Ctrl-Shift - Understanding Consumer Empowerment

About a year ago, the World Economic Forum produced a report talking about personal data as 'a new asset class'. Some said it is 'the new oil' energising and greasing the wheels of the information age. But personal data isn't a traditional asset like oil in two critical respects.

First, when we collect, refine, process and use oil it has no feelings about that matter. But personal data - which is about persons - is different. Persons care about how their data is collected, refined and used and by whom. They want to have a say in the matter.

Second, the 'asset'…

It’s an old economist’s saying that there is no such thing as a free lunch and in most cases this is true.

But there is one situation where it isn’t. If you can avoid or eliminate waste – i.e free up resources (time, money, materials) that were previously being eaten up doing something – then you may not be getting a free lunch but it’s pretty close to one: suddenly, miraculously, you have resources available when before you didn’t.

The good news is that our economy is riddled with waste. We therefore have a massive ‘free lunch’ resource liberation opportunity.…

Phew! It has taken us six months but we got there in the end. Today (27 January), in the lead up to Data Protection Day (28th January) we’ve published new research assessing the privacy policies of the UK’s top 100 online retailers – the sector where many consumers most commonly experience the benefits and pitfalls of e-commerce.

We don’t think anyone has ever done this before and now we’ve got to the end, we’re not surprised. The project kicked off in the summer of 2011 when we started to think through an objective assessment of the state of the nation…

Phew! It has taken us six months but we got there in the end. Today (27 January), in the lead up to Data Protection Day (28th January) we’ve published new research assessing the privacy policies of the UK’s top 100 online retailers – the sector where many consumers most commonly experience the benefits and pitfalls of e-commerce.

We don’t think anyone has ever done this before and now we’ve got to the end, we’re not surprised. The project kicked off in the summer of 2011 when we started to think through an objective assessment of the state of the nation…

Last week in our blog post on consumer empowerment trends in 2012 we predicted that managing personal reputation and identity will gain even greater prominence this year as people increasingly conduct and manage their lives online. The first significant development in this space took place yesterday when Miicard (which provides a digital passport to prove who you say you are) and Callcredit (one of the UK’s leading credit reference agencies) announced a strategic partnership. They are bringing to market a completely new consumer-friendly Electronic Identity and Verification (eID&V) service removing the need for paper based checks such as…

Last week in our blog post on consumer empowerment trends in 2012 we predicted that managing personal reputation and identity will gain even greater prominence this year as people increasingly conduct and manage their lives online. The first significant development in this space took place yesterday when Miicard (which provides a digital passport to prove who you say you are) and Callcredit (one of the UK’s leading credit reference agencies) announced a strategic partnership. They are bringing to market a completely new consumer-friendly Electronic Identity and Verification (eID&V) service removing the need for paper based checks such as…

So what trends will take shape in 2012 as the control shift continues in this era of consumer empowerment?

Consumers will continue to assert their ‘voice’ harnessing social media to organise themselves and share information. This level of active participation as people engage more vocally with organisations and each other is likely to grow and increase in momentum.

Using technology people will connect and collaborate in new ways causing disruption to established order. People’s shopping habits will continue the trend from ‘bricks’ to better-informed ‘clicks’. Consumers will be more active and demanding in their relationships with businesses; ‘I like this’ or…

So much has happened and changed in 2011 and the control shift is well underway. We've captured below some of the significant milestones that have unfolded this year with links to the relevant news items taken from our Market Watch.

Consumer empowerment

Consumer habits are rapidly changing driven by technology and use of social media. Consumers are becoming hyper connected and active participants in markets and they are recognising the power of acting collectively (think Occupy London). They are changing their shopping habits: according to Reevoo’s research nearly 90% of respondents would not purchase a product before reading others’…

So much has happened and changed in 2011 and the control shift is well underway. We've captured below some of the significant milestones that have unfolded this year with links to the relevant news items taken from our Market Watch.

