It's been almost three years since Doc Searls posted his ten principles of VRM. Now that a few VRM project in development, he's added a new list: that give characteristics of VRM.

Here's Searls' list:

• VRM tools are personal. As with hammers, wallets and mobile phones, people use them as individuals. They are social only in secondary ways.
• VRM tools help customers express intent. These include preferences, policies, terms and means of engagement, permissions, requests and anything else that's possible in a free market (i.e. the open marketplace surrounding any one vendor's silo or walled garden for "managing" captive customers).
• VRM tools help customers engage. This can be with each other, or with any organization, including (and especially) its CRM system.
• VRM tools help customers manage. This includes both their own data and systems and their relationships with other entities, and their systems.
• VRM tools are substitutable. This means no vendor of VRM tools can lock users in.

I find the line about VRM tools being personal first, and social in secondary ways, particularly interesting.

Searls has been talking about VRM for years, and we've been covering for quite a while (most recently with regards to cloud vendor lock-in). The Locker Project seems to be one of the most promising projects in this movement.

Photo by kioan