Ctrl-Shift - Understanding Consumer Empowerment

In our newsletter this month we have new research to tell you about. We also highlight our project looking at the Internet of Things market and round off with some key news, including some international developments.

Decisions Decisions    

We’ve published our briefing paper about the development of a revolutionary and disruptive industry for consumer decision-support services. These services empower consumers by helping them to make better decisions and change their own behaviours. The report explains why this revolution is happening now, what forms it’s taking, and what its impacts are: this is a new market that changes…

The following is a guest post by Alan published yesterday by TVO a Canadian media organisation.

What are you? A human being or a vegetable?

Okay, it’s a silly question. But in the context of "Big Data," -- the collecting of massive amounts of online data by companies, advertisers and marketers -- it’s not that silly.

Consider some differences between a human being and a vegetable. A human being has some sort of ownership and control over their own assets, a vegetable doesn’t. The farmer grows cabbages, wheat or coffee, and appropriates what they produce. The coffee plant doesn’t have any say…

In this issue we highlight our forthcoming reports each of which delivers fresh insight into emerging markets. Also covered are some suggestions drawn from our recent research about what constitutes best practice in building positive, two-way data sharing customer relationships. The market round-up includes some of the key news this month.

Understanding growth markets

Over the next few months our research is focused on some of the new market opportunities emerging as a result of developments in the empowered consumer marketplace. Two new reports will provide evidence and analysis of the implications and possibilities created by developments across these different…

The BBC’s report Do you have the right to be forgotten online gives a really good overview of the new European Data Protection legislation, its aims to put people back in control of their personal data and what it means for consumers. “Companies can’t go foraging for data in the wild and pretend that what they find is theirs. The big idea at the heart of the new directive is that personal data is...personal’.

The report features the great new video released by the European Commission this week warning people that they could be sharing more than they…

In this first issue of the year we highlight some of the proposals in the leaked draft of the European Data Protection legislation and we’ll give you a preview of our research looking at the privacy policies of UK online retailers. Also covered is our thinking as we debunk a few myths in a forthcoming series of blog posts ‘5 ways to misdirect resources in 2012’. In the market round-up we’re spoilt for choice but have picked out some of the key news.

EU law looks set to mandate electronic data handbacks

We are expecting to see the first draft…

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’…

Playing down good news isn’t something one expects from politicians these days, but there’s at least one real driver for growth buried in George Osborne’s Autumn Statement. In it he announced new Open Data measures, and this signals a battery of initiatives that will present new and exciting opportunities to outperform our decreased growth forecast. According to the Cabinet Office the measures will, ‘open up public sector data to make travel easier and healthcare better, and create significant growth for industry and jobs in the UK.’ More Open Data will ‘allow entrepreneurs to develop useful applications for business and consumers’.…

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…

Our midata event takes place tomorrow and we wanted to say thank you to our sponsors Mydex and Callcredit for supporting us. Both organisations provide revolutionary services embracing and underpinning the new personal data landscape.

Tom Ilube from Callcredit will be giving an update at the event on Noddle a ‘poster child’ of midata. The service simply turns the existing personal credit rating on its head. Usual practice for credit reports is that they are requested by the credit provider at the end of a sales process. But when it is launched later this year, Noddle will allow any…

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…

The Ctrl-Shift Explorers' Club met on May 12 to share experiences and understanding of the changing consumer market place. It was an eclectic mix. Attendees included large corporations and small businesses; public and private sectors; different vertical markets; and suppliers of marketing services and the creators of some of the new tools available to consumers.

The event had plenty of time for discussion around a number of topics we've been researching including

The Government’s ‘mydata’ initiative - what the paper says, what the implications are, and what companies should do to take advantage of the hidden radicalism in this…

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…

Attended an excellent event at Nesta this morning. Four great speakers all revealing how new services designed around the user are making real savings for the NHS and other parts of the NHS. The introductory remark was that if 1% of consultations could take place at home, this would save the NHS £250m a year. It's a huge saving and opportunity.

* Adil Abrar, founder and director, Sidekick Studios. Sidekick are behind the Buddy project, part of NESTA’s Reboot Britain programme looking at new solutions for public services, helping patients with anxiety and depression to track…

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…

We've been researching the market for personal data stores as a key component of the changing market. But we realised in January that we were partly looking for the wrong thing. Staring us right in the face was the emergence of a "new" consumer service - personal information management services, PIMS. Examples of PIMS being launched just this month are Lloyds' Money Manager and a similar idea being announced by Confused.com.

Our report shows the power of PIMS to shift the balance of control, trust and value towards consumers and away from producers, vendors and service providers is inexorable –…

Thanks to the DMA for an excellent conference on 16 March. We were speaking - more on that anon - but also being a delegate, it was a chance to listen. It seemed as though there are two audiences. First up are the marketers - who were interested in how they could better use data they already have. Second were the compliance officers, who seemed more interested in protecting their asset. There was some sense that the two groups have reached a concordat - what is that we can get away with yet stay on the right side of the…

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…

I have just written an article for MyCustomer.com (http://bit.ly/csMJvr) about the emotional drivers of consumer empowerment.

Here's the gist: There's a growing bank of psychological research showing that feeling empowered and in control makes people feel good about themselves (self-esteem, hope, being energised to achieve stuff) and that feeling disempowered and not in control is associated with depression and ill-health. Common sense really, but the boffins are uncovering the details, mechanisms and so on.

Meanwhile, the democratisation of information technologies is empowering individuals in all sorts of ways.

In the article I talk about five 'waves' of consumer…