The XVth IIW is coming up on October 23-25 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, and VRM will be, as usual, a big topic — or collection of topics — there.

IIW stands for Internet Identity Workshop, but the topical range is much wider than identity alone. Front and center for the last several IIWs has been personal data (a special concern not only of many VRM development efforts, but of the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium).

IIW is an unconference that Kaliya Hamlin, Phil Windley and I have been putting on twice a year since 2005. It could hardly be less formal or conference-like. There are no panels, no speakers, no keynotes. There are just participants. All the sessions are breakouts, and all the topics are chosen by participants, who come up with them at the start of each day, vetting whatever they like with the rest of the crowd. Some of the sessions are technical, many others are not. All of them are interesting, lively, and move things forward.

As in IIWs past, we have a VRM planning day on Monday, just before IIW. That’s the 22nd. Everybody is welcome. The purpose is to discuss what we’d like to make happen over the following three days. Unlike IIWs past, this planning day is also at the Computer History Museum. It’ll run from 9 to 5.

Here are some topics currently being vetted on the ProjectVRM list:

  1. Demonstrations of progress on various VRM fronts
  2. Relationship management tools, including UI elements such as r-buttons: ⊂ ⊃.
  3. Personal data store/locker/vault/cloud etc. efforts
  4. Personal operating systems (including personal cloud)
  5. Intentcasting, aka personal RFPs
  6. Turning DNT (Do Not Track) into DNT-D (Do Not Track + Dialog)
  7. Cooperation + competition among and between different VRM development efforts
  8. FOSS (free and open source software) and VRM
  9. Creating and working with APIs
  10. Standards and protocols old and new (e.g. XDI, RDF, tent.io)
  11. Role of governments (e.g. Midata in the UK, and privacy ministries in various countries)
  12. Legal / terms of service and engagement, and expression of preferences and policies
  13. Trust frameworks
  14. Working with industry verticals, such as banks and retail
  15. Matching up with QS (Quantified Self ) and self-hacking movements and interests (especially around personal data)
  16. Matching up VRM and CRM/sCRM
  17. Subject-based VRM, such as with the “subscription economy”
  18. VCs and other investors
  19. Relationships with other .orgs, e.g. PDE.Cc, Customer Commons
  20. Discovering and encouraging more VRM and VRooMy development efforts
  21. Alignment of talking points when evangelizing VRM
  22. Intention Economy
  23. Relationship Economy (and overlaps with the above)
  24. Identity-related matters, including NSTIC

I numbered them not in order of importance, but just to make them easier to discuss at the meeting. (e.g. “Let’s look at number 13”). Look forward to seeing you there.

Here are some photos from IIWs past. The photo up top is of a slab of metal covering a hole in pavement on a street in Manhattan. Saw it and couldn’t resist shooting it with my phone.