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More On Vendor Relationship Management (VRM)

This post continues where this one, which gives a bit of background on VRM, leaves off.

In a December, 2006 SuitWatch piece in LinuxJournal, Doc Searls writes that there are a number of parts of VRM, which include:

  • Data Independence – “Individuals needs to own and control their own data, independent of vendors”
  • Customer-Centricity – “Customers are at the center — at the inside — and relate outward toward any number of vendors”
  • Reputation, Intention and Preference – “All three bear on relationships, and there is an enormous amount that can be done with each of them.”

Of these three areas, the one that I see as key (and, of course, the hardest one to implement) will be the adoption of true customer-centricity in the marketplace. Why is this the hardest problem? Because, although there are some technical components, this is much more of a “soft” problem, one of culture and mindset, rather than a problem of RFCs and technology. Doc continues that we need to think about:

“…the inside-out nature of relationships between customers and vendors. That is, customers are at the center — at the inside — and relate outward toward any number of vendors. The idea is not to take the old top-down few-to-many pyramid of vendor-controlled markets and turn it upside down, with customers now on top. Instead, we equip customers with the means to function in more ways inside marketplaces, at the center of relationships with any number of vendors.”

With this, I strongly agree.

However, one of the other areas of concentration that Doc proposes is the idea of a “personal RFP.” On the concept of the personal RFP, Joe Andrieu writes:

“I think what we are actually seeing is more of allowing people a way to post a personal digital RFP… which will require some sort of shared API. Interestingly, corporations could also use a digital RFP, since it is all the same to the marketspace.”

There is also now talk of creating a Firefox plugin for personal RFPs. (In fact, there’s already the beginning of a spec.)

To this, I need to say “whoa, cowboys.” Take a step back from the keyboard. There are two reasons for this.

Reason One: Immediately diving into code is going to take us exactly down the same path that CRM did, and focus on the technology, instead of the people.

Remember that little “R” thing in the middle of both CRM and VRM? The one that says “relationship?” Finding a better way to have vendors compete solely on price does not a relationship (or even a conversation) make. It’s simply a different way to do transactions. (My thoughts on the “transactions to communities” path here, from August, 2005.)

Focusing on the transaction alone doesn’t help.

Reason Two: Before diving into creating a new technical spec, step outside and look around a bit.

Don’t reinvent the wheel. A lot of this work has been done, and can be leveraged. Electronic connection between buyers and sellers has been going on for a long time, first via EDI, then using these fancy Interwebs and XML. For example, RosettaNet has been working on these problems for nearly a decade. (Disclosure: I served on the RosettaNet solution provider Board of Directors back in the day.)

For example, what is being described in the Firefox plugin spec is, essentially, a request for a quote from a series of providers. Well, hey, lookie-here!

Partner Interface Process 3A1: Request Quote

“The ‘Request Quote’ Partner Interface Process™ (PIP®) enables a buyer to request a product quote from a provider, and a provider to respond with either a quote or a referral. If referred to another provider, the buyer may request a quote from that party. The prices and product availability reflected in a quote may be influenced by an existing or potential relationship between a buyer and provider.

3a1

Quotes may:

  • Involve one or more items, fixed price quotes or negotiated prices, configurable or stand alone product.
  • Include freight and tax information.
  • Be reconciled with purchase orders.
  • Support ship from stock and debit credit claims.

Should this transaction not complete successfully, the requesting partner executes PIP0A1, ‘Notification of Failure.'”

I want to be clear. I’m not saying that we don’t need technology to do this. I actually feel that technology is critical to making this work. But cart-something-something-horse. Let’s talk to some customers (hey…that’s us!) and find out what’s really needed, and what we want the capital-R-relationships to look like before we start coding.

So, in other words, I’m very hopeful for the direction that VRM is going. I’m looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and helping out in any and every way possible. At the same time, I’m going to be that nagging voice of the human customer, doing my best to ensure that the effort doesn’t solely dive into a series of technical warrens.

I’m going to do my best to ask us all to continually remind each other what brought us here in the first place.

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Mavericks: Tick…Tick…Tick…


originally uploaded by deborah lattimore.

Yes, that little speck in the shot is a surfer.

Half Moon Bay is the home of Mavericks, one of the most grueling big wave rides on the planet. The break is just up the coast from our place, about four miles or so.

Every year, the big wave contest “window” opens up on January 1st, and the 24 surfers who are going to compete go on call. What that means is the contest organizers watch the waves, and swell, and weather patterns, and when everything aligns just so, the contest goes live. At that point, the 24 chosen ones have just 24 hours to get to Half Moon Bay from wherever they are on the planet, get into their wetsuits, and ride the giants.

More on Mavericks here.

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More Human Than Human


the human touch
Originally uploaded by max_thinks_sees.

“I am the jigsaw.” – R.Z.

I have to disagree, relatively strongly, with a number of items in Dave Taylor’s post “When Is A Blog Too Personal?” Dave writes:

“One of the great ongoing debates in the murky world of blogging is whether your weblog should be personal or professional, whether you should be revealing or private. There are, of course, many different answers and at some level the real answer is “whatever you’re comfortable with”, but I think it’s a topic worth exploration nonetheless.

Business blogging is a different story because your goal is to convey a certain level of expertise, credibility and, yes, professionalism, and that can be counter to the idea of being too personal.

One solution is to use the “water cooler rule”. If a topic isn’t something you’d talk about with your supervisor hanging around the water cooler or coffee station at your office, it’s probably not appropriate for your professional blog either.

