How to manage engagement and participation - the democratic process in a web2.0 context

eCairn recently published a very interesting analysis on what happens when you open a site and ask people to contribute ideas. They mention Dell Ideastorm and the Obama administration Citizen's Briefing Book from the Obama administration, and I have to agree with the conclusion: you have to know what to expect when opening up the doors to input with no filtering. And where and how you "listen" to your audience makes a difference:

1- if you ask everybody to provide input on a website, and then use a rating system to decide which issues are important, then what you will get is not what the most important issues are for the community as a whole, but rather what the most important ideas are for the best organized group within the community. Huge difference. Basically chances are that one or a few communities will take over the site and monopolize the conversation. And if there is no moderation, then you will end up just listening to what they have to say regardless of what others may think.
In the case of the Obama experiment (Citizen's Briefing Book), the winning idea is "legalize marijuana", and while I have no doubt that they won their ranking fair and straight, I have a hard time believing this is one of the most pressing issue right now.

One site did try an improved version of the process: Change.org had a 2 phase selection:
- First anybody could submit any idea in various pre-defined categories
- Second, they qualified the top 3 ideas of each category to then have them all compete together for the final selection of the top 10.
Legalizing Marijuana is still in the final top 10, you have to give credit to this community for being very good at mobilizing their supporters online, but there are other ideas that were able to emerge from the process, and it was a good attempt at leveling the playing field so that other ideas from not so popular categories could be considered.
As it is done with elections in the US, maybe one extra step could have also been considered: having each category elect an equal number of representatives to represent their specific concerns, so that they are the ones that vote in the second round. Then it is no longer an issue of how many vote for an ideas, but rather how many of a representative sample of the population get convinced by the ideas that were selected.

2- the other option (other than opening a site to invite input) is to map conversations happening everywhere in the blogosphere or other places, then you can have a much better idea of who is talking about what where. And you will have a very different view of which communities are active on the web, and what their top issues are. And then you can specifically target these communities (based on how relevant they are to you at a given time) to address their specific issues.
With this second approach, we still have an open space where everbody can express their opinions (the blogs or the web in general), and then the leadership can decide what to do with what they see. No ratings involved, just the good judgement of whoever is listening. Individuals are doing it today, they pick and choose which blogs they want to read and comment on, and they may have their own blog(s) to contribute to the conversation. Corporation and the government should at a minimum do the same. And then decide if they want to engage in other ways (back to #1 above).

Having said this, and since this post was inspired by an analysis from my friends at eCairn, I should also mention that the service that they have developed is perfect for doing just that: teams listening to conversations, engaging with bloggers and measuring the impact to this engagement. Something you may want to consider for your business...

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Big Brother - another good one

After ATT (see my previous post), here is a new feature, from McAfee this time, to protect me from myself: SiteAdvisor.

So I have McAfee Total Protection, and the latest update (I assume that this is where it comes from) was installed automatically recently. And then I discovered when reading my own email that because I have the url of my blog in my signature I am entitled to a big red square box telling me that "this message includes a link that will lead you to a site with potential phishing".
Very friendly - I can imagine the effect this will have on the people I communicate with. My friends will smile, but I am not sure what the rest of my correspondents will think.

There is no phishing scheme on my blog, the only subscription widget is generated from Vertical Response which I specifically installed because I want users to feel comfortable that I am not going to abuse their email information. And then there are a few widgets from known services, but nothing custom or homemade that could be assimilated to hacking.
But somebody somewhere decided that I was guilty until I prove myself innocent, when I thought the normal was the opposite. I guess security software is different, and we are all hackers out there if we are bloggers.
I am a good citizen, and I try to follow process, so I went and registered on the SiteAdvisor website to claim my innocence. But there also, there is one more roadblock: I have to upload a file on my site to prove that I own it and that I am legit. The problem: I am using Blogger, a service provided by a small company called Google, and I do not have access to the service to upload whatever file I want. So now I have to submit a request into a big queue, and wait for somebody to pick it up and take a look, and then I have to pray that they will agree that my blog is ok. Hopefully the content is not too subversive, and I fit within whatever criteria they have that I can be cleared.

If you have any doubt that the world is a very messed up place, I think this is another good example. Technology which should be making our life better is just creating more constraints on everything we do. I do not really feel like I own my computer anymore: my brand new computer comes with pre-installed junk programs (marketing teasers) that I have to remove if I do not want the clutter, I have automatic updates because I get problems if I don't, and I get problems if I do, just different ones.

Because of all this, I make sure I stick to Open Source whenever I can. At least with open source, I get what I want and nobody can claim control of what I get to the point when it becomes obnoxious. It may not always be as cool or as fancy, but the protection from any corporate abuse is a huge feature for me...

>>> Update >>> the good news is that I have been cleared. The bad news is that people who are getting the message should re-install SiteAdvisor. So to anybody who is still using the wrong version I will be presented like a hacker unless they uninstall SiteAdvisor and Re-install (which would be assuming they care enough about me or the issue to go through this). Not as much comfort as what I was hoping for...
===
McAfee SiteAdvisor Support
dateWed, Feb 4, 2009 at 12:45 PM
subjectRe: "Open Business" blog erroneously rated as potentially dangerous

Hello,

After some investigation, we have discovered that this error was related to a bug in an earlier version of the SiteAdvisor program, which has now been fixed.

Anyone who sees this error should uninstall SiteAdvisor, and then reinstall it from http://www.siteadvisor.com.

Please write back to me if this error is still occurring after these instructions have been followed.

Sincerely,

Andrew
Customer Support
McAfee SiteAdvisor
<<


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Big Brother is watching you!

I am stuned... At a time when we do a lot with the web and when you would think we are getting more and more freedom to access and share content, the opposite is actually happening.

I just subscribed to ATT U-Verse, and I discovered an amazing new feature on the DVR service: "Nickolodeon does not allow the recording of this show".

So now I am paying for the content, and I am paying for the DVR box, which was sold to me as a great improvement to the existing solution because I can start watching a recorded show in my living room and then I can go to watch the end in my bedroom.
EXCEPT (small detail) that I cannot record the shows I want, just the one that ATT and the channels in my mix allow. Oops.

So technology, which is supposed to make it easier for me, is actually turning into a way for the big corporations to have more control over my life.
It used to be that I could program my VCR to capture the feed from any show on a tape. It was taking time and space but it was all here for me. But the new improved version of the same functionality is that I cannot record the Nickolodeon shows anymore. Nickolodeon want my kids to be in front of the TV at 6pm when it is diner time or at 9pm when they are supposed to be in bed. And if they are not, sorry, you cannot watch.

It reminds me of when I was traveling to China and I was watching TV5 in my hotel bedroom. Every now and then, the TV would have black outs, something that looked like a problem with the connection and would only last a few seconds. But something so systematic across many hotels that you know somebody was editing the feed to make sure I was not given subversive news that would pollute my mind.

