Christopher Carfi

November 18, 2004

Knowledgeswarming

So, the whole “bloggers vs. journalists” debate was getting a little tired from my point of view, and I just figured out why. It was getting tired because that debate doesn’t matter. It is trivial in comparison to a more fundamental change that is taking place.

The cost of publishing has effectively dropped to zero for any individual.
The cost of aggregating information that has been published by others has effectively dropped to zero for any individual.
For any information topic of interest, there are people who are passionate about it, who will share their passion and knowledge for free.

Now put those three things together and make a picture. Stand back and look at it. The picture I see is the following: if you are in any role where the only thing you provide is information that is available from publicly available sources, your industry is about to experience a tectonic shift. The only reason this came out first in journalism is because journalists have the barrels of ink.

This “knowledgeswarming” has been taking place for years in areas where there are a large number of individuals who are passionate about a topic. Usenet and other online forums are great examples of this. The twin problems, however, were the barriers to both publishing and accessing the information in these areas, since some level of technical acumen and knowledge of technical arcana were required to participate. No longer. Now, anyone can publish anything with two clicks, and anyone can aggregate information on their myYahoo page.

An industry that is about to be swept up in this maelstrom is the “analyst” community on both on the finanical/Wall Street side of things, as well as the high-tech industry analysts. In both cases, the attack will come from the low-end, a la Christensen, and the entrenched players will be left wondering “what happened?” if they don’t get out in front.

Historically, the Wall Street analysts have had priviliged information given to them by their clients. This made the analysts a valuable asset to their customers, since the analysts possessed information not available to the average investor. This is no longer the case since Regulation FD went into effect. Now, anything that is “material” needs to be disclosed publicly, without any preferential treatment given to analysts, insiders, or anyone else. In other words, the analysts are now getting their information from company press releases. Just like you and me.

Some students at Babson are starting to swarm around this idea, and are proposing an “open source” model for financial research. They feel that motivated individuals, working in concert, can provide the same (or better) research than the sell-side analysts. They are talking a lot about “mosaic theory,” and the belief that it is possible to take non-material information from a variety of sources and create meaningful observations out of it. The larger the number of contributors, the clearer the mosaic is going to be.

This model is starting to creep into the industry analyst community as well. Why pay $25K a year for Gartner, when Techdirt is blogging on the same events, and giving analysis in real time? Now take that model, and expand it out to a collaborative blog/wiki model, where users, developers, and customers are sharing information about the good, the bad, and the ugly regarding the vendors they are working with.

Oh yeah, Encyclopedia Britannica is dead, too. They just haven’t fallen down yet. The Wikipedians swarmed, and a 250 year-old company is effectively rendered obsolete.

At most, a very few hands will be required as guides. Each of these communities will require some way to ensure reputation and quality. In some cases, it makes sense to have an editorial voice ensuring that the results being generated by innumerable participants are valid. In other cases, emergent reputation management systems (think eBay) will provide the signposts.

So. Open source software has already gone this way. Journalism is trending this way (actually here’s a great example). Financial and industry analysis seem to be headed for the offramp. What other industries are next?

November 17, 2004

Tearing Down The Walls In Spokane

(via Ed Cone, Dave Winer)

Kudos to the Spokane Spokesman-Review for grabbing the clue by the horns and adding "citizen-journalists" to their team to fill in and add depth to their news coverage. These bloggers are covering nearly two dozen different beats that the Spokesman-Review would certainly not have the time or budget to cover themselves.

That’s awesome, and a great way for the S-R to put a toe in the water. Now for the really cool stuff.

What’s not been pointed out anywhere else is that the editorial board of the S-R has set up a blog to interact directly with readers and defend a number of their editorial decisions. How’s that for "transparency?" Just one example…good stuff here:

Question:
Why do the editors present their endorsement for elections and candidates? I would expect the SR to have some obligation to remain silent and/or neutral and give the news, not influence the voters. I
would assume their picks would be to further SR’s climb up the economic ladder. I know we all vote for the candidates and issues that personally affect us and our family, but the paper has a obligation to
the public, even if it is privately owned. Their endorsements, I hope, is to benefit the City of Spokane and the surrounding areas.

