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| Sunday, October 8, 2006 |
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Elsewhere bound 
| | Okay I'm off to Copenhagen and other places, for a week. See ya theres. |
| | Oh, by the way, as an old radio freak I look forward to fooling with the data and maps at fmscan.de. |
| | Of course, I can still listen to Sirius satellite radio, and lots of other stuff, on a laptop. That was where I heard Jeff Jarvis on Howard Stern on the morning of the 25th, as I recall. |
| | [Later...] Not so quickly. I missed my connecting flight to Seatlle from San Francisco (don't ask), and now I'm in baggage hell, not knowing (yet) if United Baggage in Seattle has sent the bag back to San Francisco, so I can retrieve it, and check it through Heathrow (my new connection) to Copenhagen. If not, I'll be clothes-less for awhile after I get there. Grr. (And perhaps later, brr.) |
| | [Later again...] My bag is still in Seattle. I'll have to "file paperwork" in Copenhagen to get Scandinavian Airways to retrieve it from Seattle and have it flown in. Not much I can do from here in San Francisco. I'll just have to live without everything I packed, other than electronics, which I carry with me. Sooo, more Grr and brr. |
| | My flight will soon board for Heathrow. I'll have a window seat, but over the wing and on the right side, away from any auroras, if there are any. I was hoping there would be. But the chance looks slim anyway. I just had a free bloody mary. Maybe that'll help me sleep. |
How VRM helps CRM
| | The way I read Doc¹s ideas, he¹s talking about a real inversion of what advertising is and means. Instead of suppliers advertising what they want us to buy (by spamming our attention), we¹ll advertise what WE want to buy, and suppliers will make us offers. Sounds a lot more efficient to me. What am I missing? Why doesn¹t everyone want to do this? |
| | Yes, except I also think it's important not to understand VRM (Vendor Relationship Management — the reciprocal of CRM, or Customer Relationship Management) as the reciprocal of advertising. Or the opposite of advertising. Or even the opposite of marketing. I don't think it helps to frame it in terms of any of those things. |
| | It's something new. Rather than advertise, we notify. We assert. We express. I don't care what we call it, as long as what we do doesn't come across as individuals being just as bad-mannered as advertising has been for the duration. |
| | Maybe because a lot of what advertising is about is getting us to want things we don¹t know we want. But even that can be done in other better ways too. Like by producing cool things and having them explode into discussion. Doc said this too, didn¹t he: Markets are conversations. |
| | Also true. But VRM isn't just about conversation. It's about relationships. And transactions. |
| | We've always understood markets in terms of transactions. We wouldn't have markets (or economics, or business schools), without them. And lately we've begun to understand markets in terms of conversations as well. But relationships remain a wild frontier. |
| | On the vendor side we've talked and coded ourselves into assuming we have relationships with customers. But CRMs don't relate. Worse, they are delusional about relating. Here's how Wikipedia currently puts it: |
| | Customer relationship management (CRM) covers methods and technologies used by companies to manage their relationships with clients. Information stored on existing customers (and potential customers) is analyzed and used to this end. Automated CRM processes are often used to generate automatic personalized marketing based on the customer information stored in the system. |
| | Wow. Can't wait to make love to that. |
| | When you read down through that whole Wikipedia entry, you see how CRMs actually mean to be nice, to respect the customer, yada yada. The problem is, they bear the full burden of a relationship that doesn't exist, because there is nothing much to relate to on the other side. Or worse, the only mechanism for relationship is the one that facilitates the transaction: the credit card. |
| | We need to equip the customer with something that facilitates relating to vendors — and takes some of the relationship burden off the vendors as well. |
| | The relating may be enduring or transitory. It may involve disclosing some identity information; or it may keep us anonymous (while disclosing other information that's useful). It must, however, be useful to both sides. We don't have that with advertising (which, aside from all the waste it involves, brings the wrong perspective and sets of assumptions to the problem). |
| | I like Dave's prototype idea for "a movie review system where I own and control my data", because it's a great first step. It's says to Vendor CRMs, "This is my data, and it's independent of your silo. And that makes it more valuable to both of us than it would be if it lived in your silo alone." |
| | We need to discover some what VRM can do before the rest of it can become clear. Which it will. Inevitably. |
Taking docking to the next levels
| | Antonio: think of the camera as an open access point sniffer with a lens. |
| | Also, the best part of the whole Nikon experience for me was how easy it was to hack the site and wrap an API around getting my photos out. |
Essence of Santa Barbara
| | If Edhat is anything, it's repetitive. Hey, this is a small town. There just aren't that many issues to explore. One of our issues of late is that local merchants have been closing down shops faster than you can say, "Starbucks Caramel Macchiato". Our article last week, where we asked subscribers to tell us what businesses they miss the most, was the all-time most emailed-to-a-friend article in the history of Edhat. It's hard to say which we lost more of this summer, News-Press employees or local merchants. |
| | But the press got the press. There haven't been any "Save the Local Merchants" rallies at De La Guerra Plaza. And, the Union hasn't stepped in to unionize mom and pop. |
Who new?
| | Interesting place. Among other nuggets, found this. |
Anals of journalism, cont'd
Extreme big-J Journalism
| | She was brave beyond belief, Anna Politkovskaya, reporting a gruesome war and a creeping dictatorship with a sharp pen and steel nerves. It may be a chilling coincidence that she was murdered on President Vladimir Putin¹s birthday, but her friends and supporters are in little doubt that her dogged, gloomy reporting of the sinister turn Russia has taken under what she called his ³bloody² leadership was what led to her murder in the lift of her Moscow apartment block. |
| | Ms Politkovskaya¹s journalism was distinctive. Not for her the waffly, fawning and self-satisfied essays of the Moscow commentariat. Nor the well-paid advertorial now so pervasive as to be barely noticeable. She reported from the wrecked villages and shattered towns of Chechnya, talking to those on all sides and none, with endless patience and gritty determination. |
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