Under the radar?
Hi,
Long time no hear. Here in my blog, that is. I haven't been blogging for ages.
But now I prepare small steps in order to fully make my "comeback" to the ever-so increasing blog-o-sphere, to start with something like an "article-not-ready" in this posting. Of length to compensate for the long silence, since end of June in Stealth Mode - and includes updates on three levels.
- Insight breakthroughs in the first part - essay (sometimes thoughts just don't fit short)
- Update re: practicalities here and now (what is going on)
- What beyond, next step (what is intended, next step)
I will keep my posts at <500 words here in the main blog from now on, and ~80 words in median. Still no increasing intensity in posting frequence until November, if at all before end of October, of reasons stated in the end. I let this posting rest on top, I guess. Ok, here we go :).
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O - Text?
And yes, before anything else grabs your attention - text as medium is on its way to get out-dated. I vote 2006 to be the personal tivocasting year beyond podcasting [?] - VideosOnDemand, fed into Your World. Making millions of media consumers turning into media producers in the end). I guess I have to set up an IntroVideo. Sometime. At the same time saying that text is not out as a medium. Especially in the days of Harry Potter. If you fancy deep thought for action in text format still (I am not so skilled on Cartoons [ understatement :) ] and PowerPoints are quite shallow for this context), read on. And have my standing reservation for my no-native-English-tongue, of some called Swenglish, improvement suggestions welcomed :).
/opportunities enclosed, unfolded by dialogue and your thought/
1 - Essay
So, talking about reading and books - remember, the Amazon sales is mostly generated from those titles that your local bookstore has not even heard about. A term coined The Long Tail. In the Amazon case, 57 percent, in an often cited figure. The same goes with bloggers - Slashdot, BoingBoing, Andrew Sullivan et al among the millions-of-hits, where millions-of-bloggers along the Long Tail of Bloggers do create small but many and powerful dozens of mutual blog rollers in the micro-worlds - some might call them obscure - contexts. Remembering at the same time it is only "we" in the end - The one and only family of humanity.
If you want to get there and hear what they buzz about? Often you get recommended and finding it sliding down along the Tail, where recommendation engines still needs to be improved getting to static, according to coniner of term Chris Anderson in a speech session lately. But this does not exclude you from experimenting at random, to find unusual tags potentially entering the folksonomy "somewhere else", from e. g. Wordcount Long Tail, and pushing it into technorati. If the hit rate is below 20 in number you might find those odd and off contexts where the anomaly and the true under the radar stuff is going on long before the paradigm shift. With this method, during the writing of this article, I found "spreadbase" at number 83224 of 86 800 (key)words. Interesting! 2 hits in Technorati as of today, entering the current Web 2.0 frenzy with a new application - tracking your life! Interesting, huh?
So I almost say - forget what Yahoo is doing on top of Technorati and the Echo Chambers surrounding what goes on there, and stop looking for those on the top ranks - and especially forget getting that High Rank yourself! That's boooring. If you look for inspiring ranking, push in Bob Marley with Top Rankin' instead - or maybe the excellent Rank 1 remix of "Push - Journey of Life", while you Surf the Far End of the Long Tail and seeking inspiration for new ideas.
To end this "general buzz" on the Long Tail (that is beta-written in the book-to-come format in Chris Anderson's before-Book-blog with the same title), reminding you of another player making the lion part from that context of small worlds, Google through AdSense/AdWords revenue. "Obscure Tags" are cheap but much more rewarding. And on ads targeting the Small Worlds along the Long Tail - BlogAds is a new niched player in the field - still focusing the Short Tail of Million-Hits of "opinion makers", and targeting the Blogger Hall-Of-Fame. Will search engine guru John Battelle and some people in the team of Federated Media have something else going? And has Yahoo picked up something after lagging behind Google?
The Big Opportunities in the Small Worlds at the Far End of the Longest Tail
I love those small contexts, and the stream that is not main-stream is often more fun. And in the times of "overground" decreasing, everything will get "underground" leaving no "overground" left. Or everyone getting to the ground - to Get Real. Down To Earth. In the small contexts, small worlds. And it only takes the number of three to start something new to shake the "Big World". 37Signals.com, anyone? It is a great time to be an entrepreneur - and especially, yeah! Sustainopreneur! Look at the serial entrepreneur of the now forgotten, but still kinda running alive with Casino Popups etc - Excite, now back with JotSpot!, great article from June 2005. And what he learnt from Excite, especially, too! Go here and download the .ppt - One of many clues to avoid Bubble 2.0, ok?