This is also my user experience with Facebook: I can send messages to my friends, but when comes the New Year and I want to send all of them my best wishes, I can only send it to 40 of them and then I get a big red message warning me that "I AM ENGAGING IN A BEHAVIOR THAT VIOLATES THE FACEBOOK POLICIES". How friendly is that? And what kind of social network am I in that only lets me communicate to 40 people max.
Who decided that I am clearly a spammer if I have more than 40? Wouldn't people report me if my message was offensive or inappropriate in any way? Isn't it the beauty of social networks that your reputation is always at stake and therefore you tend to behave better because you know there would be consequences otherwise? Or is it just Facebook worried that I advertise by sending direct messages instead of paying their advertising department?

And the same is happening with Apple store, where I am not allowed to download Qik for my iPhone, forcing me to jailbreak it if I want to stream videos to the web through their service. How is this helping innovation? Why do we have to go to hacks to get what we want that is available and works on the platform?

The world is changing and we can do more today than we could before, but Big Brother is watching and the corporations are fighting back.
We have to pay attention, and we cannot let them have the last word...

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A computer in your kitchen

The mobile phone was stuck in the PC paradigm with a difficult UI until Steve Jobs came up with the iPhone and finally offered users a UI that makes sense for the size of the device. The same thing is happening with Tablet PCs, and my friend Olivier Seres is now offering a Device/UI that is really easy to use for the form factor. Imagine a pumped up iPhone, with the power of a real computer accessed through an easy to use interface:



Check it out...

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My Obama speech favorites

There was a lot of expectations, and Obama was his best self again. The full text of the speech is here (thanks to a twit from @chrisabraham) and my favorite extracts are here:

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

[...]

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths.

Today is a good day :-)



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He is the Man, We are the Wire

From Erik Adigard on Axiomenta, referring to “Man on Wire” the high-wire walker who in 1974 walked a wire between the twin towers of the World Trade Center:

As president-elect Obama takes leadership of a broken nation. He is the Man and we are the Wire.

[Read more - Watch the video remix]

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After Change.org, Change.gov - please vote for the Entrepreneur Commons idea

The Entrepreneur Commons idea finished 7th out of 106 ideas in the Social Entrepreneurship category on Change.org.

We now have another opportunity to present the idea through the Change.gov website:
http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/viewIdea.apexp?id=087800000004tZt

Please vote for the Entrepreneur Commons idea there, then send the info to 10 friends.
And if you voted - Twit it


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Visions of Leadership - Managing Innovation "on the edge" event on 1/30/09 - mark your calendar

Please join the conversation on 1/30/09 at 8:30am at Orange Labs in South San Francisco, USA (801 Gateway blvd), or at 5:30pm on the HEC Campus in Jouy-en-Josas, France (1, rue de la Libération).
Details here
Register here

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The End of the Financial World as We Know It

Just read this very interesting article in the NY Times from Michael Lewis explaining how a lot of people suspected that something was going on with Madoff, but nobody had any incentive to do anything about it. Worse, somebody (Harry Markopolos) wrote a letter to the SEC on Nov. 7, 2005 to demonstrate how something had to be wrong with what Madoff was doing. And nobody listened.

This reminds me very much of what is going on with another part of the financial world: the Venture Capital world. Nothing as bad certainly as what is going on with Madoff, but another example of something not working, people knowing about it (VCs will tell you privately that there are issues with the model) and nobody doing anything about it because nobody has an incentive to. Except for a paper published by Ludovic Phalippou and Oliver Gottschalg on April 2007 (already discussed in this blog) where it is clearly shown that Private Equity returns are not that great (the paper shows that on average and once you factor in the fees charged by firm it is S&P minus 3%). But also in this case, and as discussed previously in this blog, nobody cares. Up until now that is.

With the current crisis, people have started questioning what is going on, and the word is out (TheFunded presented the case that "The canary is dead")

Not all is bad with VCs, but the model is certainly working more for them than for entrepreneurs or even investors. I am convinced that 2009 will bring changes to this world as well. While Michael Lewis presents in his article the very sad picture of what should or could have been done and has not been done so far with the banking system let's hope that VCs and their investors will be more efficient in tackling the issue. And it starts with going back to the basics: providing real support to entrepreneurs as a whole to keep the ecosystem healthy.


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Open for questions

The Obama administration is open for questions. They have announced a second round of questions on 12/29/08 in their blog on Change.gov


My question to the Obama administration:

How will you spend the $250M in your program for a national network of incubators to help small businesses? Will you trust government employees or paid consultants or will you let entrepreneurs decide how they can help themselves with an open model?

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Getting started with 2009: what has happened so far and what's next

In 2007, I met with approximately 150 entrepreneurs, worked more closely with about 30 (based on the quality of the idea but also the chemistry with the entrepreneur), and I have now narrowed my focus down to a handful that I am convinced are going to make it in 2009. The typical 1% selection rate that you also see with VCs or Angels, which inspired me to figure out something better to help entrepreneurs at large - an open model allowing peer support and transforming what is today a competitive process into a collaborative one.


In 2008, I started Entrepreneur Commons to do just that.

Entrepreneur Commons is the continuation of a similar concept that I started experimenting with in 2005 and that was implemented in San Francisco through a "Club Entrepreneur" with the Swiss American Chamber of Commerce and a "Business Booster" with the French American Chamber of Commerce. 

The Entrepreneur Commons idea is very simple: on one side provide mentors to entrepreneurs to help them mature their business plan, and on the other side provide financing resources for those entrepreneurs whose business idea is mature enough. What is new with this is the combination of mentoring and financing in the specific context of entrepreneurs in developed countries. The model was inspired by the success of Microfinance and Mutual Guarantee Funds in Europe, which are proven sustainable models. As a result, Entrepreneur Commons is a not-for-profit for and by entrepreneurs including a platform hosting a social network of entrepreneurs and which manages a seed investment fund offering loans to startups. 

The long term goal is to change the way startups are being financed, as the current model works for VCs but not really for entrepreneurs. And as a result, it is also to change the way we think about capitalism, going from individual trying to maximize their profit as the force that drives the system to fostering collaboration for a more sustainable capitalism.

To achieve this, the short term goal is to build a network of of 100 to 150 entrepreneurs on one side, and raise a fund of at least $3M on the other side, so that we can do 30 loans of $100K to entrepreneurs in the network. This will be the proof of concept that will demonstrate the model.

