When I read Scott Brinker (ChiefMartec) I generally feel that our thinking is aligned, but his images often seem to be designed to create fear and creating a speech bubble above my head that reads something like “my god - how the hell can I keep up”. They don’t, IMHO give clarity. Well, maybe back in 2011 .. maybe - but I recall back then it still seem overwhelming ..
By the time I got to 2024 - I was seriously asking myself what is the point? (Although it didn’t stop me reading his posts.)
So I initially found his post from today a breath of fresh air, imagine … ‘Meet the new martech stack: systems of context and systems of truth’
And in it I found a reasonable framework;
Which I liked - because it aligns with my ‘Business Equation’ thinking.
.. but then I read the piece and even Scott calls out my initial thought…
Now, squinting at my diagram you might ask, “Isn’t this just systems of engagement and systems of record with different labels?
💬 Scott Brinker
But that isn’t where I am going, because ‘words’ are important.
Systems of Truth
Truth? Who’s Truth?
I am a customer of Citibank. Their system of record will tell you that my home address is up in Marin, North California. I live in SoCal - and never bothered changing it - the bank is minor to my requirements - and everything I do is online - why waste my time.
My mobile provider is different again.
The data farms/lakes/mountains (using such nice natural sounding words to describe tools of the surveillance economy aside) hosted by the large corporates can never show absolute truth about me - they will only ever have a filter/slice/view of who I am .. which is partly what I choose to share - which will vary from person to person and their context at the time.
These are not systems of truth, they are the systems of record of the corporation that houses that particular set of data. To be fair - Scott does make that distinction in his piece (my bold).
they remain the arbiters of truth for data within their domain
💬 Scott Brinker
and then goes on …
We never achieved a true single system of truth (SSOT). Turns out there are just too many domain-specific data truths. But with a universal data layer on bottom and domain-specific data governance platforms on top, we now have many systems – plural – of truth.
💬 Scott Brinker
So why change it? Again - referencing my example at the opening of this section - Citi do not have the truth about my residence. No matter how hard they try - they have a System of Record - so why muddy the waters and call it Truth (other than climbing an board with attempting to use a ‘word of the moment’.)
Systems of Context
I would argue that systems of engagement by definition includes that of context. In face to me - that is the whole point.
Scott clarifies;
Instead of a monologue, where a brand serves a contextual experience based on its own definition of the buyer’s journey and what it thinks the buyer wants, concierge AI agents will engage buyers in a true dialogue to understand and serve their actual context.
💬 Scott Brinker
and then
A little farther out on the horizon – but maybe not that far – buyers will use their own AI agents to interact with our systems of context. These aren’t customer-facing AI agents that sellers control. These are customer-owned AI agents that they control. They will inherently shape the experience to the context of the buyer.
💬 Scott Brinker
Aaah yes - that promised nirvana - putting the customer in control (or at least their agents - but who owns the agents?) … remember we live in a world where if we buy a digital book - you don’t actually own it - why are agents going to be different.
If it is - I will be first in line for that service - but breath not held. And this is why.
Closed Systems
It will have been around 20 years ago that Joyce Searls asked if a corporation has a ‘CRM’ that allows them to ‘manage their relationship with their customer’ - why don’t we (people) have a ‘VRM’ to ‘manage our relationship with our vendors? Put simply, if I change my cell number, I need to let the change be known to each of the vendors I use … electic, gas, utilities, bank, uber, amazon …. you get the picture. A VRM would allow you to make one update - and your vendors systems of record would be updated accordingly.
Twenty years later, we still don’t have that.
But John - I hear you cry - AI is going to change all that - to which I say excellent - when?
… and back to those personal AI agents. How? Yes there will be a small cadre of people who will download agentic models and live in that rarefied world of ‘sovereignty’ - but given that most people don’t know - or think to act on even managing their phone notifications - I don’t see them downloading their personal agentic models just yet. And even if we do - the corporations have to allow us to do that - first and then allow that model to interact with their systems. They aren’t really very good at that when you think about it.
For all of this - I am pretty sure that Scott doesn’t come from my POV - but rather that of the corporation, which I think explains our different take. It’s clear just by looking at this image form his article …
He puts those systems of truth right slap bang the middle.
I would have the exact same image - with me - the individual in the center - with my system of TRUTH - and context filter around that to expose the slices of truth I want a corporation to see and use in their own systems of engagement.
And that can be built by starting here.
Stopping here for now - but this is a bit topic -and I think needs more to be said.