"I was the guy who coined "markets are conversations," which became the
first thesis in the Cluetrain Manifesto (which went on to become a
business bestseller). Go to Google and look up that phrase, and
Cluetrain. See what happened.
"Today I believe markets are also relationships. In fact, I think
relationship management is the next killer activity, if not the next
killer app outright.
"With ORGware, Open Resource Group is going after a wide and ready-made
slice of the relationship pie: membership. They support the growth and
management of membership organizations, including the persistent
commitments and contributions that define and substantiate active
membership.
"They're building a base of open source code, which is necessary for
rapid adoption and proliferation in the marketplace, and for creating
critical new market-infrastructure building material. As both a service
organization and the original source of ORGware's code, Open Resource
Group will have both authorial and first mover advantages in a market
of its own making.
"I therefore have high hopes for their success in that market."
It would be nice if I had one career role. But I don't. That would be too normal. So here's what I play:
- Senior editor for Linux Journal, the original (and still the leading) Linux publication.
- Proprietor of Doc Searls' IT Garage, a group journal published by Linux Journal's parent company, SSC.
- Visiting Fellow at the Center for Information Technology & Society at UC Santa Barbara. There my current focus is on work toward a book titled The Giant Zero.
- Fellow with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. There I head ProjectVRM.
- One of the four authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto, the iconoclastic web site that became the best-selling book.
- A radio veteran from way back (that's where the "Doc" nickname came from). I'm a regular on the Gillmor Gang
podcast and on Steve Gillmor's Attention Deficit Theatre (which has no
URL yet, but will). I also park the occasional personal podcast at doc.searls.com.
- A marketing, PR and advertising veteran. Most notably I
co-founded Hodskins Simone and Searls, which was born in North Carolina
in the late '70s and grew in the late '80s and early '90s to become one
of Silicon Valley's top advertising and public relations agencies.
(HS&S was absorbed by Publicis Technology in 1998.)
- A lifelong writer whose byline has appeared in OMNI, Wired, PC Magazine, The Standard, The Sun, Upside, The Globe & Mail, Release 1.0 and lots of other places, including (of course) Linux Journal. Some archives are collected at Reality 2.0, which is at my personal portal, Searls.com, which is also home to my consultancy, The Searls Group.
- A frequent speaker on any and all the above subjects. Here is my profile (now getting real old and in need of updating) at the agency that handles my gigs, Leading Authorities.
In addition to Open Resource Group, LLC, I consult, or am on the advisory boards of Jabber, Inc., Ping Identity Corp., Top Ten Sources, Tabblo, Socialtext, Rave Wireless, SpikeSource, Dabble and Technorati. Some (far from all) involve equity. My other (pathetically small) stock holdings are in funds.
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