The idea was presented during the first few month after launch to many entrepreneurs, angels, VCs, Limited Partners, lawyers and bankers to discuss the idea and collect feedback, and has received mostly positive feedback: yes this is something that is needed, and yes the concept is good on the paper. The goal now is to make it happen, which is not a question of "if" but rather "when". The one lesson I have learned is that it will take time, and from my experience on past projects, I have only limited control on the timing :-)

So far: 

• Entrepreneur Commons has a first chapter in San Francisco, with a handful of entrepreneurs meeting once a month to share their successes and discuss their business issues, and we have had interest from entrepreneurs in other states (Texas, Florida, New York, Germany, France, Israel) who are considering starting similar efforts.
• Entrepreneur Commons has already received soft commitments from investors interested in the concept.
• Entrepreneur Commons was invited to present at Socap08, as a platform that is especially useful to Social Entrepreneurs who are typically left out of the classic funding processes currently offered to entrepreneurs.
  
• The Entrepreneur Commons concept was submitted as part of the idea contest running on Change.org, and collected 339 votes to finish 7th out of 106 ideas submitted in the Social Entrepreneurship category.
  

As for 2009, I believe that this is going to be a great year of many opportunities. The financial crisis had the benefit of bringing a lot of people out of their comfort zone, and there is enough of a mess that people start questioning the status quo. This is a good start. 

Then the presidential election in the US, with Obama getting elected by voters but also getting majority support from people from all origins in almost every country in the world has started a process that cannot be stopped. People have realized that the world needs to change, that nothing will happen unless they start doing something about it, and that Web2.0 technology gives us the power today to make it happen if we decide to. Obama has been riding that wave, and the wave is bigger than him as it is the rise of a peer to peer civilization. The coming years will see big shifts and therefore big opportunities for the people who are at the right place at the time. This is a game entrepreneurs like: 2009 will be their year.

Best wishes for 2009 :-)

Change.org - remember to vote before 12/31/08

After 12/31/08 only the top 3 rated ideas from each category will make it into the second round. The second round of voting will begin on Monday, January 5, and each qualifying idea will compete against the qualifying ideas from all other categories, and then the top 10 rated ideas will be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009 as the "Top 10 Ideas for America."

If you have not done so, please consider the Entrepreneur Commons idea:

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/sponsor_a_structure_for_entrepreneurs_to_support_entrepreneurs
Click on the "vote" button showing the current number of votes

And if you like the idea, please forward to as many of your friends as possible, as we need many more votes to make it to the top 10.

Thank you for your help.

Best wishes for 2009 :-)

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Social Capital and Social Business definitions

An interesting input from Michael Cayley in the Social Edge discussion regarding the definitions of Social Capital and Social Business:

Social Capital (Nan Lin's definition): resources embedded in a social structure which are accessed and/or mobilized in purposive actions

Social Business (from Michael): "ALL businesses are social in an era where meaning & perception is derived from broadband empowered individuals rather than capital intensive broadcast communication networks."

This is very much in line with what I had in mind when I started the discussion on Social Edge. And seems to fit a lot of the other comments that came up.
And it reinforce my conviction that we need something like the Vindex to attach a number to the concept, and make it easy for everybody to understand and visualize the value.


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Gizmocall.com - new cool widget

The nerd in me likes this one...
Thank you Gizmo project :-)




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Please join the "Social Business" discussion on SocialEdge

We are currently discussing the definitions of "Social Capital" and "Social Business" on SocialEdge:

http://www.socialedge.org/discussions/responsibility/social-capital-social-business

My take on this is that the success of Muhammad Yunus with Grameen bank and microfinance in general has resulted in a narrowing of the definition of "Social Business" to what he specifically focuses on: poverty.
Meanwhile there is a broader definition that we should look like, as a way to prevent the concept of "Social Business" from being marginalized. We cannot afford to fall into the comfortable idea that "Social Businesses" are focusing on fixing the world issues while the rest of us are doing business as usual. We need to reverse the trend by moving the concept of "Social Business" from being a niche to being the standard.

Please give us your input on this idea and how to go about it:
http://www.socialedge.org/discussions/responsibility/social-capital-social-business


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Linux, Open source get patent protection program

A very interesting announcement today from Information Week (thank you Elie for pointing this out):

Open Invention Network (OIN) unveiled a program Tuesday that aims to make it easier for patent and trademark office examiners -- and others -- to access prior art, increase the quality of patents granted, and decrease the number of poor quality patents. [...] The sponsors hope the program will ultimately promote their goals of greater freedom in the open source community to expand the Linux platform.

Full article here

Another step in the right direction. Sadly patents are often used as a way to prevent other people to do things. Large corporations are often times filing many with no real intent to build anything but more to make sure that if somebody else tries they will have a way to stop them or at least slow them down while they try to catch up...


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Top 150 Blogs for Entrepreneurs

>> This list has been updated - for the most recent ranking click here <<

I am using eCairn to track what is happening in the blogosphere around Entrepreneurship/ Social Entrepreneurship / High Tech/ Venture Capital (tracking about 350 blogs total), and I use eCairn's influence ranking on these blogs to prioritize my reading and commenting (see here how they do this - this is NOT about traffic but rather who links to what).
Here is the list of the top 150 blogs that I find relevant for entrepreneurs in general, with a bias for high tech and social entrepreneurship and a special interest on the funding side.

Future updates will be posted on the Entrepreneur Commons website.

Something that you may find useful for yourself...

Top 150 blogs for Entrepreneur (based on the influence ranking by eCairn):

