Customer Reach vs. Vendor Grasp (Doc Searls)
Your job as the consumer is to consume, not to produce. So if you ever wonder why you can’t just have just one profile instead of one for every single site that you visit, it’s because you’re not supposed to ask for things, you are just supposed to be asked to do things - for the vendor/site. Vendor “agreements” take 1,000s of words to essentially say that you have no rights at all.
Some people want to rage against this machine, “I am a person, and not a market segment!” So, what if we could influence vendors, instead of just being influenced (and usually without our knowing - see last session). In other words, what if there was VRM - Vendor Relationship Management instead of just CRM (Customer Relationship Management).
What if there was parity between companies and their customers? I listen to them and am affected by them, but they listen to me and are affected by me? What if we co-owned my data? (Or if I could access the raw data, but not their proprietary profiles of me.)
That was the question for this panel, do you feel ignored by online merchants? Are you mad as hell and not going to take it anymore?
