 The term appeared in ComputerWorld magazine in May 2000, albeit in the context of a business managing its IT vendors.The term was first used in the context here by Mike Vizard on a Gillmor Gang podcast on September 1, 2006, in a conversation with Doc Searls about the project Searls had recently started as a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.Vizard saw VRM as a natural counterpart of customer relationship management.