Doc Searls served as a Berkman Fellow from 2006 to 2010, during which he launched and led ProjectVRM, which encourages the development of new tools by which individuals create and control their relationships with companies and other organizations. (VRM stands for Vendor Relationship Management, a term coined as a counterpart to CRM, for Customer Relationship Management.)
He is currently working on a book based on VRM development work, titled The Intention Economy: What Happens When Customers Get Real Power (due out in Sepember 2011 from Harvard Business Press). In August 2010 Doc was also named a Key Influencer by CRM Magazine.
While known as one of the pioneers of the blogging movement, Doc is also a veteran journalist who has served for many years as Senior Editor of Linux Journal. He also co-authored (with fellow Berkman veteran David Weinberger and two others) The Cluetrain Manifesto, a 2000 bestseller that remains one of the most widely cited works of the Internet age. In 2005 Doc received the Google-O'Reilly Open Source Award for Best Communicator. In "The World is Flat," Thomas L. Friedman calls Doc "one of the most respected technology writers in America."
Doc remains active in Berkman events, and continues to split his time between Cambridge and his home in Santa Barbara, California, where he serves as a fellow with the Center for Information Technology and Society at UCSB.
(Photo by dsearls and licensed under Creative Commons.)
