Right Side Up

The British Standards Institute have produced a new set of standards for what they call PIMS (Personal Information Management Systems).

Of course, this PIMS is the complete opposite of the PIMS we have been talking about for the last couple of years. Their standard is for organisations managing individuals’ personal data. Our PIMS are for individuals using information to manage their affairs.

‘My PIMS’ versus ‘Their PIMS’. Oh dear, more terminological confusion here we come!

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Yesterday, Tim Wilson and I gave a presentation on the brand impact of Transparency, at the launch of Organic Exchange Europe in Amsterdam. The presentation is available under ‘Resources’ and ‘Implications for Marketing’ on the RightSide Up home page.

The presentation describes a move from brand opacity (hiding knowledge to build brand premiums) through translucency (offering sneak peeks to support brand story telling), to fully-fledged transparency (a free and open information exchange with stakeholders).

Transparency is a founding principle of RightSideUp thinking and the most critical enabler of social markets.

But actually the relationship between RSU and transparency goes even deeper. There’s a two-way relationship going on here.

Transparency is both enabled by VRM (which restores information and social symmetry between individuals and institutions) but it also drives the need for VRM, as any remaining asymmetries stand out like beacons of inequity, demanding ever more efficient matching services on behalf of the individual.

In principle, at least, this will create a virtuous circle of ever more transparent and trustworthy relationships.

Transparent individuals want transparent products which match their precise needs and social context.

But such richly transparent products can only be produced by transparent organisations which share their product backstory, seeking to combine both brand principles and supply-web production processes.

Inevitably though, transparent organisations’ self interest lies in creating transparent markets where their true stories can be selected over their rivals’ over-bundled half-truths and obfuscations.

Closing the systems loop, these transparent markets are the ones in which social and information democracy prevail – in which individuals are enabled to both share and benefit from their personal assets – the underlying principles of VRM.

RightSideUpness is thus embedded at the centre of the Transparency system and the Transparency system is, to my mind, an inevitability.

Make no mistake. Transparency is already here. Henceforth we can look forward to stakeholder to stakeholder, stakeholder to enterprise and enterprise-wide ‘mutual marketing’ tools to make it work for us not against us.

The next decade will be a race between Microsoft/Google vs Oracle/SAP to provide the infrastructure for a see-through world.

‘Find’ will be the new killer app.

Authored by: Tim Kitchin

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Very interesting times in the world of identity theft.  As the victim-community becomes more and more sophisticated, so it becomes less and less ready to accept the actions of the established corporates.  Last week, the mass-media caught up with this new, less compliant reality.

To date, the corporate stance has been: shred your statements, hide your pin, and you’ll be fine.  Meanwhile, take out some identity theft protection.

In our February 2005 ID theft seminar, Glasshouse predicted a forthcoming tipping-point when the volume of experienced victims would be sufficient to overturn this received wisdom.  The media in turn would start to reject this stance, and kick back. 

Well guess what – on September 5 2005 (5/9/5) things tipped.

Newsweek published a seminal article: Grand Theft Identity. 

The premises which underpinned the previous blame game were as follows:  1) ID theft is the fault of the individual 2) Data-holding organisations are doing all they can 3) Technology is powerless to solve the problem.  None of these is now accepted as true by sophisticated media.

The market has now reached its next level of evolution.  At Glasshouse, we reckon that Identity theft will henceforth begin to be recognised as an issue which the individual is powerless to resist.  The cracks in corporate personal information management practices will be be exposed.  Instead of ducking the blame, organisations will increasingly need to account for their own practices and in particular, their victim responsiveness. 

Smart organisations will start to publicly share their own actions and approaches and reengineer their customer support.  Starting victim support groups is an obvious first step.

Some time later – perhaps by mid-2006, the next phase of this cycle will kick in: the realisation that data theft is not the issue, but data exploitation.  The hard truth is that this issue can only ultimately be solved downstream – in the personal data marketplace.  The balance will shift from offering consumer advice, to exploring and adopting technologies and protocols which manage downstream identity-in-use.  Consumer advice will shift to substantive personal information management (PIM) support services – not just insurance products.

At this stage of the cycle, though, levels of ID-security and ID-authentication procedures will become highly stratified, application-specific and ultimately user-accountable.

This right side up phase will usher in the world of the personal knowledge bank; of personal digital identity, and of contextual authentication.  It may still be 2-3 years away in its full form, but it’s going to be a big, and lucrative deal.  Retailers, telcos and financial services companies have a lot to gain by being on the side of the consumer, not against them in this battle for self-protection.

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