conversation enabler, such as twitter.
As the blurring between real and virtual worlds accelerates, we won't be bothering with the distinction for long.
Latest one; I decided I needed a really small wireless device. I was in Cumbria at the time - away from my broadband access and where even my mobile internet access was seriously diminished by the lack of 3G.
My approach was to ask my twitter community for advice. See some of the conversation in the pictures.
Essentially, I listed what kind of device I was looking for and some people whose opinions I trust shared what they thought would be a good option. The conversation continued with calls for reasons why I shouldn't buy - and a bit of pro MacAir banter and the result was I placed an order for an Asus EEEPC (4GB one with webcam). It was quite hard to come by. Demand is high. It's the latest wii with stocks flying off the shelves at your local ToysRus. And I needed it ready for this coming weekend.

An interesting aside that a device that is portable and keeps you constantly connected is such a hit with kids (this thing is so small it almost looks like a toy). The creation generation wants the participation to go on and on and on...

Anyways - I tried reaching out through twitter to see if someone wanted to sell me one... but to no avail - I had to go the traditional route.

But at least the (re) 'search' element of the process was entirely human, complete with trusted recommendation. There's clearly life in that Mahalo (human-powered search engines) concept.
I made my intention to buy clear, and my community helped me make the purchase.

I didn't read any 'expert' reviews, I relied on the wisdom of my crowd. And I really don't think I'm alone in acting like this. Interestingly, I had never heard of this brand before. Any equity it now has for me has come from my interactions with members of my community.

I wonder when those on the 'intent to sell' side of the great divide will reach back towards us?

A picture of the intention economy

Doc Searls explaining the Cluetrain Manifesto 10 years on

I've added this to my vodpod (see left col) but in case you miss it there, here's your chance to see Doc Searls talk about the Cluetrain Manifesto 10 years on. Gotta get a clue!

A picture of the intention economy - and a second experiment in VRM

Well, here's another of my poorly-put-together diagrams. It came to me after my testing of a one-man-vrm in trying to buy a car.

It's pretty clear that tools, and simple ones at that, which can connect these two intentions are available. Put together shrewdly we may have a way of helping the vendor side catch up with the consumer?

Rather than search for myself, (and/or deciding for myself)which are the most likely candidates, I thought I'd try a little more VRM (vendor relationship management) - this time aimed at the people who should be best equipped to pick up on my clear intention! That is, if you're pitching tools which can do this job, the least you should be able to do is be alerted to my intention to find you, from this posting alone (though I will twitter away, too).

So please, either email me your suggestions for good tools which could help, or just post your thoughts and suggestions below. Thanks

Who wants to sell me a Toyota Yaris? (Part II)

My little experiment in VRM has become a little more pressing. Just to recap:

"I'm in the UK.
"I want a low mileage Toyota Yaris in either T3 or TR spec, registered late 2006 onwards (new shape one). Must have aircon of some form. Ideally 1.3 petrol but will consider 1.0. Probably go for the five door. My wife prefers silver (and it will be her car). Ex-demo would be ideal. Will consider new if you can do the kind of deal that makes me accept the ludicrous VAT costs involved.
"Don't need to do part-ex."

It's more pressing because the car it's replacing is now sold.

So it's just as well this blog (and my tweets) is not the only place sharing this story.
Chris Carfi at the Social Customer Manifesto has picked it up and done a great job on it, and that in turn has been picked up by Topix

By the way, the man whose garage has serviced it and carried out the MoTs for the past five years has bought it for his partner. That speaks volumes for his faith in his own work, don't you think. So here's the recommendation for you: Serviceman in Huntingdon, Cambs.

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I want to buy a Toyota Yaris. An experiment in VRM and word of mouth

I want to buy a Toyota Yaris... really, I do.

After reading the previous post, there may be some who a conclude from the supermarket analogy that it makes life easy for me to show up at one place where the prices are good and I can get 'all I need'. And therefore I'll back the jack-of-all-trades model.
(Worth noting, however, that you're getting all 'everyone' needs at the supermarket - you are being served as part of a mass, the lowest common denominator...)

I get where you are coming from. Who needs the hassle of chasing round the internet?
Doc Searls' Vendor Relationship Management project at Harvard has a response.
Brief description: "(providing)... customers with tools for engaging with vendors in ways that work for both parties."

This should mean that if I mention that I want to buy something in a blogpost, facebook status update, twitter feed etc - then that is the right time for the supplier to reach out to me.