That might work pretty well for you, but I don’t think it goes far enough, because I can easily imagine chatting about the latest TV show or sporting event with colleagues and supervisors, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good fit for my business blog.”

I actually think the “water cooler rule” is a pretty good one. However, Dave continues:

“I have a friend who is a professional editor and writer who is also in what she calls an “alternative relationship” where she and her husband both date other people. It works for her, but when she blogged about her relationship on her professional blog, I was shocked.

She said that “I’d rather just ‘out’ myself and if it turns off potential clients, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to work with them anyway.” I just don’t see it that way. When you buy a burger from the local eatery, do you want to know the politics of the owner? When you get your car tuned up at the local garage, do you even care about the religious background of the mechanic?”

Here is where we disagree, strongly. When choosing a service provider, I absolutely want to know his or her context and worldview, biases and motivations, whenever possible.

Exhibit A: I will never get a Domino’s pizza, because I disagree strongly with founder Tom Monaghan’s politics.

Exhibit B: I really like the Magnolia pub, in the Haight in San Francisco. Not only do they have terrific beer, but their menu tells me this about the philosophy of the owners:

“Magnolia is proud to support sustainable agriculture as well as local farms and businesses in order to serve food that tastes better. We buy as much of our produce as possible from independent, local, organic farms based on seasonal availability. Our meat and poultry is all natural, free range, and raised without the use of hormones or antibiotics. We make sure that our seafood choices are abundant and fished or farmed in sustainable ways. In general, we buy as locally and sustainably as possible and encourage you to do the same.”

So I suppose, yes, I do want to know the politics of the owner of the burger joint. (n.b. That said, there are a whole bunch of waypoints from transactions to community.)

We’re all jigsaw puzzles of varying interests, history, background and, yes, skills. For some, the Joe Friday, “just the facts” approach may be what they desire from their vendors. On the other hand, many of us spend at least a third (ha, right…more like two-thirds) of our days in our “professional” skins. Do we really want to be denying all of those aspects of “who we are” a majority of our lives? I think not, so Dave, I need to respectfully disagree with your post.

Some other viewpoints on humanity and business blogging:

From the archives:
The Business Blogging Field Guide (HTML, or PDF)

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A Must-Read: Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Had the opportunity to plow through a bunch of books over the last week (Under the Black Flag, Hiaasen’s Nature Girl, the Baker Report, and am currently working on The Omnivore’s Dilemma – more on that one soon). Of all of them, however, the head-and-shoulders best was Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. As my friend Philip would say, fannnnn-great.

Take the discovery and translation of The Secret History of the Mongols, which was hidden from civilization for almost 800 years, lay over the top of it fantastic research and storytelling by author and scholar Jack Weatherford, who traveled thousands of miles on horseback to do his research first-hand, sprinkle it with the opening up and exploration of the Mongolian territory that was the Area 51 of the Soviet Empire…ah, great stuff.

From the cultural shifts, to the storytelling, to the strategy that allowed Genghis Khan to fairly rule an entire continent with only a handful of trusted advisors and warriors, a great read, end-to-end. Highly recommended.

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Flying Over The Holidays – O, Joy!

I’ve just come back from a long weekend, which was lovely. I didn’t get away anywhere. Instead, I opted to have some time at home to relax and recuperate. I caught up on some TV and watched a couple of movies I’ve been meaning to watch for a while (fortunately, they were available to watch but, had they been blocked for whatever reason, I know I could have gone here and worked around it with a proxy. Whilst I enjoyed it, I think I’ll be making a trip somewhere next time a long weekend comes along. You see, a friend sent me an article that lists things to do in Houston if you’re visiting and I couldn’t help but regret my decision to stay at home. Whether it’s Houston or somewhere else, I’ll definitely be having a few days away next time.

Anyway, after my long weekend I returned to an email box chock-full of stories of travel mayhem, interspersed with brief moments of airlines doing the right thing. I’ll share a few here — both good and bad. Share your stories in the comments.

From Randy Moss, “American Airlines has Bad, Horrible. Terrible, Horrific Customer Service“:

“We sprinted off of the airplane and rode the train to gate C-8 at 5:15 pm Christmas eve when we encountered one of the nastiest, rudest airline employees I have ever met in my many years as a frequent flyer. His name was Lokesh and he declared that our boarding passes were no good since we did not have a ticket. After trying to reason with him he had his assistant Denise slam the boarding door in my wifes face and told us to leave and go talk to someone who cared out in the ticketing area.At that point we met Carolyn who was sweet but not very helpful, and her supervisor whose name tag was as backwards as his ability to be helpful. After hearing that we came in from Colorado he let us know we should be thanking him that we are not in the Denver Airport. It’s attitudes like this that make me wish we could fly on a charter jet. Not only are they quicker, more luxurious but I’m almost certain that their crew is more helpful as well.

At this point I was working up an exit strategy – I to was on the phone with Continental and was getting us re-booked on Delta. Landon was a real help on the phone and got us on the 7:10 pm flight into ATL. There were only 15 or so passengers on the plane and we all got bumped up to 1st class. I can not remember the Delta ticket agents name but she stayed 15 minutes past her shift Christmas eve to help us and really embodies why I fly Delta!”

From Robert Scoble, “Travel Disaster“:

“The lines at Oakland are up to four hours long. I missed my flight and am not yet to the gate. Unbelievable.”

And this one from the news wires, “Frustrated travelers storm airport runway in Brazil“:

“Brazilian travelers responded to chronic delays at one of Sao Paulo’s airports yesterday by storming the runway and blocking a plane from taking off.”

How were your trips?