Answer: Daily newspapers traditionally offer election endorsements on their editorial pages. Those pages are built around the presentation of opinion. Editorial endorsements are not connected to news coverage in any way. Reporters and editors responsible for covering the news are not involved in endorsement decisions and don’t even know which candidates will be endorsed until they read the editorials in the paper. Endorsement decisions take into account candidate stands on issues on which the board has previously taken positions, take into account how cadidates match up against our published editorial values and, significantly, take into account the candidate’s ability to address the needs to
citizens in communities we serve.

In the just-completed election, we endorsed 15 Republicans and 12 Democrats, indicating our
party allegiance may be somewhat less predictable than some would
expect.

November 14, 2004

“Today, the audience is firmly in charge.”

Electronic Arts runs worker into ground. Worker’s spouse gets fed up, tells the world. Story hits resonance frequency, 2,009+ folks post comments about their experiences with EA and the rest of the industry.

(Hat Tip: Nevon)

November 12, 2004

Lexmark Printer Bonus: Alleged Spyware

Engadget is noting that Lexmark may be installing spyware along with their printers. ZDNet UK is reporting

You can read this helpful guide to find out more about how to avoid cybersecuriy threats like this.

The program sends the information, which includes print and scanning data, to the URL www.lxkcc1.com. According to the Internet Whois database, this domain name belongs to Lexmark International in Kentucky.

Let’s see how Lexmark deals with this. With they repond transparently, or will they pull a Kryptonite?

November 11, 2004

I Wonder How Jill, Buzz, Ray, and Barry Feel About That

Best Buy is revamping all of their stores to be more "customer centric." However, here’s what they mean by this:

The
company came up with five prototypical customers, all of whom have been
given names: "Jill," a busy suburban mom; "Buzz," a focused, active
younger male; "Ray," a family man who likes his technology practical;
"BB4B" (short for Best Buy for Business), a small employer; and
"Barry," an affluent professional male who’s likely to drop tens of
thousands of dollars on a home theater system.

They are now training all of their employees to identify which "segment" a customer falls into when that customer walks in the door, and are targeting each store to one or two of those prototypical customers.

Best Buy might want to listen to the heated conversation that is currently approaching a rolling boil.

UPDATE: Defining Jill, Buzz, Ray, and Barry

November 9, 2004

Transactions, Conversations, and Relationships

Great weekend at BloggerCon. In addition to meeting some outstanding folks throughout the sessions, a huge highlight was the after-conference dinner on Saturday night. Had great conversations with Doc Searls, Jerry Michalski, Elisa Camahort, and Richard Mendel-Black at the Fish Market in Palo Alto.

The "a-ha" moment was a story that Doc told over dinner, relating a plane flight he recently had during which he ended up sitting next to a Nigerian gentleman named Sayo Ajiboye. Apparently after hearing about some of the writing he had done, Ajiboye turned to Doc and said something to the effect of "you get it, much more than most people."

He then proceeded to explain what he meant.

The cultural difference, he said, boiled down to the following. In the West, a vast majority of business is concentrated on one and only one thing…the transaction.

For his culture, business relies on the transaction, yes, but also two other things: the conversation and the relationship. These three pieces work together, almost as a stack; the transaction is the lowest level and leads to the conversation, which results in a relationship. When two individuals are interacting, all three of those levels are in play.

It sounds simple, until the impact really becomes clear with the following:

"In this model, the conversation is used to develop not just the relationship, but also the transaction. Everything about the transaction, including the price, must be mutually discovered."

Think about that for a second.

"Everything about the transaction, including the price, must be mutually discovered."

The visual that pops to mind here is an archeological dig, where the transaction itself is an artifact that needs to be carefully uncovered and collaboratively dusted by the participants before its form can be seen by either of them.

With this model, the seller and buyer may mutually discover that the price should be lower, because of the circumstances and their effect on the relationship. With this model, the buyer and seller may mutually discover that the price should be higher, because it will make things better for both of them down the road.

Without all three parts, something is missing.

Update:

Second ‘graph above updated with Sayo Ajiboye’s name. Original version stated “a gentleman.”