Consumer empowerment

Consumer habits are rapidly changing driven by technology and use of social media. Consumers are becoming hyper connected and active participants in markets and they are recognising the power of acting collectively (think Occupy London). They are changing their shopping habits: according to Reevoo’s research nearly 90% of respondents would not purchase a product before reading others’…

We're now planning our next research reports and we'd like your input.

We're already committed to two reports (see below) and would like to choose two more from the options list. Feedback very welcome.

Privacy comparisons. Which of the top 100 e-commerce e-tailers has the best privacy policy and which has the worst?

Decision-making market. As a follow-on from our work on personal information management services (PIMS), we look at the broad scope of suppliers in this market and chart what benefits consumers get from making better decisions.

Options for early 2012 -

The Personal Data Store (PDS) market.…

At our recent event ‘To hoard or to share: midata and the personal data-sharing revolution’ Alan Mitchell discussed the Government’s midata programme in the broader context of changes to the personal data landscape. We’ve now published a report on the New Personal Data Landscape that identifies these transformational trends, highlights the emerging market for new personal data management services and analyses the opportunities and threats for organisations.

For the last fifty years organisations have had a monopoly on the collection and use of customer data. But this is changing. Individuals are starting to collect and manage their…

At our recent event ‘To hoard or to share: midata and the personal data-sharing revolution’ Alan Mitchell discussed the Government’s midata programme in the broader context of changes to the personal data landscape. We’ve now published a report on the New Personal Data Landscape that identifies these transformational trends, highlights the emerging market for new personal data management services and analyses the opportunities and threats for organisations.

For the last fifty years organisations have had a monopoly on the collection and use of customer data. But this is changing. Individuals are starting to collect and manage their…

This month’s issue includes an update on our midata event and the great speakers who are lining up to make this unmissable and a request for your input on a new project we are working on for Consumer Focus. This is followed by some good examples of consumer empowerment in Market news.

To hoard or to share: midata and the personal data sharing revolution

On Monday 17 October, we saw the first significant announcement of the Government's midata programme. The big six energy companies announced their intention to give consumers their energy usage data to help them to…

We’ve witnessed some interesting developments in the control shift this month and you can see a round-up of these in Market news. Also in this issue we’ll update you on our forthcoming mydata event, highlight our continuing exploration of the ramifications of the emerging market for decision-making services, and outline the plans for our Autumn/Winter research programme.
A radical shift of power

Within a few years, all organisations and companies holding customer data in the UK will be involved in releasing their data back to their customers encouraged by the Government’s mydata programme. And this radical shift isn’t…

Just come across the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee’s report on Government’s use of IT. Entitled “recipe for rip-offs: time for a new approach” it covers lots of things but one in particular struck my eye.

Here are its conclusions on the specific issue of Personal Data Ownership.

“Giving control of personal data to the individual has the potential to improve data quality while reducing both costs and risks. Individuals are used to controlling their own data with private sector companies, such as Amazon and with utility companies.
Moving to a model where the citizen maintains…

Just come across the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee’s report on Government’s use of IT. Entitled “recipe for rip-offs: time for a new approach” it covers lots of things but one in particular struck my eye.

Here are its conclusions on the specific issue of Personal Data Ownership.

“Giving control of personal data to the individual has the potential to improve data quality while reducing both costs and risks. Individuals are used to controlling their own data with private sector companies, such as Amazon and with utility companies.
Moving to a model where the citizen maintains…

Instead of establishing a huge, centralised National Identity Scheme, the Government wants to establish a decentralised market of competing private sector identity providers. Each will provide an identity assurance service, so that public sector and other providers can be confident of the identity of the person they are dealing with. For some organisations, the Identity Assurance Programme offers a straightforward business opportunity to become an Identity Provider.

Ctrl-Shift's briefing on this new programme reveals that if the new approach works it should bring three major benefits:

• Reduced risk and lower costs for both organisations and individuals via standardised processes…

Instead of establishing a huge, centralised National Identity Scheme, the Government wants to establish a decentralised market of competing private sector identity providers. Each will provide an identity assurance service, so that public sector and other providers can be confident of the identity of the person they are dealing with. For some organisations, the Identity Assurance Programme offers a straightforward business opportunity to become an Identity Provider.