1 http://www.techcrunch.com
2 http://www.venturebeat.com
3 http://blog.guykawasaki.com
4 http://www.gigaom.com
5 http://www.alleyinsider.com
6 http://www.readwriteweb.com
7 http://www.avc.com/a_vc
8 http://www.pehub.com
9 http://paul.kedrosky.com
10 http://www.entrepreneur.com
11 http://www.valleywag.com
12 http://www.scobleizer.com
13 http://www.thefunded.com
14 http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com
15 http://redeye.firstround.com
16 http://www.buzzmachine.com
17 http://www.smallbiztrends.com
18 http://www.venturehacks.com
19 http://www.socialedge.org
20 http://upandrunning.entrepreneur.com
21 http://blogs.openforum.com
22 http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content
23 http://www.informationarbitrage.com
24 http://blog.entrepreneur.com
25 http://www.instigatorblog.com
26 http://networking.entrepreneur.com
27 http://vestpocketconsultant.entrepreneur.com
28 http://www.gapingvoid.com
29 http://lsvp.wordpress.com
30 http://www.howardlindzon.com
31 http://inspired.entrepreneur.com
32 http://weekend.entrepreneur.com
33 http://www.vcconfidential.com
34 http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting
35 http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing
36 http://www.texasstartupblog.com
37 http://fiveyearstoolate.wordpress.com
38 http://www.coloradostartups.com
39 http://www.markpeterdavis.com/getventure
40 http://www.startupnorth.ca
41 http://www.business-opportunities.biz
42 http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
43 http://socialentrepreneurship.change.org
44 http://campusentrepreneurship.wordpress.com
45 http://www.billionswithzeroknowledge.com
46 http://www.getentrepreneurial.com
47 http://www.nextbillion.net
48 http://philanthropy.blogspot.com
49 http://www.tacticalphilanthropy.com
50 http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet
51 http://www.newhampshirestartups.com
52 http://www.kentuckystartups.com
53 http://www.techflash.com
54 http://www.davidcrow.ca
55 http://www.bootstrapme.com
56 http://www.northcarolinastartups.com
57 http://vcmike.wordpress.com
58 http://joi.ito.com
59 http://www.ocvcblog.com
60 http://www.startupprincess.com/wordpress
61 http://blog.acumenfund.org
62 http://startup.partnerup.com
63 http://www.startupmeme.com
64 http://blog.timberry.com
65 http://www.thefrankpetersshow.com
66 http://www.growthology.org/growthology
67 http://www.montrealtechwatch.com
68 http://www.innoeco.com
69 http://founderresearch.blogspot.com
70 http://canentrepreneur.blogspot.com
71 http://bizcoach.blogspot.com
72 http://ben.casnocha.com
73 http://www.gifthub.org
74 http://www.askthevc.com/blog
75 http://www.startupcfo.ca
76 http://blog.ecairn.com
77 http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs
78 http://blog.socaltech.com
79 http://www.mvmpartners.com/blog
80 http://www.nivi.com/blog
81 http://www.allantyoung.com
82 http://coheda.typepad.com/israel
83 http://www.christine.net
84 http://www.vcrants.com
85 http://www.tjacobi.com
86 http://blogs.forrester.com/colony
87 http://www.adeoressi.com
88 http://commonangels.wordpress.com
89 http://vcinjerusalem.typepad.com/vcinjerusalem
90 http://wallen.typepad.com/wallen
91 http://thoughtsprevail.blogspot.com
92 http://www.infochachkie.com
93 http://www.afpr.com
94 http://www.epicchange.org/blog
95 http://blog.bootuplabs.com
96 http://www.skollonline.com/blog
97 http://www.dorm-room-biz.com
98 http://www.vccafe.com
99 http://marktomarket.typepad.com/marktomarket
100 http://blog.marsdd.com
101 http://www.altgate.com/blog
102 http://www.jasonmendelson.com/blog
103 http://www.wellingtonfund.com/blog
104 http://english.martinvarsavsky.net
105 http://www.socialmediaclub.org
106 http://www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com/blog
107 http://www.delbourg-delphis.com
108 http://vcratings.thedealblogs.com
109 http://www.unleashingideas.org/blog
110 http://www.energybyte.com/blog
111 http://www.venturedig.com
112 http://www.microcapital.org
113 http://www.theequitykicker.com
114 http://www.theclosetentrepreneur.com
115 http://presspass.entrepreneur.com
116 http://shiftingcareers.blogs.nytimes.com
117 http://www.change.gov/newsroom/blog
118 http://www.startuptweet.com
119 http://altos.typepad.com/vc
120 http://blog.bplans.com
121 http://www.churbuck.com/wordpress
122 http://www.onthecommons.org
123 http://www.zviband.com
124 http://www.businessblogwire.com
125 http://yallaguy.wordpress.com
126 http://laurent.pierssens.com
127 http://babblingvc.typepad.com/pjozefak
128 http://www.unstructuredventures.com/uv
129 http://www.floridaventureblog.com
130 http://www.leveragingideas.com
131 http://www.allthingscahill.com
132 http://www.stetoscope-blog.com
133 http://www.johngannonblog.com
134 http://everythingstartup.blogspot.com
135 http://www.thepomoblog.com
136 http://www.smallbusinessbrief.com
137 http://www.austinstartup.com
138 http://bluepointmktg.blogspot.com
139 http://www.abovethecrowd.com
140 http://schumpeterscentury.blogspot.com
141 http://vcwhisperer.blogspot.com
142 http://www.techflash.com/venture
143 http://www.appfrica.net/blog
144 http://onhollywood.goingon.com
145 http://www.ariwriter.com
146 http://www.insidevtknowledgeworks.com
147 http://www.socialcapitalmarkets.net/blog
148 http://thebostonentrepreneur.wordpress.com
149 http://www.startupweekend.com
150 http://microfranchising.blogspot.com



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Why you should hire me as a trusted advisor

Your business needs a trusted advisor to make sure the relationship between the various stakeholders stays healthy.

A business by nature is always in transition, trying to get from one phase of the life-cycle to the next:

• creation

• growth

• stability

• closure of some sort: dissolution, merger, IPO etc...

Each of these phases require a team with a different set of skills.

And then when the transition from one phase to the other is achieved, the team needs to get re-organized to meet the requirements of the new phase the business is in.

In addition to and independently from the internal tensions created by this constant change, there are natural tensions between the various stakeholders.

And there are many of them:

• entrepreneur
• employees
• customers
• investors
• suppliers
• vendors
• external contractors
• other legal and fiscal stakeholders
  

 

Of course, you can always manage the tensions through open communication, and most of the time this is good enough. This is where a strong company culture makes a big difference, because everybody's interest tends to be more aligned, thus minimizing the risk of friction. 

But then again and typically over time untold issues accumulate. Some problems will disappear because the people involved will leave, but some tension will also slowly build up because not everybody has the option of getting out: investors need an exit strategy, the entrepreneur needs a transition plan, etc...

This is when you need a trusted advisor: think of it as your doctor, and as doing regular checkups. 

When it comes to your health, you would probably agree that prevention is better than waiting until the problem starts surfacing. 

Similarly for a business it is much better to check the health of the relationships within the business rather than wait until the business is in trouble.

And the person you need should be from the outside, free of any potential conflict of interest so that the all stakeholders can have a truly open discussion with him/her.

It should not be the company lawyer, because you would not want him to know too much about you personally. 

It should not be the company CPA because you may want to keep your own financial issues for yourself. 

It should be somebody at the heart of the business ecosystem that all stakeholders can trust without second thoughts. Somebody who can pull in the necessary resources and work with them to help resolve issues without being responsible for the direct execution a specific task (which may create conflict of interest). The general contractor who will coordinate the work between the architect and the various contractors on the job.

What you will get

• A trusted advisor who will listen and can bring into the discussion his own prospective from many years of business experience

• A trusted neutral third party to provide mediation between all the stakeholders within the business ecosystem at large

If you agree that your business would be better off with such a person, please contact me: marc at dangeard dot com

The Entrepreneur Commons concept submitted on Change.org was featured on the social entrepreneurship blog here.

Check it out if you want more details on how the idea came and how the Obama administration could help entrepreneurs.
If you like what you read, please vote for the idea here:
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/sponsor_a_structure_for_entrepreneurs_to_support_entrepreneurs
Click on the "Vote" button showing the current number of votes.

And then don't forget to forward the info to your friends, as we need a lot more votes if we want to make it to the top 10.

