Advice
Over the past ten years, I have worked closely with a long list of social tools start-ups, including Bit.ly, Imeem, Freshbooks, MOG, TravelPod TravelPod, TuneIn, SixGroups, Bview, The School Of Everything, My6Sense, b5 media, JS-Kit, and many others. I also work, occassionally, with large companies that are trying to develop social technologies, like AOL, The Open University, and others.
An advisory relationship usually grows from a shorter engagement, some sort of more tactical, short-term relationship, such as a one- or two-day product review workshop (see Consulting).
The usual time frame of an advisory relationship is months at a minimum, and more generally a year, to lend strategic scope to the relationship. This often involves participation on an advisory board, and may also include stock participation in the company.
