I am setting new directions in my work. Based on a wide variety of factors, ranging from the hugely personal issue of what makes me happy, the economics of what work is out there, and what work works, I am making some significant changes in my life trajectory.
I envision a loose collaborative of /Messengers involved in delivering high quality open analysis (and synthesis) here on /Message, but also being drawn into client engagements with me or perhaps independently of me. I am developing a distributed, virtual thinktank of leading thinkers, researchers, designers, and entrepreneurs whose involvement will range from fulltime (like me) to occasional on-demand engagements.
A Return To Media and Analysis
I have been involved in analysis since 1994, when I worked as a consulting partner to then BIS, which became Giga Group and was acquired a few years ago by Forrester. I worked in a similar way for several consulting firms in the mid and late 90s, including work at the Accenture Center For Strategic Change with Tom Davenport. Also, in 1994 I started writing a monthly newsletter for Cutter Consortium on topics like groupware, workflow, business process analysis, and knowledge management. With the advent of the web, analysis became a dicey business, with huge retrenchment across the industry. I became a blogger in 1999, and retired my own electronic newsletter (called Message, unsurprisingly) at the same time.
Blogging has changed everything for me. The sequence of my blogs has been herky-jerky. Started on a service called Convey.com with a blog named Message From Edge City. They went out of business, and I moved to Blogger with a blog called Timing. I was recruited to Corante and wrote a blog there called Get Real, which is where my first real influence in the market began. I left Corante (and my role there as President) at the end of 2005, and started /Message in January 2006.
/Message has really taken off this year, with growth of unique visitors increasing over 2000%. I intend to experiment with adding more contributors and partners in The /Messengers, and returning to more in-depth review of social technologies. I will continue in the open inquiry approach that I have used for the past nine years: all of the analysis and synthesis from The /Messengers will be presented in an open fashion, available to all.
On the media side, I will be launching a video show in the next few weeks, called /Aviso, which will feature my take on recent tech doings, interviews, and a short sermonette on some trend of interest. We are involved in a redesign of /Message (thanks to Matt Balara), which will likewise be rolling out in the next month. I also will be launching a new blog in the next week, more to follow on that front.
I am fashioning a new suite of services, derived from the advisory work I have been involved in recently, but moving it more clearly into the analysis/synthesis sector, and away from design and 'advisory capital' activities. I have posted some details about this (see About Stowe Boyd And The Messengers). In brief, I am responding to what I perceive are the needs of the sorts of companies that I have been encountering in the expanding social revolution: startups, established vendors, investors, and enterprises trying to apply social tools.
The Limits Of Advisory Capital: A Cautionary Tale
A few years ago, I set off on a new direction that seemed very promising. I had just left Corante, where I had grappled with the growth issues of a small media company for several years. I thought that it would be more rewarding to remain a soloist, but to invest my time into a small number of startups as a strategic advisor. In the past two years, I have had some very positive experiences -- like Workstreamer, Travelpod, GlobalLogic, and Going Far, and some others in the works right now that have not been announced -- but in general, the results have not been anything like I had hoped. While I have made a good income, the reality is that most of the engagements have fallen apart, many products have been sidelined, or companies have made significant management transitions leading to a mismatch in expectations. And bringing stock into the picture -- a key element of advisory capital -- has made things more difficult, not less.
However, what I have learned from the most successful experiences I have had in this advisory capital experiment is that the early stage analysis and strategic direction feedback has been a real boon to my clients. The longer term strategic involvement -- a significant involvement in design, go-to-market execution, or other operations -- hasn't worked nearly as well. My feeling is that the mismatch between the fevered pace of software companies and the necessary limitations of part time involvement may be too great to be bridged.
So I am shuttering my 'advisory capital' experiment, at least until I can afford to invest my time directly for stock without the need for any consulting fees. I am going to continue on with a few cherry-picked projects but aside from those where I am a true co-founder (like Workstreamer), I won't be taking any news ones on.
This doesn't mean that I won't be working as a member of companies' advisory boards: on the contrary. But the notion of basing my business life around 'advisory capital' is passing.
New Directions, Old DNA
I have said many times that I am more of a synthesyst than an analyst: I look for big trends, tectonic issues, and reason backwards to the specifics of any issue. I coined the term 'social tools' in 1999 as a result of bumping into the leading edge of the social revolution, and recast my professional life around that. I have been at the forefront of a number of other trends in recent years, like the rise of flow applications and the impact of microblogging. My metaphor for the denizens of the online world, Edglings, has become a commonplace in the discourse about web anthropology.
This new direction is the expression of my core DNA, not some random departure.
I am accepting the fact that I will need to recruit other /Messengers, initially as contributors to the freeform and open inquiry here at /Message, but also as a collective analysis service.
At the moment I am the sole full time, /Messenger. But I don't expect to be a solo act for long.
I envision a loose collaborative of /Messengers involved in delivering high quality open analysis (and synthesis) here on /Message, but also being drawn into client engagements with me or perhaps independently of me. I am developing a distributed, virtual thinktank of leading thinkers, researchers, designers, and entrepreneurs whose involvement will range from fulltime (like me) to occasional on-demand engagements.
I have updated the About Stowe Boyd And The /Messengers post to reflect this refocusing on analysis/synthesis work.
Please contact me if you have any questions: stowe DOT boyd AT gmail DOT com.
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