And start something, in the Big World - where the Longest Tail is the 4 and a half billion people living below $3 a day - the greatest market opportunity to date - Bottom of the Pyramid as the Longest Tail.
Beyond Bubble 2.0 - Web 3.0?
If you care to forget about Bubble 2.0 for a while (now emerging), the opportunities is luring post-Ebay/Skype - AOL/Weblogs Inc. - Sun/Google et al megadeals lately. What survived Web 1.0 is now getting transformed into a Perpetual Beta to keep the edge, alongside with start-ups in Web 2.0. I was in the Bubble 1.0 days focusing on what was Real and Beyond (early predicting Boo.com bankruptcy in Jan 2000, with a small sign but big in meaning with the first lay-off of people in the London office as a note in my newsletter from that time), so also this time. And what was Beyond back in spring 2000, is still Beyond in 2005 - but coming closer!
Among others, the opportunity I now coin Web 3.0. (Domain currently pointing to something different if searched through a smartphone - check it out ;) ).
Connected Everywhere. Everyone. In a HotWorld - getting heated by creative creators interacting and collaborating to focus on the greatest challenges in the world, and turn them into businesses. And a world Not getting Hot by Greenhouse Gas Emissions. CO2, Methane, etc in the end following Great Transformations in Energy and Transport systems.
Put your greatest amount of dollars spread among and into millions of ideas from local contexts that intend to solve problems related to health, education, entrepreneurship "micro way", backed by micro financing, digital unification with micro-site gadgets, and sustainable distributed energy. And let 10 percent of the ventures truly succeed, but probably more since the failure rate is faaar lower in these contexts! 90 to 98 payback on micro loans/credits reported from all over the world. Which bank in the Top of the Pyramid or along the Small Tail with annual income per capita in the X-axis can compete with that?
Listen, listen, and then again - listen!
But who will succeed? We don't know. In the end, those 10 percent not-failure-rated, will truly make this world a sustainable one. And it's the User that Rules. Hire field anthropologists that has been in deep rural contexts knowing stuff that we can offer from here, but not letting herself be blind by stuff we have. This is not working with whatever kind of colonization, pre- or post- type. Listen, listen, listen to the locals, firstly with them trying to innovate practical solutions to genuine needs making lives better for the billions-of-people from their own definition. They define their world, to begin with - and work with genuine partnership and dialogue, where honesty is the only currency that pays off in the development process - bottom up. Money cannot compensate for stupidity, since the Cocky Idiot and his megabucks are easily separated, right? Our friends in the 90 percent of the rural hard-workers in the Survival and Emerging economies along this Longest Tail of global citizens are very smart and creative. But what they lack is education, information on what's going on in the "Top of the Pyramid", being disconnected - and thus lacking first and foremost opportunities.
To get a fast snapshot of the bigger picture - see among others, the article from Stuart L. Hart, "Innovation, Creative Destruction and Sustainability" in "Research Technology Management", latest issue, Sep-Oct 2005. Sadly only accessible through paid subscription, but anyways. It's a great summary there.
There lies the Web 3.0 opportunities. Embedded in that context. Millions of them. And a fewer degree but strong leveraging meta-initiatives serving the rest - enabling scope, scale, speed and strength: multiplication, acceleration and amplification. Think "the Victorian Internet Revolution" during the 19th Century of Telegraphs during Go West Times in the US, but with wireless gadgets for the many in the 21st, communicated with 3G/WiMAX and running small apps running with Ajax (before known as “Asynchronous JavaScript+CSS+DOM+XMLHttpRequest” hoopla! ...thanks making us tech-half-illiterates a little bit easier...), or whatever tech buzzword of the day.
Because, tech buzzwords are fresh of the zeitgeists, and dies when they dies in the Perpetual Beta of World Improvement. Wap was yesterday, www.mtldinfo.com - www.web3blog.mobi 2006 tomorrow - and maybe www.mob5.com a good guide and hint for what to truly come, where small services with Mobile WebApps serving the genuine needs of the 4 and a half billion living below the mentioned $3 a day? With services that they need. I can easily come up with 500 both expected/mainstream less fantasy/straight forward, and some more obscure and unorthodox, but still doable fulfilling needs at both ends - maybe even to compensate for the spiritual poverty experienced in the consumption-fatigue struck Top of the Pyramid?
Even if the tech-of-the-day is changing ever faster, the needs-of-the-day of a human being are rather constant, aren't they?
Listen to the ones disconnected and suffering from material poverty. Today.
