Stowe Boyd And The /Messengers

I am up-updating this in mid Mar 2008, to keep up with all the tectonic changes in my life.

The /Messengers is not a band, although it sounds like one. It's just is the name I dreamed up for my consulting business back in 2007, which had been called many, many things over the 13+ years since I started out as an soloist. There was Work Media, Running Light, and A Working Model.

I am best known these days for my writing (and the thinking behind it, I hope) at /Message, hence the /Messengers. I am obsessed with social tools, and their impact on business, media, and society. I coined the term "social tools" in 1999, the same year I started blogging, and I haven't looked back since. Writing and working with clients takes most of my time, but I also speak at various events, such as Reboot, Lift, Shift, Mesh, Enterprise 2.0, Office 2.0, Under The Radar, Next08, and Web 2.0 Expo, to name only a few.

Over the years my blogging has moved around. I started with a service called Convey.com with my first blog, Message from Edge City. The company shut down one fine day, and I lost my content. Ouch. I started a new blog called Timing on Blogger, and consolidated that into Get Real, a Corante blog that I wrote for a few years. I parted company with Corante, where I had served as president for two years, and left Get Real behind. I started /Message in January of 2006, and it has drawn a following of web industry insiders and social technology savants. It is not for the average bear. In June 2007 I was ranked #2 out of technology industry analysts by Technobabble. As of March 27 2008, I had 65K+ rss subscribers at /Message.

My work is principally oriented toward the theory and practice of social web application design and development, as well as related product strategy (like the activities formerly known as marketing). So far in 2007, I have worked with very large organizations (AOL, and the Open University, for example) to the most minute of start-ups (Workstreamr, for example, is a three person NYC-based venture).

My goal in consulting is to work closely with my partners (yes, I consider it a partnership) over a long enough period of time and dedicating enough time so that I can make a strategic difference. For some companies that could be just a day a month over the development of a new product release. For others -- and these are the ones that are most rewarding -- I work much more intensively, often taking on the role of chief product architect, and driving product definition and development. In several cases, recently, my involvement with startups has led to my becoming a parallel entrepreneur, and I am now involved in several companies as a co-founder, including Workstreamr, and others that I can't disclose at this time.

I serve on the advisory board of several other companies:

• b5 media, the Toronto-based blog network
  
• Mixin, a Lausanne-based social application start-up
  
• ImaginVenture, a Lugano-based venture capital company
  
• SchoolOfEverything, a London-based lifetime learning web application company
  
• Swift, a Boston-based social networking solution for conferences
  
• My6Sense, a Tel Aviv-based mobile social start-up.

In my engagements, I am often asked to bring in other consultants or organizations, which I do gladly and eagerly. In recent engagements, I have been able to work with Euan Semple, Brian Oberkirch, Kars Alfrink, Nikki Barton, and Khaiersta Flowers. Likewise, I have worked with design and development firms, such as Blue Whale Labs, Cimex, and Globallogic. These are the /Messengers.

So, I consider myself the front man of a constantly shifting collaborative network, a band of doers and thinkers, designers and developers. Sometimes it's a solo act, sometimes a duo, and when needed a combo.

I am having a lot of fun.

My email address is stowe DOT boyd AT gmail DOT com, if you'd like to contact me.

Comments

[dom]

AUTHOR: dom
EMAIL: domcougar2@free.fr
IP: 88.160.100.58
URL:
DATE: 09/29/2007 12:32:39 PM

[marguerite manteau-rao]

Hello Stowe,

Just discovered your blog in the midst of Technorati's smorgasbord of posts on Blog Action Day. I am glad I did! Like you I have great interest in all the social tools offered by the Internet, and I have been spending a lot of my time on how to use these tools as a part of the climate crisis solution. My contribution for today is 'blogact', a term I just made up, that stands for blogging+activism. I just give an example of it in my blog today. Would love to discuss with you further.

marguerite manteau-rao
http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com

[the constant skeptic]

GREAT site.