proposal

Amel, I indicated, somewhat out of the blue, on your Blab, that I am looking for a long term (business) relationship. I came away from the Blab - and a dip into your Tweets - with a positive impression. But, as the basis for a long term business relationship, this leaves me on shaky ground. For one thing, of course, it's just an impression. I like acting on impressions a lot, but ... there's a measure of risk. It's not that I feel I am in danger - I can handle that, and mostly I don't feel that way - it's that the idea that we could partner on something is fairly absurd, on the one hand, and on the other, in some way related, is that I am baffled by your activities - how are you able to create so many Tweets, not to mention a Blab show, and what is your revenue model? ... baffling - and, perhaps more to the point, I suspect I will have trouble keeping up. Putting these things together, it seems to me the only possibility of turning my visit to your Blab into a relationship is to act decisively right now. I have decided to start telling people, when I'm networking and meeting new people in business, straight up - if I like them - the scope of what I am working on. I am building - to put it in the most affirmative way that I can - a social media system that will soon be larger by far than all of today's social media together. If you are interested in working on a project of that kind - it would be quite a serious undertaking and implies ongoing responsibilities - I would be interested in corresponding with you more about it. I will add that a serious undertaking with long term responsibilities is a dangerous undertaking, at least, if not properly understood. I acknowledge that. Analyzing that a bit further, the danger is not so much of catastrophe, which is just, in a way, the risk we take, but of finding ourselves undesirably burdened. It would certainly be important to me to take steps to avoid that kind of situation. Have you heard of the idea of a Level Three Business? I ask the question in part to attempt to show - sneaky me - that I've done a certain amount of research ... but Level Three does seem to describe the kind of systematic approach that might make the kind of undertaking I've described workable. I say all of this because the impression I have of you, right or wrong, is that you are serious, thoughtful, positive, and  uncannily capable. If all of this is true, you might be actually able to undertake something in the nature of what I have "described."

I have thought of an example of how Level Three might operate at this stage in the development of a business. We would need to agree that this is a stage in the development of a business, or at least that it could be characterized as such, so that we could identify the kinds of action that are available to us that would not be burdensome and would be maximally productive. To further characterize the nature of this stage in the development of my company, I think I would want to say that I know certain relevant things that you don't have access to, and visa versa. We cannot expect to communicate anything like the whole of what we separately know, to each other, in fact, we need to operate via an exchange of hints and suggestions about these separate realms of knowledge. I think I can interpret things yourself and your co-host were saying as being about not fixating on outcomes, but rather, seeking action, the implication being that action will take us someplace, even if unpredictably, and once we are there we can make a new assessment. This is the kind of process that we might be able to move forward, is what I'm thinking.

I feel I ought to add something else, a piece of my information that might be appropriate, might well be important, to share, that, even though it is very general in nature, is nevertheless a kind of specification. My plan is to immediately build a highly automated revenue system. I will not be more specific than that, but let me differentiate that from the other component of what I have described - a social media system - namely, a public service. The public service provides users with tools to manage communications. As such, it is very broadly purposed, and building it out will be an ongoing process. The revenue component I have conceptualized as a first project is much more narrowly purposed, so, in addition to being a starting place with inherent immediate possible value, as a business, its implementation will be possible with more limited resources. I find, upon rereading, that I need to add some detail, here. Our product is tools for communication, and our first public product must be such a tool, and it must be public. Our first product does implement, in certain specific ways, the principles we are implementing in Social Media, that is, principles of information and communication, including the fundamental principles. It will introduce users to our computing environment, but, gently, without offering a lot of options. Importantly, it promises to be entertaining. It remains to say, having said that, that it is important to me, certainly, that this first project be undertaken within the context of an expressed understanding that the context is a larger purpose.

I'll mention that I am scoping out another possible partner, Mango Apps, to whom this Blog is dedicated. They know nothing of this, and I know nothing of them, really, beyond an impression. I'm taking it slow with my research. Maybe it's laziness, or muddleheadedness, on my part, but maybe it's caution, too. Winning them as partners is an absurd thing for me to contemplate. They're practically a name I've picked from a hat - this is my way - and even a hapless victim, and, moreover, they are big enough to reject me immediately if that's what I'm up to. To turn this absurd notion into a reality will require very strategic thinking, or action. Still, they seem very able, I find myself liking them, and the feeling is holding up, and their focus on screencasting is a very interesting thing. I don't think they understand the full importance of that technology - it scares me that they don't - but their focus on it is the right instinct ... and their prowess in the field is an invaluable thing.

I'm highly amused to be finding leads on Blab. I cornered a poor guy for advice about business - seriously, I'm trying to do better - and he said I need to find a lawyer (for the purpose of writing a business plan). I asked him, then, if he thought I could find a lawyer online, but it really was more of a challenge than a question. Out of sheer orneriness it has been my plan for some time to build my business entirely online. I like, love, impossible problems. I insist on working on them, and regard the possible ones as ... I'm not sure what I want to say ... not uninteresting ... in some way suspect. I'm pretty strongly inclined towards magical thinking, and, I have to say, my life turns out to be something of a miracle. But, I had sort of given up on finding a lawyer ... and then there was Robert Myers on your Blab. We actually talked a bit, via the Chat. So, I have been thinking about how to write something to him. I've made my pitch, here, so it doesn't need to be that.

Best