Thank you for your help :-)

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Please support Entrepreneur Commons on Change.org

I'm not sure if you've heard, but there's a movement of citizens inspired by the presidential campaign who are now submitting ideas for how they think the Obama Administration should change America. It's called "Ideas for Change in America."

I've submitted an idea and wanted to see if you could quickly vote for it. The title is:

Sponsor a structure for entrepreneurs to support entrepreneurs

You can read and vote for the idea by clicking here.

The top 10 ideas are going to be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day and will be supported by a national lobbying campaign run by Change.org, MySpace, and more than a dozen leading nonprofits after the Inauguration. So each idea has a real chance at becoming policy.

Can you click here to support Entrepreneur Commons?

And feel free to spread the word :-)

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Top Twitter Social Entrepreneurs

I made it into the Top Twitter Social Entrepreneurs list by Nathaniel Whittemore
Thank you for this honor :-)

Here is Nathaniel's list:

Name - Erik Hersman
Twitter - @whiteafrican
Why You Should Follow - Founder of Ushahidi, blogger at AfriGadget and WhiteAfrican, all around smart guy and great tracker of the African technology and innovation

Name - Guy Kawasaki
Twitter - @guykawasaki
Why You Should Follow - Founder of Alltop, social media evangelist and best selling author on entrepreneurship, tweets regularly with practical advice for traditional and social entrepreneurs

Name - Vanessa Mason
Twitter - @vanessamason
Why You Should Follow - Blogger and tracker about all things global health, international development, and creative solutions to poverty and inequality

Name - Marc Dangeard
Twitter - @mdangear
Why You Should Follow - Founder of Entrepreneur Commons and general advisor to social entrepreneurs

Name - Joe Solomon
Twitter - @engagejoe
Why You Should Follow - Social media consultant working with Social Actions, Joe's Twitter stream is a hub for all online social innovation

Name - VCTips
Twitter - @vctips
Why You Should Follow - An aggregator of great tips for those entrepreneurs who are pitching or looking to pitch to venture firms and angel investors

Name - Jon Gosier / Appfrica
Twitter - @appfrica
Why You Should Follow - Jon's Appfrica project does a phenomenal job keeping track of social technology innovations with ramifications for the developing world

Name - Social Entrepreneurship at Change.org / Nathaniel Whittemore
Twitter - @socialentrprnr
Why You Should Follow - Our official Socialentrepreneurship.change.org Twitter account - get updated about new posts and interesting projects

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Peer to peer lending for sustainable capitalism (in French)

Interview by David Bourgeois, COO of Altik - here

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Direct Territories

After his essay on Direct Economy, Xavier Comtesse is coming out with a new essay (in French for now) on Direct Territories.
Here a summary of the essay:

Summary


Territories as defined by government have become disconnected from the ecosystems in which people and business live and work. New ways of communicating have created an additional layer on top of these territories and ecosystems, ultimately defining new territories in which we have to coexist.
These new ways of communicating have also created a culture of participation.
As a result, governments need to reconsider their processes, they need to foster participation and learn to manage collaboration between multiple stakeholders from both the public and private sector. Rather than deregulation, this calls for a redefinition of the role of government, and of the culture we share.


Findings

Material - our physical world has evolved:
- For the longest time, territories were an administrative mapping of geographical regions.
- More recently, business ecosystems have appeared in metropolitan areas, and they typically overlap several administrative areas, creating a layer on top of the original mapping, and adding a level of complexity in the management of geographical communities.
- As a result, the administration of the physical space, and the power over what can be done where, is a conversation between multiple stakeholder that are a mix of private and public organizations.
- In addition people and companies are more mobile now than they used to be. This means that there is competition between various regions of the world through the ability of those involved to choose where they go. The conversation cannot be a one way conversation, it requires a participative process.

Immaterial - our life also happens online:
- The latest progress in telecommunication, with ubiquitous access to information enabling telecommuting, is redefining the concept of "community center". People can work from home, they can work while they are on the move (airports, hotels, cafes, etc...), the center is now a virtual place that does not necessarily map to a physical place. Yet another layer has been built on top of physical territories.
- the emergence of online communities, and of online tools to manage the collaboration between users, have created a culture of participation.

New territories - material
Where the material meets the immaterial at the most basic level is in the house, where it is now possible to navigate between the physical and the virtual space, to be in many locations at once. And therefore this is where we should look to define new territories we live in, looking at the use of the space in the house and how it creates new infrastructure requirements to better serve individuals and the community around them.

New territories - immaterial:
To foster the participation that people have come to expect, we need to implement the following:
- direct economy: involving the consumer in the value chain
- direct knowledge: involving the student in the learning process
- direct content: involving the user in the production of content
- e-government: online access to public document and online transactions
- ubiquitous connectivity: wifi or wimax everywhere
- geotags: virtual tags for physical places
- digital spaces: internet cafes, creative corners
- techno-squares: technology in public spaces
- new services: for example digital books allowing shared comments and notes
- Thinktanks open to citizens
- Digital governance: joint efforts involving multiple stakeholders from the public and private sector, managed in total transparency

Meeting these new requirements create challenges on the government side:
- grassroot power vs hierarchy
- bridging the digital gap
- government as a process rather than a solution
- from enforcement to engagement
- re-defining the role of politicians
- measuring intangibles
- re-emphasizing culture

More specifically government must foster participation through the following:
- manage change
- map the various existing layers on top of the new territories
- establish common values
- push for results
- get stakeholders buy-in
- establish a core group before allowing others interested players into the conversation
- favor a pragmatic approach rather than a decision process based on ideology
- share best practices across the various new territories
- measure progress and results

To conclude, the emergence of new territories creates the need for an evolution from democracy as we know it to participative democracy, with an unavoidable overlap between the 2 systems while they coexist, which will create tensions. But rather than deregulation, it calls for a redefinition of the role of government and of the culture we share.
A lot of work still remains to be done and we should be ready for exciting times to come...

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Global Entrepreneurship week - Nov. 17-23, 2008

Global Entrepreneurship week is next week.
I have submitted a challenge - change the world in one minute.
Can you do this?

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The VC model is broken - the word is getting out

Just got this PPT from VentureBeat :-)

One year after I discussed the end of the VC era (see my previous post here), I am happy to report that the word is now officially out, and the following powerpoint says it all. The one issue where help is really needed is Seed investment, and because unfortunately, as I also discussed earlier in this blog (here) Angels are not the answer. I have started Entrepreneur Commons as a way to try to resolve the issue, this latest post from VentureBeat will certainly help build momentum :-)

TheFunded - Canarie

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: investing vc)

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What is a Social Business?

