Thought I'd take a minute to tell you what my friends are up to.
Bruce Kushnick is at it again; his ebook, briefly summarized in a concise post over at John Paczkowski's blog, explains how AT&T took $2B in government incentives to provide broadband to the home but never delivered.
Marm Kilpatrick, Auston Marmaduke Kilpatrick for long, has been speaking and writing all over the place. Dr. Marm is an expert on West Nile virus and in hot demand lately thanks to the bird flu. Go Mamadou!
Josh Dorf, a friend from Nicolet, cashed in his Internet chips and bought a flour company. I am curious to see whether his dot-com-savvy word-of-mouth marketing techniques will transfer. So far, sending flour to Tim O'Reilly has netted him a blog post over there. I got some too and can't wait to make cookies for Valentine's day. Who will get the cookies? Maybe they will blog about Josh too.
Ace Bhattacharjya has a really cool job at the US Tennis Association. He's creating a do-it-yourself, user-created-content website for them. He's building a social networking app to help tennis fans find other players, courts, and leagues in their area.
Maybe he can hook up with my buddy Derek Lomas, who has built a great application called Scape that companies and associations can private-label and tweak to make their own Friendster/MySpace type communities.
People who are interested in online communities should check out Diane Hessan's wonderful company Communispace, where big brands like Kraft and Pfizer can have conversations with their customers about products and marketing messages.
I can't end this post without at least a little WOMM tirade. EVERY company should have these conversations with customers, and let their customers do the talking for them, but honestly, so few do. Really. You would be absolutely shocked how few companies actually listen to their customers talk about what improvements need to be made to their wares. They think it's "too expensive". What a waste when so many people are willing to share their opinions in the hopes of getting better products and services.
Software tools like Scape Networks, online communities like Communispace, and just the everyday reality of the many-to-many nature of the web help so much with the cost, that there is really no excuse anymore. So get conversing, people! Get on the Cluetrain already, it's been five years since publication!
"Internet Chips"? where were we supposed to pick those up?
Posted by: Josh | February 04, 2006 at 07:36 PM
Good question. I never got any, but I always assume everybody else did.
Posted by: Iz | February 15, 2006 at 05:55 AM