The Tipping Point Has Arrived: Market Incentives for Selective Sharing in Web Communications

By Steve Holcombe (@steve_holcombe) and Clive Boulton (@iC)

A Glimmer of Market Validation for Selective Sharing

In late 2005 Pardalis deployed a multi-tenant, enterprise-class SaaS to a Texas livestock market. The web-connected service provided for the selective sharing of data assets in the U.S. beef livestock supply chain.  Promising revenues were generated from a backdrop of industry incentives being provided for sourced livestock. The industry incentives themselves were driven by the specter of mandatory livestock identification promised by the USDA in the wake of the 2003 "mad cow" case.

At the livestock market thousands of calves were processed over several sessions. Small livestock producers brought their calves into the auction for weekly sales where they were RFID tagged. An affordable fee per calf was charged to the producers which included the cost of a RFID tag. The tags identifiers were automatically captured, a seller code was entered, and affidavit information was also entered as to the country of origin (USA) of each calf. Buyers paid premium prices for the tagged calves over and above untagged calves. The buyers made money over and above the affordable fee per calf.  After each sale, and at the speed of commerce, all seller, buyer and sales information was uploaded into an information tenancy in the SaaS that was controlled by the livestock market. For the first time ever in the industry, the livestock auction selectively authorized access to this information to the buyers via their own individual tenancies in the SaaS.

That any calves were processed at all was not possible without directly addressing the fear of information sharing that was held by both the calf sellers and the livestock market. The calf sellers liked that their respective identities were selectively withheld from the calf buyers. And they liked that a commercial entity they trusted – the livestock market – could stand as a kind of trustee between them and governmental regulators in case an auctioned calf later turned out to be the next ‘mad cow’. In turn the livestock market liked the selectiveness in information sharing because it did not have to share its confidential client list in an “all or nothing” manner to potential competitors on down the supply chain. At that moment in time, the immediate future of selective sharing with the SaaS looked very bright. The selective sharing design deployed by Pardalis in its SaaS fixed data elements at a single location with authorizations controlled by the tenants. Unfortunately, the model could not be continued and scaled at that time to other livestock markets. In 2006 the USDA bowed to political realities and terminated its efforts to introduce national mandatory livestock identification.

And so, too, went the regulatory-driven industry incentives. But … hold that thought.

Talking in Circles: Selective Sharing in Google+

Google+ is now 1 year old. In conjunction with Google, researchers Sanjay Kairam, Michael J. Brzozowski, David Huffaker, and Ed H. Chi have published Talking in Circles: Selective Sharing in Google+, the first empirical study of behavior in a network designed to facilitate selective sharing:

"Online social networks have become indispensable tools for information sharing, but existing ‘all-or-nothing’ models for sharing have made it difficult for users to target information to specific parts of their networks. In this paper, we study Google+, which enables users to selectively share content with specific ‘Circles’ of people. Through a combination of log analysis with surveys and interviews, we investigate how active users organize and select audiences for shared content. We find that these users frequently engaged in selective sharing, creating circles to manage content across particular life facets, ties of varying strength, and interest-based groups. Motivations to share spanned personal and informational reasons, and users frequently weighed ‘limiting’ factors (e.g. privacy, relevance, and social norms) against the desire to reach a large audience. Our work identifies implications for the design of selective sharing mechanisms in social networks."

While selective sharing may be characterized as being available on other networks (e.g. ‘Lists’ on Facebook), Google is sending signals that making the design of selective sharing controls central to the sharing model offers a great opportunity to help users manage their self-presentations to multiple audiences in the multi-tenancies we call online social networks. Or, put more simply, selective sharing multiplies opportunities for online engagement.

For the purposes of this blog post, we adopt Google’s definition of "selective sharing" to mean providing information producers with controls for overcoming both over-sharing and fear of sharing. Furthermore, we agree with Google that that the design of tools for such selective sharing controls must allow users to balance sender and receiver needs, and to adapt these controls to different types of content. So defined, we believe that almost seven years since the Texas livestock market project, a tipping point has been reached that militates in favor of selective sharing from within supply chains and on to consumers. Now, there have been a lot of things happen over the last seven years that bring us to this point (e.g., the rise of social media, CRM in the Cloud, the explosion of mobile technologies, etc.). But the tipping point we are referencing "follows the money", as they say. We believe that the tipping point toward selective sharing is to be found in the incentives provided by affiliate networks like Google Affiliate Networks.