I have seen all kinds of definitions for a Social Business, and often times quite narrow ones specifically focusing on the issue of poverty in developing countries. And while this is important, there are many other issues we need to deal with, and this is why I prefer the broader view:
To me a social business is any business who is focused NOT on maximizing profit BUT RATHER on maximizing Social Capital within the ecosystem it exists in, using the broad definition of Social Capital to be the credibility you have within your community.
I believe that this is the kind of business we need to change the world beyond the focus on poverty and to resolve the broader set of economical and ecological challenges we are facing today.

And to help with the process, I like the idea of trying to come up with an index that would help us evaluate the social capital of people or organization. One simple measure that you can try to optimize (because this is human, we like to optimize things and competition is healthy). I am exploring the idea with the Vindex and there may be other possible options.

In the end, the main issue at this point is lack of focus on the investment side: people know how to invest in general to maximize profit, but when it comes to social businesses, everybody has their own view of the world and their own goals to fulfill and matching demand (social businesses looking for cash) with offers (social investors with very precise ideas of what they think is wrong and a mission to change things) is hard at this point. And it will stay like this until there is a way to focus everybody or enough people involved that the lack of focus is compensated by shear volume (as it is in regular financial markets).

I think the 2nd is what we should try to push for: when people realize that what has gone wrong with the world is because we try to maximize profit, and when they will agree to move to maximizing social capital (=sustainable capitalism), and they start using an index that allows everybody to compare despite the lack of focus from one mission to the other, then we will have a good story to tell.
So if you want to help, get your Vindex now for you and your business and please let me know how it feels to you and others around you working on this as a measurement...

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From Jeff Jarvis in Dubai: "A fundamental reboot"

From Jeff Jarvis blog:

The environment and sustainability group — which called for “a fundamental reboot” in 2009 — said that the crisis in fuel, finance, and food were “just canaries in the coal mine. They are early warning signs that the system is not sustainable.”

And then:

innovation and creation and invention are the real cures and the real means for growth and I hope we concentrate on them. WEF head Klaus Schwab does address the theme in his closing: “entrepreneurship in the global public interest.”

I like that last bit. It would be nice that these people look into the financing of these entrepreneurs as a way to help them do a more efficient job at changing the world. Entrepreneur Commons is focusing on this, hopefully more will see the need...

Using the Vindex to track Social Capital

Since I believe Social Capital is an important measure we should focus on, I am hoping the Vindex can be a good measure of just that:

| View | Upload your own

If you like the concept and would like to explore further, please create a Vindex for yourself or your company here

Here is mine, show me yours :-)

Top 150 social media blogs

For those interested, my friends at eCairn just released their Top 150 social media blogs list here, ranked based on a relevance formula that mix topic and topology relevance - not crowdsourcing, actual science. It is always useful to see who matters...

Open Government

From www.change.gov

OPEN GOVERNMENT
It’s Your America: Share Your Ideas
The story of the campaign and this historic moment has been your story. Share your story and your ideas, and be part of bringing positive lasting change to this country.

Thank you Barrack Obama for pushing the vision...

Maximizing Social Capital

Building on the train of thoughts from my previous post on Financial Markets and Social Capital, and now that the world has a new US president that has been talking about hope and change, I would like to go back and explore further the value of focusing on Social Capital:
- it grows when you give, rather than when you take, 

- it does not decrease when you use it right,

- it is way more satisfying to build social capital than building capital. This is one of the reason why the Bill Gates and the Warren Buffett of the world get into it after they are done building their huge fortune. Because you get tired of accumulating wealth, but you never get tired of giving and helping (and unfortunately there is no immediate end to the need for it). And then they have come to realize that the world really needs it.

If capitalism as we know it got us where we are today, how about a capitalism where the focus is on maximizing social capital for those involved (entrepreneur, employees, customers, partners, investors, etc...)?

VentureBeat talking about Social Capital - the word is getting out

Chris Morrison in VentrureBeat just published a post asking "Will Social Capital be the next big industry to emerge?"

I believe that the answer is Yes, but there is a need to clarify how we can go about it:

Going back to Blended Capital as discussed in the post, there is one big issue that has not been resolved yet is what is it exactly? While everybody understand at a high level the concept, or what some other people call double or triple bottom line, it is very hard from the investor prospective to figure out what you can expect from it. You know you will get less return, but how much and how do you figure out good deals and bad deals? There is an issue of estimation and measurement of success that still needs to be resolved.

One way to deal with this is what we are doing with Entrepreneur Commons (www.entrepreneurcommons.org), using debt instead of equity. Because equity creates tension between the investor and the entrepreneur, for example by forcing the issue of exit: the investor needs his money back at some point, but who do you sell too, and should you really? (the Ben& Jerry things)
With debt, everything becomes a lot easier: you know exactly when you will get your money back and how much you will get, and you can benchmark this against the market to decide whether you are comfortable with a given rate for a given "mission".

In addition to clarifying the issue, debt is a good thing because we have historical data on what can be done. Microfinance is for a big part about helping entrepreneurs in developing countries. This is debt to finance small businesses.
And "Social Capital" in the US can be done the same way, with the difference that you need more than a few dollars to help an entrepreneur here. And the good news here is that you do not need huge amounts of money in the US either: according to Inc Magazine, and looking at their Top 5000 fastest growing companies, the average capital to get started for companies in the list is $25K, and if you look at their top 500 it is $75K.
The default rates from Grammen Bank (microfinance) are 1 to 5%, so very manageable, and there is no reason why we could not do as good in developped countries.

So there is an opportunity to make a big impact, and I am convinced that Social Capital is the next big thing because we have no other choice if we want to world to become a better place...

Originally posted as a comment by mdangear on VentureBeat using Disqus.

Entrepreneur Commons Emergency Fund

From the Entrepreneur Commons website:

While Entrepreneur Commons has been focusing on early stage investment, special situations call for special action and we are considering raising an emergency fund for Entrepreneurs with existing businesses and existing customers who are now being left without credit options because of the current financial crisis.

In order to confirm the size of the need and opportunity for funding, we are asking entrepreneurs and investors to fill out the following survey:

If you are an entrepreneur - click here

If you are an investor - click here

If you are in France, a similar survey has been launched to see what could be done specifically for entrepreneurs there:
http://www.les-entrepreneurs-pour-la-relance.org/

Let's get some action going!

Entrepreneur Commons presentation at Socap08

Socap2008

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: entrepreneur commons)

Entrepreneur Commons presentation at Socap2008


SlideShare Link

HP CMO says it all: Brands need to utilize their own "networks"

A great short video on how Brands should realize they now have a direct access to their customers and their ecosystem, and they should listen and engage.
Check it out...