Ctrl-Shift's briefing on this new programme reveals that if the new approach works it should bring three major benefits:

• Reduced risk and lower costs for both organisations and individuals via standardised processes…

I’ve just been reading the World Economic Forum’s report Personal Data: The Emergence of New Asset Class.

Here are some of the key points in the report.  First, it highlights the vast amounts of personal data that are now being generated and that this data (‘digital data created by and about people’) “is generating a new wave of opportunity for economic and societal value creation.”

It continues: “Increasing the control that individuals have over the manner in which their personal data is collected, managed and shared will spur a host of new services and applications. As some…

A small but significant step was announced on October 11, Mydex has launched a new project to introduce a step change in the relationship between individuals and the organisations they deal with - the first ever operational Personal Data Store service. This is a significant new development that starts to restore to individuals control over the management and sharing of their online personal data.
The Mydex Community Prototype provides individuals with the tools to enable them to store and manage their personal details, to have them externally verified, and, at their discretion, to…

Some of you may be vaguely following the flip-flopping of the incoming Government over the design and use of patient records. A couple of weeks ago was a seminal report on the "summary care record", described by the Health Service Journal as facing wicked problems.

The article is well worth a read:
The Department of Health-commissioned evaluation, by University College London researchers, says spread of the SCR is limited and, where it has been used, there is limited evidence of the benefits

The detailed evaluation comes to similar conclusions for HealthSpace – the government programme to…

Great day out at an event run by the helpful people at Telco2.0. The key issue under discussion were the future business models for the telco industry and one of the main themes was customer data.

The core of that discussion was that Telcos collect a lot of customer data and the issue was how that could be exploited?! Hmm not a great starting point. However the presentation from Phil Laidler, a Telco2.0 director and analyst, that followed certainly caused discussion. The presentation was based on a group discussion of about 40 people organised by Telco2.0 on…

I’ve just written an article for Marketing magazine on the theme of ‘Brands as information services’. It looks at what successful brand strategies might look like over the coming years.

‘Brands as information services’ is one of the six constituent drivers of what we call  ‘the control shift’ – a sort of Copernican revolution where the individual (or customer, or citizen), rather than the brand or organisation, becomes the centre of commercial gravity. It might be worthwhile taking a quick top level tour of these six shifts.

1. Personal Information Management

As the costs of processing information fall (down…

Here's a copy of the response I sent in, on behalf of Ctrl-Shift and of Mydex CIC, to Anne McGuire MP's request for evidence about about the role of third sector organisations in personalisation. I copied it to HMG's CIO John Suffolk who expressed an interest in the subject on his blog and to Martha Lane Fox because of the intersection with her vital work on digital inclusion

Third-sector role in personalisation of public services: note from Mydex CIC and Ctrl-Shift Ltd
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The third sector has a crucial role to play in personalisation, so the answer…

Here's the text of a talk I gave today in Russell Sq at the invitation of the Identity and Passport Agency and the IT trade association Intellect.

We've run out of money. And officials and suppliers face the real prospect of a new
administration coming to power committed to abolishing ""ContactPoint"", ""CfH"" and ID
Cards.

The Opposition goes further with a recurrent theme about restoring control of personal
data to individuals. First David Cameron then Pauline Neville-Jones raised it, then in
summer a CPS pamphlet spelt it out: It's ours: why we, not government should control…

Here's the text of a talk I gave today in Russell Sq at the invitation of the Identity and Passport Agency and the IT trade association Intellect.

We've run out of money. And officials and suppliers face the real prospect of a new
administration coming to power committed to abolishing ""ContactPoint"", ""CfH"" and ID
Cards.

The Opposition goes further with a recurrent theme about restoring control of personal
data to individuals. First David Cameron then Pauline Neville-Jones raised it, then in
summer a CPS pamphlet spelt it out: It's ours: why we, not government should control…