Google Affiliate Networks

Google Affiliate networks provide a means for affiliates to monetize websites. Here’s a recent video presentation by Google, Automating the Use of Google Affiliate Links to Monetize Your Web Site:


Presented by Ali Pasha & Shaun Cox | Published 2 July 2012 | 47m 11s

The Google Affiliate Network provides incentives for affiliates to monetize their websites based upon actual sales conversions instead of indirectly based upon the number of ad clicks. These are web sites (e.g., http://www.savings.com/) where ads are the raison d'etre of the web site. High value consumers are increasingly scouring promotional, comparison, and customer loyalty sites like savings.com for deals and generally more information about products. Compare that with websites where ads are peripheral to other content (e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/) and where ad clicks are measured using Web 2.0 identity and privacy sharing models.

In our opinion the incentives of affiliate networks have huge potential for matching up with an unmet need in the Cloud for all participants - large and small - of enterprise supply chains to selectively monetize their data assets. For example, data assets pertaining to product traceability, source, sustainability, identity, authenticity, process verification and even compliance with human rights laws, among others, are there to be monetized.

Want to avoid buying blood diamonds? Go to a website that promotes human rights and click on a diamond product link that has been approved by that site. Want to purchase only “Made in USA” products? There’s not a chamber of commerce in the U.S. that won’t want to provide a link to their members’ websites who are also affiliates of an incentive network. Etc.

Unfortunately, these data assets are commonly not shared because of the complete lack of tools for selective sharing, and the fear of sharing (or understandable apathy) engendered under “all or nothing” sharing models. As published back in 1993 by the MIT Sloan School in Why Not One Big Database? Ownership Principles for Database Design: "When it is impossible to provide an explicit contract that rewards those who create and maintain data, ‘ownership’ will be the best way to provide incentives." Data ownership matters. And selective sharing – appropriately designed for enterprises – will match data ownership up with available incentives.

Remember that thought we asked you to hold?

In our opinion the Google Affiliate Network is already providing incentives that are a sustainable, market-driven substitute for what turned out to be unsustainable, USDA-driven incentives. We presume that Google is well aware of potential synergies between Google+ and the Google Affiliate Network. We also presume that Google is well aware that "[w]hile business-critical information is often already gathered in integrated information systems, such as ERP, CRM and SCM systems, the integration of these systems itself (as well as the integration with the abundance of other information sources) is still a major challenge."

We know this is a "big idea" but in our opinion the dynamic blending of Google+ and the Google Affiliate Network could over time bring within reach a holy grail in web communications – the cracking of the data silos of enterprise class supply chains for increased sharing with consumers of what to-date has been "off limits" proprietary product information.

A glimpse of the future may be found for example in the adoption of Google+ by Cadbury UK, but the design for selective sharing of Google+ is currently far from what it needs to attract broad enterprise usage. Sharing in Circles brings to mind Eve Maler’s blog post, Venn and the Art of Data Sharing.  That’s really cool for personal sharing (or empowering consumers as is the intent of VRM) but for enterprises Google+ will need to evolve its selective sharing functionalities. Sure, data silos of commercial supply chains are holding personal identities close to their chest (e.g., CRM customer lists) but they’re also walling off product identities with every bit as much zeal, if not more. That creates a different dynamic that, again, typical Web 2.0 "all or nothing" sharing (designed, by the way, around personal identities) does not address.

It should be specially noted, however, that Eve Maler and the User-Managed Access (UMA) group at the Kantara Initiative are providing selective sharing web protocols that place "the emphasis on user visibility into and control over access by others".  And Eve in her capacity at Forrester has more recently provided a wonderful update of her earlier blog post, this one entitled A New Venn of Access Control for the API Economy.

But in our opinion before Google+, UMA or any other companies or groups working on selective sharing can have any reasonable chance of addressing "data ownership" in enterprises and their supply chains, they will need to take a careful look at incorporating fixed data elements at a single location with authorizations. It is in regard to this point that we seek to augment the current status of selective sharing. More about that line of thinking (and activities within the WikiData Project) in our earlier “tipping point” blog post, The Tipping Has Arrived: Trust and Provenance in Web Communications.

What do you think? Share your conclusions and opinions by joining us at @WholeChainCom on LinkedIn at http://tinyurl.com/WholeChainCom.