Yes, if I had google adsense on this page a supplier would be reaching out right now (and they may well be where this post appears as an rss feed elsewhere). Trouble is the google adsense advertiser would 'reach out' with a 'broadcast' advert - one which didn't answer the particular questions I will raise. They wouldn't start a conversation with me. It would be down to me to click-thru and trawl through options, likely as a result of some bland white lie such as 'best price'.
No one would have recommended the click receipient to me, either. Trust?

What else could we expect our vendors to do? Well, clued-up service and product suppliers need not wait for the VRM project to do everything for them. They have proto-tools available now, if only they look around them.
They have google alerts, rss feeds, rss aggregators, etc etc. How many are actually using them?
So I'm going to test to see how well and if any are using them.

There's a prize at stake, of sorts. The winner gets to sell me a car.

I want to buy a Toyota Yaris - and I'm going to blog about this fact (and twitter a bit) to see if this simple piece of disaggregated content gets picked up by someone savvy enough to sell me one.
It's also a test of word of mouth because it's possible that the dealer (owner?) with the car I want isn't clued up... but he might know a friend, or a friend-of-a-friend who is.

So let's begin.
I'm in the UK.
I want a low mileage Toyota Yaris in either T3 or TR spec, registered late 2006 onwards (new shape one). Must have aircon of some form. Ideally 1.3 petrol but will consider 1.0. Probably go for the five door. My wife prefers silver (and it will be her car). Ex-demo would be ideal. Will consider new if you can do the kind of deal that makes me accept the ludicrous VAT costs involved.
Don't need to do part-ex.

Over to you.

The call centre customer manifesto

I've just started a facebook group called: "No More Call Centre Monkeys!"

I urge you to join - and tell your friends. Maybe a bit of pressure will force the centralised management structures of these organisations to listen. Listening, incidentally, is exactly NOT what they are allowing their employees (those on the edge of their networks, those interfacing with their revenue streams, ie their customers) to do.

So, with apologies to Christopher Carfi at The Social Customer Manifesto (see recommended blogs, left)... here's my Call Centre Customer Manifesto. Feel free to add and adapt!

The Call Centre Customer Manifesto

• I want to talk to someone who is listening to me - not reading a script from a computer screen.
• I want to talk to someone with the power to do something about my problem.
• I want to talk to someone who knows how to get round the moment when 'the computer says no'
• I want to talk to someone for whom reason is allowed to mean something.
• I don't want to input my account number on my phone - then have to tell three more people what it is during the same call.
• I want a full response to my complaints.

When we call, we want to talk to a human empowered to actually do something about the thing we've called about: not someone reading off a screen.

We understand the drive for efficiency that call centres represent BUT we're fed up with your poorly-executed "customer relationship mechanisms" which present us - YOUR REVENUE STREAMS - with the shitty end of the stick.

We urge these companies to stop insulting the intelligence of both their customers AND their employees. Giving the poor saps on the end of the phone a script they must stick to effectively turns them into a computer. We don't want to talk to a computer.

We think it is grossly unfair on call centre staff - the very people charged with dealing direct with your customers - to leave them with no power to think or act for themselves. It leads to depression for them - frustration for the customer.

Senior managers - do something about it. Or start answering the phones yourselves.

YouTube ads really annoy (the ones the community calls ads, that is)

This video (below)...



...was in the main featured slot on YouTube for the best part of 3 days - racking up over 300,000 views in that time. It's an advert. And judging from the comments it's really pissed off the YouTube Community. Maybe that's why it's not featured any more - or maybe they only paid for three days. Whatever the case the community is fearful this is the evil hand of google at work.

I really hate it, too. I regard it as disingenuous because in its design, style and call-to-action it is EXACTLY like all other (user generated and contributed) videos on YouTube.

Now that's not really on. In print if you run an ad feature you have to, at least, change the fonts and layout from the editorial norm and make a clear statement that this is an advertising feature (at least, you do in the UK).

Even on TV it's very clear what is advert and what is program content - the ad breaks are clearly signed.

I don't think it will take reglation to stop YouTube doing this stuff in the future - just concerted negative community response!

However, what's interesting is that certain kind of adverts don't FEEL like the one that's annoyed everyone (above). And they seem to elicit a positive response from the YouTube community.

I'm talking about trailers for movies and TV series. Perhaps because these are things people actively want to know about. eg...



Maybe this is a reflection of the fact that the consumer wants to make their decisions rather than have them thrust on them by an ad. (might be worth checking out this from Doc Searls - and particularly the Vendor Relationship Management link, or even this previous post of mine.

"If I want it it's fine - and you'd better find out what it is I want before you offer it!"

And to do that of course, you have to engage (see engagement marketing etc).