Vendor Relationship Management

Seven years ago this week I wrote something in what was then called the “Focus on Directory Services” newsletter. I didn’t know it at the time, but what I was really looking for was a Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) package. Read it, then we’ll talk some more.

Seven years ago this week I wrote the following for what was then called the “Focus on Directory Services” newsletter. I didn’t know it at the time, but what I was really looking for was a Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) package. Read it, then we’ll talk some more.

[November 19, 2001]I spent last week driving, fairly slowly, from Austin, Texas to Sunnyvale, Calif. – thinking about directory services all the way. Well, part of the way. My wife and I decided to see the southwest while heading for California for Thanksgiving and left home with only the first night’s hotel reservation made counting on telephones, travel guides and Microsoft’s “Streets and Trips” on my laptop to show us the way and find us food and shelter.

We avoided the interstates and used mostly U.S. routes (183, 89, 395, and 84 were very successful) mixed with state roads and the occasional 50 miles or so on an interstate.

The thoughts about directories were when trying to decide on those places to eat and places to stay. There’s little personalization allowed with Streets & Trips (or other programs like that) and none, of course, with the printed travel guides. I prefer staying at Marriott properties, so I could – when near an Internet connection – search their Web site. But how much better it would be if the application I was using knew from my personal directory entries the order of my preferences and knew from the lodging chain directory entries which properties were where. How much more effective to plan my daily drive while knowing where the closest Marriott properties were to my projected end of day – and update that list as I update my position throughout the day. I can plug the PC into the car’s cigarette lighter and attach a GPS receiver so that my point on the map is constantly updated and the end point for that day’s drive is also. How hard to take into account my preferences and show/plan the route accordingly?

Here’s an end-user directory-enabled application that shows endless possibilities, not only for the driver but for someone flying into a strange town – highlighting the lodging, restaurants and points of interest that match your personal choices as listed in your directory entry.

This is only one small place that the personal directory, when attached to, or affiliated with, a larger more global directory (which contains lodging and restaurant information, for example) makes sense. I’m sure you can come up with more. Now, if the vendors would get to work then the ubiquitous directory might actually happen.

The vendors haven’t done that, though. So as Doc Searls pointed at the recent Internet Identity Workshop, we have to step up and do something ourselves. Read Doc’s musings on VRM, visit Project VRM, and start to think about what you can do to keep me from having to repeat this again in 2015!

NOTE: I’d promised another look at the use of words in Identity for this issue, but it doesn’t fit. So you can read it at the Virtual Quill site.