Update on Saturday, July 14, 2012 at 6:26AM by Steve Holcombe

@NZN: @Steve_Holcombe well-stated.I'd like more on undrlined element,last paragraph:"fixed data elements at a single location with authorizations"

@Steve_Holcombe: @NZN Foundational #OO design - http://tinyurl.com/76a4jtm  | Livestock project model - http://tinyurl.com/7sb9x37  | Also see #Wikidata project.

Update on Monday, July 16, 2012 at 11:07AM by Steve Holcombe

Coincidentally, see:

WebCollage Takes Ad Copy Mobile for Top Retailers
[WebCollage posts consistent ad copy on multiple retailers’ sites]
Arlene Weintraub | 7/16/12 | Xconomy.com
http://www.xconomy.com/new-york/2012/07/16/webcollage-takes-ad-copy-mobile-for-top-retailers/

http:

Foodproductiondaily.com: Consumer confidence in food manufacturers plunges

Published in Foodproductiondaily.com on 24 June 2009:

New research from the United States suggests that consumer confidence in food companies has plummeted after less than one in five said they trusted firms to develop and sell healthy products ....

Consumer appetite for information about food products has increased over the last two years - with 77 per cent eager for more information on ingredients and 76 per cent interested in it origin. Almost three quarters are prepared to do more research into how the food products are grown, processed and manufactured, said the study.

However, the authors warned: “Despite industry efforts to keep consumers informed with more detailed product information, there's still a significant gap between consumer expectations and what retailers/manufacturers are providing.

For the complete article go to Consumer confidence in food manufacturers plunges.

PwC: From vulnerable to valuable - how integrity can transform a supply chain

"Close monitoring of suppliers will help mitigate supply chain risk for food and drink manufacturers in a volatile trading environment ....

Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) said its new publication entitled From vulnerable to valuable: how integrity can transform a supply chain aims to create awareness about how supply chain disruptions threaten shareholder value and provides advice on best practices to put in place to reduce these risks."

See the article, Keep in your suppliers' loop, urges new report. Find there a link for downloading the new report.

Sustainability and the Consumption of Meat and Dairy Products

As reported in FoodProductDaily.com on 10 October 2008:

A new report from the UK’s Food Ethics Council claims that one of the ways to cut food’s environmental footprint is for consumers to cut down on what the Council says are energy intensive foods like meat and dairy ....

In response, Philip Hambling, Food Policy Manager, the British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) said that while the Council’s report usefully highlights some of the complexities around environmental protection, including the tensions between local and central sourcing, it does not recognise that issues around sustainability have been taken seriously by the entire chain for some time ....

For the full article by Jane Byrne, go to Meat and dairy consumption damaging climate, says Food Ethics Council.

CNN: Got an idea to help the world? Here's $10 million

The following is the introduction to a CNN article published Wednesday, 24 September 2008:

Got an idea that could change the world, or at least help a lot of people? Google wants to hear from you -- and it will pay as much as $10 million to make your idea a reality.

To help celebrate its 10th birthday, the ambitious Internet giant is launching an initiative to solicit, and bankroll, fresh ideas that it believes could have broad and beneficial impact on people's lives.

Called Project 10^100 (pronounced "10 to the 100th"), Google's initiative will seek input from the public and a panel of judges in choosing up to five winning ideas, to be announced in February ....

For the complete article, go to Got an idea to help the world? Here's $10 million. I did and then I clicked over to Project "10 to the 100th" and submitted my idea. Below is the substance of my proposal. Hyperlinks were not permitted in the submission but I've nonetheless included a few in this blog entry. Also, the numbers 1 through 7 cover identification information, etc., and are not included below.

8. Your idea's name:

Banking on Information Ownership

9. Please select a category that best describes your idea.

[selected] Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?

10. What one sentence best describes your idea?

Empower people with data ownership similar to the trustworthy, granular control they have over depositing and spending their banked money.

11. Describe your idea in more depth.

People are comfortable and familiar with monetary banks. That’s a good thing because without people willingly depositing their money into banks, there would be no banking system as we know it. In order to make profits, banks bargain and pay with money and services for access to people’s money. Without a healthy monetary banking system our economies would be comparatively dysfunctional, and our personal lives would be critically deficient in opportunities.

Imagine the opportunities going unfulfilled because there is no similar information banking system arising in the Cloud. There is no similar integrated system existing for precisely and efficiently delivering our medical records to a new physician, or for providing access to a health history of the specific animal slaughtered for that purchased steak. Nothing out there compares with how the banking system facilitates gasoline purchases. While our monetary banking system granularly processes the exact amount of the checks we write, the tools currently being used by information technology companies would imprecisely and inefficiently ‘pay’ for your $35.62 tank of gas by cleaning out your entire bank account. Got $3,434.99 in your checking account? That’s what would be ‘paid’, and then it would be left up to the gas station to give you change for $3,399.37.

