Skip to the main content

Doc Searls served as a Berkman Fellow from 2006 to 2010, during which he launched and led ProjectVRM, which encourages the development of new tools by which individuals create and control their relationships with companies and other organizations. (VRM stands for Vendor Relationship Management, a term coined as a counterpart to CRM, for Customer Relationship Management.)

He is currently working on a book based on VRM development work, titled The Intention Economy: What Happens When Customers Get Real Power (due out in Sepember 2011 from Harvard Business Press). In August 2010 Doc was also named a Key Influencer by CRM Magazine.

While known as one of the pioneers of the blogging movement, Doc is also a veteran journalist who has served for many years as Senior Editor of Linux Journal. He also co-authored (with fellow Berkman veteran David Weinberger and two others) The Cluetrain Manifesto, a 2000 bestseller that remains one of the most widely cited works of the Internet age. In 2005 Doc received the Google-O'Reilly Open Source Award for Best Communicator. In "The World is Flat," Thomas L. Friedman calls Doc "one of the most respected technology writers in America."

Doc remains active in Berkman events, and continues to split his time between Cambridge and his home in Santa Barbara, California, where he serves as a fellow with the Center for Information Technology and Society at UCSB.

(Photo by dsearls and licensed under Creative Commons.)


Projects & Tools

Past

Media Re:public

Media Re:public is a research project that examines the current and potential impact of participatory news media.

Past

ProjectVRM

ProjectVRM seeks to improve markets by equipping customers with tools for both independence from vendors and better engagement with vendors.


Publications

Jan 9, 2001

The Cluetrain Manifesto

The End of Business as Usual

Book Description, from Amazon: From four of the liveliest…


News

Aug 7, 2009

Doc Searls Talks Cluetrain@10

Doc Searls will be talking Cluetrain@10 on KUOW's The Conversation today (12pm PT, 3pm ET)...

News
Jul 16, 2009

ProjectVRM: Health Care vs. Risk Snare

Doc Searls for the ProjectVRM blog: "So I’m a guest on the latest TWiL (This Week in Law) podcast. Lots of VRM links at that link, below the topic, 'How modernization of health…

News
Apr 1, 2009

Radio Berkman: YOU as the Future of Commerce

This week on Radio Berkman: Doc Searls discusses Vendor Relationship Management (VRM)...

News
Jan 9, 2009

PRX Launches the Public Radio Tuner iPhone App

Our friends over at the Public Radio Exchange are making it easier for you to access public radio everywhere you go.

Dec 3, 2008

Meeting the Demand for More Broadband

Yesterday, the New America Foundation and many others issued "A National Broadband Strategy Call to Action," which asks President-elect Obama and the next congress to make the…

News
Apr 29, 2008

VRM 2008 - European Identity Conference

Last week, Berkman Fellow Doc Searls delivered the keynote -- virtually -- at the VRM 2008 conference in Munich. And ProjectVRM won a special prize...

Apr 22, 2008

Doc Searls on Understanding Infrastructure

In his new Linux Journal piece, fellow Doc Searls asks, "How about the Internet? Is the Net infrastructure? Or is it just the #3 'service' in the 'triple play' sold by your local…


Community

Fast Company

Forget Facebook: Zoom is the tech industry’s newest problem child

Fast Company cites BKC's Doc Searl’s blog post on Zoom and Privacy

Mar 31, 2020
Project VRM

A citizen-sovereign way to pay for news—or for any creative work

Doc Searls on getting the supply and demand sides of creative markets together to better support journalism

Feb 11, 2019
Linux Journal

Is Privacy a Right?

The story we tell about our right to privacy an interesting one, but distracts us away from work that needs to be done. 

Jan 23, 2019
TEDx

No Longer Running Naked through the Digital World

We are now digital as well as physical beings, and this is new to a human

Oct 12, 2018
Medium

Why personal agency matters more than personal data

Privacy is an effect of personal agency, projected by personal tech and personal expressions of intent that others can respect without working at it

Jun 23, 2018

Events

Event
Jun 11, 2012 @ 6:00 PM

The Intention Economy: When Customers Take Charge

Doc Searls

Whether your interest is in preserving Internet freedom and opportunity, changing the economic power structure, new challenges for cyberlaw, or just turning the tables on privacy…

Event
Oct 12, 2009 @ 9:00 AM

VRooM Boston 2009

As with earlier Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) workshops, this is a free unconference, organized on the open space model. Participants choose the topics, move those topics…

Jun 16, 2009 @ 6:00 PM

Cluetrain at 10: So How's Utopia Working Out for Ya?

with Berkman Fellows Doc Searls and David Weinberger, and Berkman faculty co-director Jonathan Zittrain

On the tenth anniversary of The Cluetrain Manifesto, how's all that freedom, that cyberutopianism, that Internet exceptionalism working out for you? Harvard Law professor and co…

Event
Mar 24, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

The Intention Economy: What Happens When Customers Get Real Power

Doc Searls, Berkman Fellow

In these dawn years of the Information Age, when individuals have more choice than ever about what they can do with their time and money, big companies still talk about "capturing…

Jul 16, 2007 @ 12:00 AM

The Summer Doctoral Programme (SDP)

The Summer Doctoral Programme (SDP) is a joint effort of the Berkman Center and the Oxford Internet Institute, which provides top doctoral students from around the world with the…

Sep 19, 2006 @ 12:30 PM

The Giant Zero

Doc Searls

Doc Searls discussed his recent work, the cleverly named and written: "The Giant Zero"