Time for companies large and small to think about their Social Network Support system. And a good opportunity for me to plug in my friends at eCairn - www.ecairn.com :-)

Interesting article on the future of VCs

From Cyril Demaria:
For the first time since 1978, there was no venture capital-backed IPO in the US during a quarter, making the second quarter of 2008 the worst on the EVCA records. This was attributed to the consequences of the liquidity crisis - but is this so? In October 2006, Steve Dow already launched a first statement which rippled through the venture capital sphere, by declaring that the venture capital model was 'broken'. Too much money chasing too few deals, not enough exits, no real perspectives of substantial profits on the short term: the diagnosis was severe, especially from this seasoned partner at Sevin Rosen. This was in fact the mark of a much needed revolution in the venture capital world [click here to read more].

Building Blocks for a New Kind of Venture Capital

The Entrepreneur Commons mentioned on Igniter.com in a post discussing the components that would make up core building blocks for a new kind of venture capital:

The key in this lies in the interdependence between the micro-funds and the commons. The commons nutures and convenes community. Funds add some fuel and spark by investing and catlyzing conversations. The ventures serve themselves through supporting each other and participating in the commons.
I’m continuing to refine this as I move toward a working example and will continue to think out loud as I go. And if you haven’t checked it out - take a look at the Entrepreneur Commons being led by Marc Dangeard. He’s farther along and is tackling similar issues as he goes. The similarities and even more so, the differences, are interesting and good fodder for conversation.IGNITER, Oct 2008

Check out the whole article.

Entrepreneur Commons in Les Echos

Les Echos (French equivalent of Financial Times) just published an article on Entrepreneur Commons. You can read it here (in French)

Reframeit!

Just downloaded the Firefox extension from Reframeit.
This is a great tool that allows you to comment on any page on the web, and see comments by others. It should make the experience of reading the news (for example, it apply to any content really) way more interesting.
I like that you can create group that are public or private to share your comments with people who care about one issue or another.
Another great step forward for us users...

Take away from Socap2008

I was at Socap2008 today, and the one thing I will remember from the sessions I attended is this recommendation to people who want to change the world to "follow the money":
great entrepreneurs like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett are doing philanthropy because they recognize that there are things to do beyond building great companies that make a lot of money. And when they decide to address an issue, it becomes an important issue for the rest of the world.
This is excellent news...

The one flag I have on this is that this process feels like it may be fishing in the dark: if you take a flashlight and point towards the water, you will attract a lot of fish. But if your goal is to remove all fish from the pond it may not be the best way. What happens to things that are not important to the rich guys?

It is great that people at the top of the pyramid are helping people at the bottom, there should be one more things they do when they get into it: instead of (or in addition to) focusing on "mission driven" efforts and on addressing specific issues, they should also consider investing in platforms (people, basic infrastructure) that will allow people who need help to help themselves.

For example: funding non-profit (that I see as beta test programs to establish blueprints), then help them evolve from cost centers to zero-cost or profitable centers by either becoming for-profits (as happened with micro-finance, MFI being turned into profitable businesses) or becoming programs that are licensed to the government because they are fixing social issues better than how the government was doing before (as Tom Siebel is doing with the Meth Project).

I believe that this is what Muhammad Yunus recommends when it talks about creating hybrid structures. And this is where philanthro-capital really will meet social capital.

And since this is my blog: if you are Bill Gates and you are reading this, this is why you should consider invest in the Entrepreneur Commons :-)

The Entrepreneur Commons on Change.org

From Nathaniel Whittemore on Change.org:

What if peer-to-peer loans weren’t just a tool of international development? What if, even more, they were about more than individuals? What if peer-to-peer loans could be leveraged to create communities of support and opportunity around innovative enterprises?
Marc Dangeard is building Entrepreneur Commons to do just that.

Read more...

Financial Markets and Social Capital

At a time when Financial Markets worldwide are going crazy, you get depressed if you look at your portfolio: the capital you had accumulated in there is vaporising.
What you have left, and I love the words, is your social capital, the one that describes "trust and giving between family, friends and communities". Hopefully you have accumulated some of that if you want to be able to go through the bad times without too much hardship.
This social capital is one that grows when you give, rather than when you take, and it does not decrease when you use it right: a really wonderful thing.
What is interesting is that the same words also describes "a business serving a community purpose", and I see a lesson here that this is what we should focus on if we want to avoid going over and over again through these bubbles and busts.
The answer has been here always, in the definition of the concept itself, but we forgot to pay attention: Social Capital is where we need to look for an answer to get us out of this cycle of crisis. The success of microfinance has shown us that it is working for poverty in developing countries, it will help resolve our other issues in other places...

93% of americans want companies to have a presence on Social Media Sites

From ReadWriteWeb:

According to the 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study, 93% of Americans believe that a company should have a presence on social media sites and 85 percent believe that these companies should use these services to interact with consumers. Cone, a Boston-based consulting firm, also found that men are far more likely to interact with a company through social media than women are. 56% of consumers believe that a company is providing them with a better service by interacting with them on social media sites.

Thank you Dominique for pointing this one out...

Very good article on why social investment is slow to take off

From Kevin Jones and the Stanford Social Innovation Review, read this.
The article is a very good explanation of why we need efforts like the Entrepreneur Commons...

"Capitalism is a half-developed structure" - Muhammad Yunus

With the crisis happening now, the words from Muhammad Yunus "capitalism is a half-developed structure" come back to mind.

And what he develops in the first chapter of his book "Creating a world without poverty - social business and the future of capitalism" resonate even more deeply:
"Capitalism takes a narrow view of human nature, assuming that people are one-dimensional beings concerned only with the pursuit of maximum profit. The concept of the free market, as generally understood, is based on this one-dimensional human being. Mainstream free-market theory postulates that you are contributing to the society and the world in the best possible manner if you just concentrate on getting the most for yourself."

The result is supposed to be a system that self adapts to situations and self corrects because people are dedicated to that one mission of maximizing profit.
The problem is that it does not work, as we can witness now on the financial markets.
Instead of self adjustments we get regular market failures, not exactly what the intent was.

What I see happening really is that creative mathematicians have invented financial products that generate big multiples out of nowhere and purely from speculation, allowing them to rip huge profit out off businesses or real estate properties regardless of the value they truly represent. Bubbles that end up blowing up.

If we are going to fix this system, I would like to follow Muhammad Yunus train of thoughts:
"The presence of our multi-dimensional personalities means that not every business should be bound to serve the single objective of profit maximization"

This is also what Bo Burlingham puts forward when he presents "Small Giants - companies that choose to be great instead of big".

When the sun goes down somewhere, it goes up somewhere else. This crisis is an opportunity, let's hope we learn to come back to the basics of what business should be about: adding real value on the ground, rather than maximizing financial ratios.

VCs and their relationship with the entrepreneur

I read recently from a VC on the GigaOm blog:

we are also working on behalf of our limited partners to provide a return on their investment and that, in some instances, can admittedly result in a conflict of interests between us and the entrepreneur

For a VC to write this is at the minimum an understatement, there is a HUGE conflict of interest between a VC and an entrepreneur:
- the VC is paid by investors (LPs) to generate for them as much of the value as possible from a given business. What matters is how much the return will be in the end.
- Meanwhile, the Entrepreneur is trying to generate value from the business for himself.

