My sources tell me that a big Krispy Kreme in the Chicagoland area just closed up. The world is not eating enough doughnuts? Reuters just reported that $225 million loan was extended to help with the cash crunch. I suppose good word-of-mouth donut-in-mouth marketing is not enough here.
Musings on Maven Havens (Not Fully Thought Through)
Malcolm Gladwell, author of "The Tipping Point," uses the term "maven" to describe very knowledgeable people. These mavens are people who would know instantly whether a particular product is priced 10% too much (whereas the average person would not). They are the types of people voracious for product details in magazines like Consumer Reports and Road & Track. They can be the type of people that call the 800 number on the back of a box of Ivory soap to get the full scoop on what the soap ingredients are. Mavens may be both connoisseurs and fanatics.
Gladwell’s basic premise is that under the right conditions when mavens spread their knowledge to connector-types (networked people) which then in turn spread the knowledge to salesmen-types (charismatic, evangelist people), there is the possibility of information spreading virally. Anything from a mini-epidemic to a major epidemic is possible. The best example I have found on how blog ideas spread (in the context of the Tipping Point framework) can be found here.
Building business models around the concept of mavens, connectors, and salesmen seems like a powerful concept then. Businesses want to sell ideas, products, and services in epidemic proportions for sure.
From my vantage point, the social bookmarks platform del.icio.us is becoming a maven haven for certain Internet resources. As an example, it was there that I near instantly discovered the "wisdom of the del.icio.us crowds" was focusing in on this tremendous compilation of search engines. Never would have found that on my own. In part, I wonder whether the maven haven environment is supported largely by the fact that the user interface can seem so intimidating on first blush (see here for screenshots and screencasts of del.icio.us). I made a recent comment to an organization that might be able to improve its workflow by utilizing del.icio.us, and the comment was made back to me that "less than two people would know how to use it". Applying my high-end MBA quant skills, that means one person, right? Duh.
These observations also lead me to believe that features like different GUI interfaces for tagging Internet resources (as a user configurable preference) and the ability to both restrict use by and generate reports for different groups and demographics of people might be useful for better building businesses. More generally, it would be very valuable to be able to lincoln log together and monitor maven, connector, and salesmen puzzle pieces. The magic of creating business epidemics could then be "reduced" to world-class R&D and reading the tea leaves on introducing products in the right market conditions.
Pipe dream … perhaps. As for improving on the tagging of Internet resources, the search engine companies seems like they could move in this direction, but there also seems like there could be opportunities for some vertical integration plays to control the companies that support the maven (e.g., del.icio.us) and maven-connector (e.g., Technorati) model-based companies. From an empowerment perspective, it’s probably too simplistic to view some of these technologies just as "search engines for blogs" or "tagging and folksomy companies". If the world of finance is any example (albeit finance is a quicker market to adjust to information possession and release), the value of proprietary research and information goes up when a single entity has it and goes down significantly as more and more people have it. On the flip side though, it seems as though overall economic value can go up if the technology is designed such that proprietary solutions can be built on top of trusted and broadly available maven and connector technology foundations.
Steve Shu
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Top Business School To Put MBAs Through Blogging Bootcamp
The Michigan Business School has a very cool, innovative project course aimed at helping a small enterprise increase Internet visibility through blogging (no more calling MBAs a bunch of blaggards!). Bud Gibson at The Community Engine posts:
In a nutshell, our plan is to divide the students up into five or six
teams of five people. Then the fun starts. Each team blogs about the
industry the company is in. They learn who the blog opinion leaders are
for that industry. They learn how to track the company’s products and
competitors in the blogosphere using tools like technorati, pubsub, del.icio.us, and flickr
tags. They’re graded on making effective blog posts with a portion of
the grade being decided based on getting themselves noticed and cited
by opinion leaders. The blogging efforts will be completely open for
all to see, so competition will be based on how well the team does its
research, networks, and crafts its message.
I would imagine that for a project that spans only a few months that the results could be overly sensitive to the amount of offline networking that the MBAs do, perhaps tending to make things a bit of a free-for-all. Perhaps to control for things on the downside, the competition should also be based on whether any backlash occurs. This is something that the MBA would have to live with if they were a permanent employee of the client company. Visibility is a nice goal, but perhaps not the only goal. In any case, Michigan sounds like it has ingredients for an awesome course. Will be great to hear how this goes.
Free Version of Software For Small Blogging Communities
According to Stefan Wiskemann, 21Publish will introduce a free version of its software for small blogging communities.
Although the details of the pricing plan and the version of the software have not been announced yet, the currently available 21Publish platform has a number of unique
features ranging from secure intranet, comment tracking
(unique for those that post comments across blogs), and an administrative "workbench" covering all bloggers
within the community. As a number of readers have enjoyed my post about the value of MBAs working with non-profits, perhaps this will serve as a good opportunity for non-profits.
In the interest of disclosure, I am a consultant to 21Publish.
Steve Shu
Worldwide Blog Discussions Intense and Heartfelt
Neither graphs nor words can capture the world’s heartfelt feelings (snapshot April 1, 2005 – click graph to enlarge) …
(Realtime blog tracking here)
Does del.icio.us Have A Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious Mary Poppins Competitive Barrier To Entry Advantage?
I recently posted about the "live business case in the making" surrounding del.icio.us and del.irio.us. I wasn’t aware of the following site before, but it could be useful for analyzing whether there are other investment opportunities or barrier to entry plays. If you follow the link here, you can see why I might coin it a "Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious competitive advantage" for del.icio.us.
YaGoohoo!gle Proves There’s No Need for M&A Anymore
Technologists prove that there’s no need for management consultants and bankers anymore. Instant merger of Yahoo and Google simply through some software coding and creativity (the link works too). Check out YaGoohoo!gle!
Client Versus Customer
I ran across this highly referenced web page (via del.icio.us) on consulting. Although the writeup looks to be more oriented towards IT consulting as opposed to management consulting, one thing kind of jumped out at me. The web page indicates:
- Have "customers", not "clients"
- This is a minor semantic point, but one I’ve stuck with for
many years. A "client" implies that the consultant is superior,
while "customer" suggests that the consultant is beholden.
Mostly out of habit, I think I use the term "client", especially in the presence of my, umm, err, client/customer. It has everything to do with respect for my client. It in no way has to do with being superior to other people.
Perhaps the author and I are both wrong. The dictionary says that the two words are the same, and I imagine or hope that there is formality in the use of the term "client" when perhaps none is conveyed.
Steve Shu
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