Featured Post – Page 2 – Customer Commons

Surf safely with Web Pal

It’s time to draw the line on surveillance. Today nearly every commercial website infects our browsers with tracking files that report our activities back to parties we may not know or trust. So we’re providing a way to draw that line: Web Pal — a browser extension that blocks tracking and advertising*, eliminating the browser… Continue reading Surf safely with Web Pal

For personal data, use value beats sale value

There’s an argument that goes like this: Companies are making money with personal data, and They are getting this data for free. Therefore, People should be able to make money with that data too. This is not helpful framing, if we want to get full value out of our personal data. Or even to understand… Continue reading For personal data, use value beats sale value

Customer Commons Research: 92% of People Engage in Some Strategy to Hide Personal Data

We launched our first research paper today: Lying and Hiding in the Name of Privacy (PDF here) by Mary Hodder and Elizabeth Churchill. Our data supporting the paper is here: Addendum Q&A and shortly we’ll upload a .xls of the data for those who want to do a deep dive into the results. We all know that… Continue reading Customer Commons Research: 92% of People Engage in Some Strategy to Hide Personal Data

Meet Omie: a truly personal mobile device

This is Omie: She is, literally, a clean slate. And she is your clean slate. Not Apple’s. Not Google’s. Not some phone company’s. She can be what you want her to be, do what you want her to do, run whatever apps you want her to run, and use data you alone collect and control. Being a… Continue reading Meet Omie: a truly personal mobile device

Wallets are personal

A lot of big companies are eager to get their hands in your pockets — literally. They want your mobile phone to work as a digital wallet, and they want the digital wallet app you use to be theirs. Naturally, this looks like it should be a big business — and to some degree it… Continue reading Wallets are personal

Bringing manners to marketing

The Cluetrain Manifesto was a success, and remains so, because it gives lessons in manners to marketing. Thus Cluetrain is also highly sourced by manners-minded marketing folk, who have eagerly leveraged Cluetrain‘s first thesis: “markets are conversations.” It is now almost fourteen years since the Cluetrain website went up, thirteen since the original book came out, and three since… Continue reading Bringing manners to marketing

The Personal Revolution

While the history of computing and communications often appears to be one led by big entities in business and government, the biggest revolution has actually been a personal one. Each of us, as individuals, have acquired abilities that were once those of organizations alone — and have done far more with those abilities than the… Continue reading The Personal Revolution

Cataracts for Customers

Let’s say you have an iPhone, and your carrier is AT&T.* That puts you deep inside what Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) calls a confusopoly (and illustrates here). His text explanation: A confusopoly is a situation in which companies pretend to compete on price, service, and features but in fact they are just trying to confuse customers… Continue reading Cataracts for Customers

Personal vs. Personalized

In Worth The Deal? Groceries Get A Personalized Price, Ashley Gross on NPR says, Heather Kulper is one of those people who really wants to get a good deal. She’s a mom in a suburb north of Seattle who writes a blog about coupon clipping and saving money. On a recent shopping trip to Safeway, Kulper… Continue reading Personal vs. Personalized