/Message

New Directions, Old DNA: The Future Of The /Messengers

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.

Andy Sernovitz on The End Of An Experiment

I am all for word of mouth marketing. But, as I explained to Andy Sernovitz a week or so ago, word of mouth is only one part of an overall marketing program that would include traditional advertising, social media, and more.

Andy decided to experiment with more or less conventional blog advertising, via an affiliate relationship here at /Message.

Based on the response that this is causing (see Todd Tweedy on Affiliate Marketing At /Message), Andy has decided to withdraw from the experiment:

[via email from Andy]

Stowe -

Thanks helping to get the word out about our event. As you know, you were our only test of a sponsored blog post (and you did a great job of disclosing it properly).

I think our test proved one thing quite quickly: disclosure is a complicated issue.

As the guy who led the drafting efforts for disclosure best practices at WOMMA and other organizations, I've spent much of my career working with hundreds of companies on the best way to be systematically open and transparent.

With that said, it's probably best if we conclude the test and cancel the referral fee agreement. If you want to continue to share the discount code without a referral fee, that would be appreciated.

My learning:

1. Pure word of mouth without compensation is more effective, more credible, and less controversial.

2. Compensation for exposure isn't wrong -- it's called "advertising". The most important thing this that every reader is clearly able to know which is which, and both the blogger and the marketer insist on full disclosure.

3. Disclosure and transparency are vital issues that we need to continue to prioritize and keep working on.

Sorry you got dragged into this, but I'm always happy to have another chance to talk about the importance of disclosure.

Thanks,

Andy

So, following Andy's request, we are dropping the affiliate deal with him. I will be keeping up the discount for anyone who wants to get it though. I have the utmost regard for Andy and the professionalism he is showing.

In this process I have learned perhaps more than I wanted to about the feuds and contention within the word of mouth marketing community, but I guess that's to be expected in a new and somewhat controversial sector.

Getting The /Message

I've run into Stowe a couple of times over the past few years -- Enterprise 2.0 in Boston and mesh in Toronto -- and after I blogged about his latest Enterprise 2.0 presentation, he invited me to be a guest blogger here on /Message.

As a quick intro, I've been working with business process management (BPM), content management and related technologies since the late 1980's, and I'm fascinated by how these very enterprise-y systems are morphing into something much more social. My interest in all manner of integration technologies led me to mashups, which I believe are the next generation of end-user computing within enterprises, and I've been watching (and influencing, where possible) all the other ways that consumer social networking is impacting the design of systems within enterprises: everything from RSS feeds to collaboration.

In my "real job", I spend part of my time working with end-customer (mostly financial services) organizations implementing BPM, everything from strategy to vendor selection to user requirements to architecture and design; and part of my time as an industry analyst working with vendors on product strategy or the creation of white papers and webinars. You can find out more about me here.

My own blog, Column 2, is about BPM, Enterprise 2.0 and the intersection of technology and business, and includes live blogging from every conference that I've attended over the past two years.