Deeeeeeeep.
[link to my Summer Reading #1 - with future postings [RSS FEED LINK HERE] called for!]
And then - live life and prosper. It makes sense for life, universe and everything, creating links and hubs with the nodes caring for the People and Planet in Innovative and Creative Businesses with a Cause.
That Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy does not seem to be so far away as it seemed in the first place.
Do you want to join me in that quest to explore the Web 3.0 opportunity?
Then, you are welcome to drop me a note :).
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2 - Ok, then - That Thesis Update...
I began before the article by talking about text. That leads me formal academic text-production then.
Intense BackBlog activity from my side, creating less BackLog in my Blog. This BackBlog activity intense especially insight- and action wise. Where majority will be placed in that *manuscript* (see summer posting June 25). Those of you who knows me, also knows that my hands-on action has postponed that academic piece of work to almost reach next decade. Hope and faith kept, an update.
The thesis work in its final stages - the manuscript needed some extra method-backing and taking the analytical part to its intended stellar mode towards the results, creating the sharpest of edges, since it is quite radical in "academic" terms (not for an action-and-results oriented entrepreneur, though). My professor, Bengt Johannisson, presenting it in his latest book from a 6+ year senior rank research project [found here in Swedish - translated intentionally provocative "The Essence of Entrepreneurship" - explanation to come in a footnote in my Thesis], calls it "Enactive research".
From the abstract of one of his latest conference papers in his, what can I call it? "Missionary work" - or shall I say "revolutionary"?
"‘Enactive research’ as an interactive research approach is radical from both an epistemological and a moral perspective. It means that the researcher takes on the role of the initiator of a change process and then adopts auto-ethnographic research to reflect upon the experiences being made."
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3 - The Thesis Done - then, Above and Beyond
...S*E*N*S*A Everything.
Let the screen-shot talk for itself. Website up. When Thesis ready. Thesis realistically to be October 31, but the publishing of both website and thesis the month after. [Jan 2, 2006: Rescheduling, again - awaiting final writing of business plan of Ignition™ as Appendix, together with my left-over exams now taken before Thesis finalizing and publishing]. Anyways, ASAP, that is - where "Possible" is set by the final writing, and tough love coming from "uncle Bengt", mentoring a stubborn Servant of Business-with-a-Cause Administration senior student SBA[?], patient, enduring and understanding guidance of "chaordic me". With mostly lessons leading to an MLA* in the end - always created alongside, and integrated.
To be delivered in a Thesis (or whatever) form, just by the time making myself ready for next life, the on after After Life. [*MLA = Master of Life Administration]. Not intended to be earlier than 2050, ok ;) ?
Now diving BackBlog again, hiding from the Radar Sweep, and letting this blog slide up with the ranking maybe beyond 6 Technorati hits :). At least, it keeps me not buzy to respond replies from the Blog-o-sphere and concentrate on the offline writing of that Thesis :). But with a slight better result in A9 Images search with that vision of the sky showing up, and until lately sliding down to third page triggered by the Sustainability Entrepreneurship keywords in A9/Google, interestingly enough kept with better ranking in All The Web. I'll get back to that when I have gotten my hands on Battelles "The Search".
Yes, at top, hmmm! - you get there if you do not strive there, that's the lesson - just follow your commitment and cause, and do things with love and meaning that you believe in, along the trail of your intention made explicit for yourself first and foremost - and those with the same tag circles as you sooner or later meet there - in real life. See you around!
Ok, 'nuff talk. I'll be back, here. In time. And ITMT - take care!
Peace,
Anders
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EDIT [Oct 10, later night]: Some small notes emerged into an article...still not ready, in the blogging spirit "ideas not ready". I feel a manifesto emerging, though...ChangeWhat?
EDIT 2 [Oct 11, noon time]: I took the opportunity to rewrite and edit it a second round, using www.writely.com as some kind of Personal Wiki. Works cool to have new apps sandbox playaround :). Another toy is www.writeboard.com. Yes :). And all will be used in the S*E*N*S*A setup as it seems at first and second glances and testing, together with www.jot.com, www.jotlive.com, www.backpackit.com and www.basecamphq.com, with www.sitedirect.info placing the base for the main website. So far identified. And having a little personal note on http://mob5.com/sustainopreneurship as well :). Walking the Talk, to have Web 3.0 future-secured already now. And the last two are Swedish startups, as well!
EDIT 3 [Oct 11, afternoon]: Included intro with overview. Now, I am pleased with this post :). Enjoy.
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