Wells Fargo formed in 1852 in response to the California gold rush. Wells Fargo wasn’t just a monetary bank, it was also an express delivery company of its time for transporting gold, mail and valuables across the Wild West. While we are now accustomed to next morning, overnight delivery between the coasts, Wells Fargo captured the imagination of the nation by connecting San Francisco and the East coast with its Pony Express.

Today’s Web needs information banks that do for the on-going gold rush on information what Wells Fargo did for the Forty-niners.

12. What problem or issue does your idea address?

The monetary banking system exhibits several key characteristics:

• Security: A physically safe place to store money. Also, government regulations insure continuity of deposits when banks go bankrupt.
• Credibility: Banks handle people’s money like they say they will in order to continue maintaining and attracting deposits.
• Compensation: Again, In order to make profits, banks bargain and pay with money and convenient personal and Internet services for access to people’s money.
• Control: Customers granularly deposit their money, withdraw it or transfer it when they choose.
• Integration: Banks provide a critical component to a very complex web of communications involved in our everyday transactions. In the U.S., a strong central banking system, the Federal Reserve System, has been critical in that regard.
• Verification: By regulation and by practice, banks verify that monies deposited with them are legal tender and not counterfeit.

Today’s Web needs information banks that do the same.

13. If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how?

The old adage that ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law’ well applies to many fields like that of food safety, product tracking along complex supply chains, the tracking of people’s movements or Internet clicks, or the compilation of purchasing habits. But let’s take personal health records as a bell-weather example. Everyone - the hospitals, the doctors, the insurance companies, government agencies, consumer groups - claims to speak for the patients. But who really speaks for the ‘property-less’ patients? America is in the middle of a political stalemate vis-à-vis the efficient collection, storage and sharing of medical records. Ownership begets economic change which begets political voice. A national information banking system that granularly empowers patients with technological portability and control – not just HIPAA confidentiality protections - over their own medical information would provide an opportunity for firing the imagination of patients that brings real change.

14. What are the initial steps required to get this idea off the ground?

The initial steps are already being made. Patents are being globally secured. The first information bank is operating in North Dakota for the members of the CalfAID USDA PVP program. This is a member-trusted program that keeps verifiable pedigree information connected with animals as they make their way through a complex food supply chain that is highly dysfunctional when it comes to information sharing. The director of CalfAID recognizes that there are now two products being produced along agricultural supply chains (1) the traditional product, in this case an animal, and (2) an informational product. The bottom line: build to the Cloud from trusted institutions and groups. TRUST COMES FIRST, THEN COMES TECHNOLOGY BUILT FOR PRESERVING AND EMPOWERING THAT TRUST. Then, imagine further that the families of the members of the CalfAID program would have interest in using the same trusted technology for porting their personal health records.

15. Describe the optimal outcome should your idea be selected and successfully implemented. How would you measure it?

There would be several measuring sticks. For instance, measure the economic impact upon family farms who will now for the first time be compensated not just for their traditional farm products but also for their informational products. For instance, measure the political impact upon people’s lives when they finally are empowered with the choice of technological control over their information properties as they have long experienced over their monetary properties. For instance, measure the impact upon the emerging Semantic Web that without an adjacent informational banking infrastructure will have virtually no opportunity to bargain for access to information that people consider to be their identity, that participants to complex supply chains consider to be confidential and that governments classify as secret. Without such a new infrastructure, such trustworthy information will forever remain missing or incomplete.

16. [skipped]

17. [skipped]

18. If you'd like to recommend a specific organization, or the ideal type of organization, to execute your plan, please do so here.

Again, build to the Cloud from trusted institutions and groups.

[end]

That concludes my submission. If you are interested in more details, see also the April, 2007 Pardalis white paper entitled Banking on Granular Information Ownership. See also, Laying the First Plank of a Supply Chain Ownership Web in North Dakota.

Update on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 10:33AM by Steve Holcombe

See also another similar submission at KPCB launches $100M iFund.

Update on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 1:49PM by Steve Holcombe

Voting has been pushed back to March 17, 2009 because of over 100K submissions. See Project 10 to the 100th for more information.