To say that you could work in the middle to keep both happy cannot be true: if you are a VC your job is to generate as much value as possible for your LPs and nothing else. Your duty goes to fulfilling the engagement made to the person who trusted you with his/her money, no choice if you want to keep the LPs trust and your job as a VC.

What is probably true is that they may try to make it as painless as possible for the entrepreneur, but this is a very different proposition. In the end, we know where the value generated goes when VCs are involved: LPs first, whether they are comfortable with it or not.
It does not mean that you should not work with them, but clearly you should know what you are getting into...

Not everybody is loosing on Wall Street

From the New York Times:

Mr. Fishman, who has been on the job for less than three weeks, is eligible for $11.6 million in cash severance and will get to keep his $7.5 million signing bonus, according to an analysis by James F. Reda and Associates.

That's $19.1 just to show up for the job. Congratulations for the negotiation skills!
In my book, you get money when you add value, but I am not sure where and how value can be measured in this case. From what I see, the real value was in getting the contract. But if you are good enough to convince people to pay you just for being involved, good for you. In the end the blame goes to whoever agree to granting you such a big gift with no restriction.
Despite the contract, I would feel bad about taking so much money when people at the bottom are struggling, but that's just me, and probably why I am not up there with the other guys, which is fine thank you :-)
Mr Fishman is not to blame, but his case is a striking example of how screwed up the system is. No wonder Wamu ended up where they are now...
And the sad thing is that I am sure there is a lot more of this going on around Wall Street.
Hopefully this crisis will allow us to really rethink how we do things on the financial markets. What is happening is no accident, more like the normal consequence to playing too much with the numbers to the point where what we do becomes completely disconnected from the reality on the ground. Somebody messed up with the modeling and the statistics, forgetting that there are real people and real businesses behind the spreadsheets.
Forget the kids out of business school, anybody involved with finance should spend some mandatory time working in a real business with a down to earth salary before they are allowed to do what they do. Maybe this will make a difference and allow then to keep their sense of reality when they get into playing with the big numbers.
From the layoff that are happening in New York, London and all over the place, a lot of the financial guys are getting the lesson now.
Too bad we have to learn the hard way...

How Brands and their evangelists should manage blogs

Just like with the internet websites of web1.0, companies are slowly getting into social media and web2.0: many companies today have blogs, and try to establish a presence in the blogosphere through them, with the help of evangelists who monitor what is going on and mix with the crowd to spread messages. As a sign of this, Inc Magazine reports that "31% of the CEOs of their Inc500 companies maintain a blog or social network and for the most part they love them."

Having a blog is a great step forward.

Having evangelists is even better. 

The next thing is to try to manage this social media effort and retain within the enterprise the IP that is being created by the evangelists working for the company.

Because the thing with Social Media is that many people/companies have blogs, many people comment of other's people blog, and evangelists tend to have their own blogs in addition to blogging on the company website. Even regular employees (non-evangelists) have blogs, and they may also do great work for the company there. So the reality is that conversations are happening all over the place, and there is no real central place where the company can measure what is  going on, and analyze the results of the work being done over time. And there is no point is trying to bring the conversations back into a central place, because it is not going to happen. People want to do what they do where they are, not where you tell them to. 

So the next option is to at least gather in a central place references to all these conversations, thus allowing readers on the company website to travel from one discussion to another other easily. And because references to these conversations are kept in a central place, you can also measure what is happening: how many posts, how many comments in how many blogs, and how many visitors on these blogs. Data which accumulates over time to also show you the trends of your influence and your impact on the blogosphere.

Think about it as something like Delicious, except designed for blogs because bookmarks are not enough, what you want with blogs are the RSS feeds that keep the flow of posts going.

A service I use to do all this for my Entrepreneur Commons project is eCairn (www.ecairn.com - and as a disclaimer you should know that yes I am connected to this company).

Within eCairn, I started building a list of blogs that talk about entrepreneurs, VCs and funding in general. And I monitor this list on a regular basis, sometimes commenting on the blogs when it is relevant. When I do, I can tag that post, as a way to keep track of the fact that I did comment on this blog in case I want to go back.

(the RSS feed for these posts where I commented is http://conversation.ecairn.com/post/feed?key=Qf4X4Cxiw392Ri6oWewwulHfA4H6E9Nn&title=Get+the+filter%27s+RSS+feed&with_filter=49, and it is also exposed in a widget on this blog)

Doing this, I started participating in conversations happening here and there. I sometime receive replies to my comments, and I also reply to other people's comments. Everytime I do this, I add the person's blog to my list, because if they said something that was relevant to me here, they may do it again.

Over time my selection of blogs has grown from something that was based on the declared intent of the blog (blogs about entrepreneurship, VCs or funding) to a selection of blogs that includes more of the same, plus blogs from knowledgeable people who do not always blog about these specific subject, but have shown interest and some level of expertise on the subject at one point or another.

And this evolution can be tracked: I know how many blogs I started from, where I am today and how I got there; I know how many posts I found relevant through my browsing, how many I commented on, and how many new bloggers I got involved with (through their blog) from these conversations.

I can do this by myself, and I already get more than a regular RSS reader would give me, and I can include other people to do it with me: we are now several partners working on the Entrepreneur Commons project from within the eCairn service.

For any company I believe that it should be the next step forward, as a way to track what is happening on a given product, or what is happening with the brand in general. The value you get from being able to manage this process is huge, I see it as the real promise of Social Media delivered: the eCairn tool allows monitoring and engagement, the perfect backoffice tool for a marketing team.

Imagine for example that you launch a campaign:

- you can immediately measure the effect of that campaign in the blogosphere, you can reinforce the message by commenting as appropriate on blogs (or do damage control if not all goes as expected). And you can correlate the campaign to a measure of the buzz generated. 

- you can do all this as a coordinated effort, with a complete team of people involved, so that you can handle as much as you want. And when people move on to another job, the info from what they have done stays with the company. They may control their own blog, and the audience around it, but you keep track of the relevant posts that were made, the bloggers that were engaged, etc...

Outside of specific campaign, you can also do on-going work of maintaining a presence in the blogosphere, and build up the audience through engagement with bloggers. You can measure how many blogs you engaged on, which is another great indicator of the work being done by the marketing team (who they talk to, who they know, and how influential these people are - from the traffic of their blog, which gives me a feel for my addressable audience).

As I commented recently on a post from Open Forum, in addition to what the author calls the Web triumvirate (website - blog - support discussion board or forums), companies should seriously consider now adding a fourth pillar: proactive Customer Service in the form of blog monitoring and bloggers engagement - call it Blogosphere Relationship Management