Ctrl-Shift - Understanding Consumer Empowerment

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…

We're now planning our Autumn research programme and are looking for input on the top three projects and some suggestions for what we should cover in early 2012.

October - PIMS 2 - the personal information management market

This report is about the market that changes markets - how third party vendors are helping consumers work across markets.

Building on Ctrl-Shift’s 2010 initial foray into this market, the report is focused on how services are being built to allow consumers to keep information about themselves in one easy to manage place. The report will include updates on Mint, MoneyStrands, Google…

In this month's issue we highlight new thinking about the emerging market for decision-making services, looking at one example of how an innovative brand is helping its customers make better purchasing decisions. We also cover our recent research with large organisations involved in the Government's mydata programme. This is all followed by a quick round-up of some interesting market news.

The Invisible market

In a series of blog posts we've explored the rise of the new market for information, tools and services that enable people to  make better decisions. We've showed:

how most organisations haven’t even recognised…

Francis Maude has today launched a public consultation on open data. The online consultation asks the public, businesses and other interested parties for their views on:

how we might enhance a ‘right to data’, establishing stronger rights for individuals, businesses and other actors to obtain data from public service providers
how to set transparency standards that enforce this right to data
how public service providers might be held to account for delivering open data
how we might ensure collection and publication of the most useful data
how we might make the internal workings of government and…

In this month’s issue we highlight our new briefing paper on the government’s Identity Assurance programme, give an update on progress with mydata,  and cover the knotty issue of informed consent. This is all followed by a quick round-up of some interesting market news. 

Identity Assurance

Instead of establishing a huge, centralised National Identity Scheme, the aim of the government’s Identity Assurance programme is 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 government’s mydata programme is gaining good momentum. This week members of the mydata Working Group, including large corporations from both energy and finance sectors and representatives from consumer groups and regulatory organisations, met for a workshop. Organisations from the telecoms and retail sectors meet next week.

First on the workshop agenda was the mydata Charter and principles for all participating organisations to sign up to. These were agreed in outline and will now be honed and finalised before being published in the autumn, with, hopefully, at least 20 companies signed up.  A formal announcement is planned for October when…

We're sorry that the June newsletter is later in the month than normal. But we've been busy! This issue covers an update on the Government's mydata and ID assurance initiatives; we've asked consumers about their views on how much power they wield and there's a smattering of market news.

Mydata

We’ve been working hard with the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills to the Mydata project off the ground. The goal is to create a critical mass of companies committed to releasing the data they hold about individuals back to these individuals so they can use the information for their…

Just finished two intensive days of meetings with a wide range of companies at the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). Purpose: to set the mydata ball rolling.

Mydata is a Government Consumer Empowerment initiative to encourage companies to release the data they hold on individuals back to them in a portable re-usable form, so that these individuals can use this information for their own purposes. Ctrl-Shift has been helping BIS get the project off the ground.

A couple of things struck me from these meetings.

First, mydata is an immense opportunity for large…

The May newsletter covers the Government's mydata, a Europe wide assessment of consumer empowerment, a market round-up and to plug your chance to meet the Control Shift team next week.
The Government’s mydata initiative - covered in our last newsletter -  is moving to its next stage. We’re glad to announce that Ctrl-Shift will be working with Department of Business Innovation and Skills as a member of the Project Board to set up the programme of work and make the strategy a reality.

The initiative aims to encourage companies holding customer data to release the data back…

Today the Government launched its new Better Choices: Better Deals Consumer Empowerment strategy, of which Mydata is a key part.

Mydata is an initiative to encourage businesses to release data back to individuals in a portable re-usable way - so that the data becomes a useful resource for the individual as well as for the company.

This is a landmark move towards personal information empowerment.  Ctrl-Shift attended a special Roundtable at No 10 Downing Street as part of the consultations around this proposal. I was asked to give a short presentation. Here is what I said: