Thought Flickr's

Free Agent ??

I am planning of going free agent. As you all know, I have been "let go". As far it seems impossible to keep a fair and open mind, the last 45 days have been pretty good to me, and I it seems that going free agent is the best route for me. Here are a couple of things that have been said  /commented to me;

"You are an independent success waiting to happen. "-  Rob S

"Whatever they say, it won't be the same anymore in the Regional office" - Mylene M

"We met Dan Pink once, and he said Brand Yous jump voluntarily or are pushed into being on their own. Good luck as a free agent. " - Cathy - a Tom Peters Member

What is your sincerce advice to me ?? I am at cross roads with my careers, my life and my future. I value any comments and inputs that you see of me. Please feel free to be candid, honest and cutting. I am broke, with a little bit of cash to surive for a couple of months and at the same time, feeling like that I need to change who I am and what I am going to be. Destiny is my hands, but at the same time all your comments and honest opinions will help me make the right decesions. I would also like you to amplyify this post.

Please send my request out onto the grid. I'll like everyone to hear my voice. It's your choice to help me !!

Global Neighborhoods - an begining in the making

Shel cuts the Global Neighborhoods -TOCv3.0. "It has been a long, strange trip from the ox cart to the rocket ship, but in fact, we ain't seen nothing yet."

Yeah, you go for it Mr.Nice Guy ,  I have been tracking She's efforts and kinda lost track of it soon after he made his global trip. Oh, Me too is on my own little venture across into India and the middle east and now catching up on emails etc. Will be back on the grid earlier next year, but could not resist creating this post !! (yea, its sucks to be a blogger- we peeps just need to say it right there and then !!)

But, just like I have noticed, the world has become a flatter. Some of My BarCamp  and H2600 t-shirts have evoked conversations with complete strangers. This be itself is weird. "Our club", a global community club is growing and Shel is taking a stab at trying to analysis this revolution and create the book Global Neighbors.

Not sure if a chapter  on the "power of influentials" within the community is something that needs to looked into. After all the influentials are the ones that move the community, governments and other nice stuff. However, not all influentials are willing to give up this power back to the community and other individuals.  Participants who  play, like a level playing field, but there is that subtle and yet undetectable social, psychological phenomenon within these groups too. The hordes of WoW is a classic example of the syndrome I am tying to describe. Will other social communities  have this same syndrome ? and BTW Shel my My earlier post  on TOcv1.0 is here :)-

Anyway, Shel has done a good draft on the TOC and I am looking forward to Prue-ordering the book and off course have another party at Shoeless Joe's for book signing !! :)-

Canadian whiners !!

Randy, points me back to old thread on Future Shop. Some interesting comments :)-

• "Futureshop.ca is the #1 non-pornographic website in canada."
• "ALLYOU EMPLOYEES / EX EMPLOYESS ARE RETARDED"
• "and you custoemrs are even more retaredd"
  "fucking Canadian whiners."

Does Future Shop ever read these type of threads or in fact do any other companies track such converstations and what their customers are saying ??

Fork of the Camps !!

I am just playing with community  software and its dynamics within KM. 

One of our  forum members has launched a wiki for his nation !! Not just a group, but for his whole country. Interesting eh ?? Anyhow,  he believes that every "cantoon". ( A Cantoon is simliar to a province, state, district ), can now have its own unique space for barcamps. This implies a single landing zone for every barcamp within that country.

I jumped onto his bandwagon to see how that space develops.  What I find interesting here, is that Corsin has not used the Barcamp Wiki format at all, rather he has forked the tool set into another type of wiki format. Will this retain richer content and community service or not ?? How will this unfold  ?? As I say an interesting to watch experiment-- in the making !!

My User Page is here- feel free to edit me :)_  My Publix wiki is here

Burning Bird retires

BurningBird retires. I like Shelley's s quote.

"Karma demands that I learn to accept that my web sites may not be up 24 x 7; downtime is an opportunity, not a tribulation.

[..]

It must seem as if ‘quitting’ one’s weblog is the hip new thing. I appreciate the fact that this is one of those few times I may be in with the insiders–actually, I savor the moment, wonder if I’ve developed a golden aura as a result–but this wasn’t the impetus for this change. I don’t plan on ‘quitting’, but I do want to rethink what it is I want from my online presence."

I used to enjoy her posts. Hopefully, she'll keep blogging.

She's a star which has now gone into eclipse mode. When, there is no light, a star will not be seen. But when the time comes, I am pretty sure, that when the light shines on her again, it will be bright and strong. She is a woman of character and integrity.

It is a metaphoric synthesize that is occuring with good with bloggers.

FORMALLY SUE THE TIMES FOR DEFAMATION !!

FORMALLY SUE THE TIMES FOR DEFAMATION..  is what I recommend !!

Why ??  -just because you  can.  The Rebutall was ok. The Twist is not. After reading these back channel stuff, I am still shell shocked that NYT has been caught with their Pants down.

Read the  Tom Friedman rant (subscription required) for the start point.

Hey  Brain, just sucker the buggers with a law suite.  You do and have followed a "fair process" here and secondly you also have the darn EFP ( Electronic Foot Prints) for any and/or darn EFA (Electronic Forsensic  Analysis) !!

Tim Hortons - IPO !!

Tim Hortons Inc. has raised the estimated per-share price range for its initial public offering of 29 million shares to C$25 to C$27 ($22 to $24), company officials said Monday evening.

Whew.. If I invest can I get coffee coupens as Dividends ?? :)-

Good Quotes

I like trolling- Why because I pick up saome real good stuff along the way. I was commenting on Tom Peter Blog  and see what I find from Sriram !! A wonderful tapestry of leadership thoughts on customers .

Thanks Siram !! ..ok ok..'nuff said..here we go :)-

Top-10 customer quotes…

1. Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning – Bill Gates
2. If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful – Jeff Bezos
3. Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you – Mark Cuban
4. Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business – Zig Ziglar
5. In our way of working, we attach a great deal of importance to humility and honesty; with respect for human values, we promise to serve our customers with integrity – Azim Premji
6. If you have a good relationship with your customer, the business process flows that much more smoothly. – Richard Pratt
7. If you work just for money, you'll never make it, but if you love what you're doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours – Ray Kroc
8. Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success – Henry Ford
9. The single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that there are no results inside its walls. The result of a business is a satisfied customer – Peter F. Drucker
10. You’ll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be easily duplicated, but a strong customer service culture can’t be copied – Jerry Fritz

6Apart IPO ?

6apart has just clinched another deal  sez the St.Stephens  fellow !

The Question in Play is wither 6Apart will go IPO or sell out ?

IMHO, Anil & Mena will not sell  Out- they will go IPO. As per SERP thye have approx 14M Subscribers and add this with figure  9,560,000 from *.livejournal.com.

A total of approx 21M subcribers each with the lowest min of $8/- per month make this quite a huge revenue income. Why would they want to sell out like myspaces.com etc ?? This is constant revenue churn. From an M&A view point --critical mass stage has occured ( no wonder they are getting addional funds-$12M). However, from a aqquistion model this may not peter out well. 6Apart opening price will easily go for approx $216M !! (maths is simple) I dont think that any of the big 3  (MSFT,YHOO, GOOG) want a bloging platform at all. So who has that type of Mulla to shell out eh ?? nobody !!

So this leaves us with the question.  How will net value be created  ?? I think IPO is the route that will forumulate itself within 24 monthMs from now. (i.e after approx spend value of $0.5 per month ) !!

Like IDD report : Meanwhile, the valuations for online content companies remain strong in M&A deals and are comparable to, if not more favorable than, those in an IPO exit, notes Steve Bird, general partner at Focus Ventures, a Palo Alto-based venture capital shop. "It's not such a bad deal," he says of the M&A activity. "If you get a price that is as high or higher than the IPO, and you get cashed out immediately, that has a big impact on our rate of return."

Update : Rodrigo crunches the numbers , he pulls a number out of hat for the  exit - $350M !!

Whats holding back Corporate Blogging

via :BlogRevolt

Two authors of business blogging books -- Jeremy Wright and Debbie Weil -- for their thoughts on this question:

Jeremy Wright, a corporate blogging consultant and the author of Blog Marketing, named three factors holding back a stronger corporate embrace of blogging:

"First, these things take time. It never happens as fast as we imagine. Second, the software tools are in many cases still too immature for enterprise use. And third, a clear ROI (return on investment) from blogging remains to be demonstrated."

As for Debbie Weil, also a blog consultant and the author of the forthcoming The Corporate Blogging Book, she stressed the psychological roadblocks to corporate blogging:

"Fear is the single most important thing holding corporate America back from embracing blogging. Fear of being open, fear of a two-way conversation, fear of not being able to control the message, fear of the time commitment."

My two cents worth, Corporations don't like to ;

1. Air their dirty laundry in public.
2. Don' t like direct confornations within the public eye
3. Hate to lose control what they think is thier 'conversation'