October 29 2008 Conference Call

Conference Call Notes

Drafted by Joe Andrieu, October 29, 2008

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Attendees

• Joe Andrieu
• Dean Landsman
• Sean Bohan
• Iain Henderson
• Charles Andres (coming in a bit late)
• Brett McDowell
• Chris Carfi
• Doc Searls

Agenda

1. Review Boston Meetings
   1. Standards Meeting
   2. Public Media Meeting
2. r-button update
3. Marketing committee update
4. European update
5. IIW

Notes

VPI SIG

Iain is leading a SIG at Liberty to push forward his Volunteer Personal Information initiative to free up the information that only individuals have access to today.

• Contracts
• Policy
• Legislation
• Technology

Everything needed to get it implemented.

Teleconference 2008/10/30 1PM ET/ 10AM PT

Doc will be working towards a draft "Declaration of Independence"-style document defining what is VRM for that teleconference.

12-18 month process. Teleconferences every two weeks. A face to face as well. Hopefully in Feb/March of 2009.

We want the VRM braintrust involved. Also the Identity Assurance braintrust, who have deep knowledge in compliance.

Goal is to build a case that there is a market and need here. Then build a normative standard. Then getting funding to operationalize a program.

Iain already has a bunch of work to kickstart the effort.

VRM.ORG

Renee Lloyd is taking the lead, working with Doc to make this happen.

Website update

Its getting fixed. We were attacked; so we are cleaning that up. We will have much of what everyone has been asking for. By the time of our next call, it should be up and running.

Doc clarifies that the web guys need to work with Sebastian to make it completely compatible with Berkman's operations. Which means porting to Drupal.

Standards Meeting

Two days in Boston. First, talking about PAM specification, especially around scope. Second, about r-button. We spent a lot of time talking about exactly what example r-button interaction we wanted to specify, ultimately choosing a Radio Paradise example where a playlist has several r-buttons embedded in the HTML, and those r-buttons are properly rendered based on relationship services subscribed to by the user and offered by the vendor, Radio Paradise in this case.

Key breakthroughs:

• r-button states http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/R-button_Functional_Specification
• Local Services
• Entities
• Relationship Actions (Rather than abstract "relationships")

Asa and Joe are working on a Demo for IIW that would show this more completely at IIW.

Public Media/Radio Meeting

17 people in the room at Berkman. This was to show folks how far we've come since the last workshop. We've had a few other meetings with them and VRM is now part of the lexicon in the public media conversation. Dana Rem and Barbara Appleby. Dana runs most of online at NPR and Barbara is a fundraising person at NPR. Keith's company, Public Interactive, is now owned by NPR and he's had a lot of good contact with both. We took a fairly conservative approach, focusing on something doable.

What we found is that not only did they "get it", they were enthusiastic about it.

As for what happens... there wasn't a clear action plan. Scott and Keith had mocked up a likely UI for an on-demand application for the iPhone. Turns out there are three ways to get content from the Web. Streaming (MP3 file without end). Podcasting, where you download the file. On-Demand, which is listen to this now. And it isn't downloaded and stored locally. The UI included the r-button and had interfaces for dealing with relationships with vendors/artists.

What Dana and Barbara made clear: They really want to keep us clear of their politics, which can be very stifling of new stuff. Let's get the geeks together and do something. once we have the r-button together enough, we'll get together.

We might want to invite Phil Goldsmith of Radio Paradise down to IIW. He's not too far away.

iCard/rCard insights.

Learnings from iPhone app. It was essentially a way to discover MP3 files online and in some way relate to the artist who created it. It was designed for radio programs, but it could be any MP3s. Let's you rate, donate, send messages, and get support, each of which are relationship actions. This was a way to get some input and feedback on what actions NPR stations would want to offer to users. It turns out it is very difficult to get across that the owner of the page is not in control--the user has some control. Trying to provide an interface that shows that "things are different" is an intriguing challenge because of the overriding expectation of users. COming up with a mechanism that breaks that assumption is going to be a big hurdle.

This is part of what we need to provide to vendors. The relationship action taken by the user that is stored or escrowed or discoverable by the vendor--this isn't just on a web page, it is in the context of services that go beyond the types of interactions we've had before.

For whatever reason, early in the history of the Internet, the concept of the individual wasn't really there. So part of our challenge is to put it there. To make it part of the game. Not just vendors providing a portfolio of services, but a relationship space that has both vendors and individuals in it.

Lot's of interesting feedback about perception of how people will react to the language and choices and possibility of VRM. There was great engagement on the "what if" questions.

Props to the Identity community for doing something that the open source community hasn't done. The reason CMS like Drupal and SimpleCMS suck is because they don't talk to each other. There is no IIW. No place for convergence. No energy and culture around working together. Part of that is because we are coming from the individual. The motion is a little brownian, but it's in the right direction.

IIW

Wednesday evening a working dinner. Thursday a full-day Steering Committee. Sunday will be a smaller meeting to hammer out IPR amongst those most experienced and most dependent on it (basically, those who either have something to add to IPR or have IP they need to have addressed properly).

We'll also do a session that overlaps with the Steering Committee meeting. Those of us onsite with confirm logistics and send an email out at the start of the meeting.

VRM Hub Conference

Unlocking the seesaw Nov 3 in London. Re-addressing the balance between vendors and users. 60+ users.

Monthly VRM meetings updated. Speaker at each session. Has a meeting space through Feb. The Mine! is warming up. They had a hacker session. Those interested in updates can contact her directly. samizdata@gmail.com

She will be in Mountain View on the 13th, but not attending IIW. Does want to attend the dinner on the 12th.

Next Meeting

• November 12 2008 Conference Call This is during IIW