Printable Archive of Issues 01-09

Rants and Raves newsletter #01*
"The nanocorp adventure begins..."

Table of Contents

1. Welcome to Jim and Timlynn's Business Adventure
2. What's a nanocorp?
3. Surfing a nanocorp - Master Webring of the Nanocorps
4. Where we're headed
5. Keeping in touch and spreading the word

1
Welcome to Jim and Timlynn's Business Adventure

Thank you for reading,
Jim Salmons and Timlynn Babitsky
Hosts
http://sohodojo.com
Home of the nanocorp and small business revolutionaries

P.S. This kick-off issue is long on raves, (mostly enthusiastic stuff on what this is all about), and short on rants (like how software vendors site license pricing amounts to de facto discrimination against small businesses). We promise to provide a balance of rants AND raves in upcoming issues.

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What's a nanocorp?

3
Surfing a nanocorp - Master Webring of the Nanocorps

• sohodojo.com
• squirrelfeeders.com
• popculturestore.com
• sailabaco.com

We won't go into greater detail here. You'll find everything you need to know by taking the ride... the place to start is here:

http://sohodojo.com/the_nanocorps_webring.html

Of course we would love to hear what you think. We've made giving us a piece of your mind easy at all our sites. Just remember, if you see something that irritates or confuses you, fork us. (You'll know what we mean when you surf our sites.) If you are provoked one way or another to reflect or amplify on the ideas of the nanocorp, joins us in the open forum discussions at:

http://sohodojo.com/scripts/Ultimate.cgi

And if all else fails or you just want to contact us personally, please do not hesitate to drop us a note by e-mail. You can reach both Jim and Timlynn with a note sent to:

Contact us.

4
Where we're headed

5
Keeping in touch and spreading the word

1. The 'Few Heads - Many Hats' nanocorp management dilemma
2. Why nanocorps? Why now?
3. Points of interest at the dojo

1
The 'Few Heads - Many Hats' nanocorp management dilemma - A preliminary report...

But alas, Avantos bit the dust. However, ManagePro, at its long-standing version 3.2 is still available in both single-user and multi-user versions at http://www.managepro.com. (Performance Solutions Technology, LLC. of Seal Beach, California, acquired rights to this still-brilliant piece of software. They offer a 30-day free trial version.)

ManagePro still has one of the most innovative, user-configurable user interface frameworks of ANY commercial software we have seen. For this reason, ManagePro is in our 'Software Hall of Fame'.

In search of a nanocorp-friendly team-management software solution

When we tried to use the multi-user version of ManagePro on our current TCP/IP-based intranet, we hit a bump. (Note: If you don't need multi-user access or you are on a more traditional corporate LAN, take a look at ManagePro for your project management needs.)

So, with ManagePro as our standard, we went looking for an Internet-aware, multi-user, team-oriented, role-based project and task management software solution to our nanocorp many-hats problem.

WE KISSED A LOT OF FROGS SO YOU WON'T HAVE TO! Jim spent the better part of his waking hours for five days downloading, installing and testing every piece of project management, team management, time management and personal information management software he could get his hands on. The effort was agonizing, but enlightening.

Bottom line? We have a front-running candidate for the JFS Consulting nanocorp management system! We'll identify it in next week's newsletter and have more to say about it then. In the meantime, we'll admit to our TOTAL surprise that both the first and second place solution candidates are JAVA-based!?!?

2
Why nanocorps? Why now?

3
Points of interest at the dojo

    http://sohodojo.com/newsletters.html

The premiere issue of Rants and Raves contains a (relatively) cogent explanation of 'What is a nanocorp?' and introduces our nanocorp, JFS Consulting, as a prototypical 'ruthless small' diversified corporate conglomerate.

Sohodojo-sponsored webrings

Sohodojo hosts two webrings; one to showcase nanocorps and their subsidiary web businesses and the other to humorously encourage website integrity through the solicitation of strong negative feedback and suggestions.

The Master WebRing of the Nanocorps is a 'ring of rings' where individual nanocorps showcase their subsidiary web businesses. Each nanocorp links to the ring through an 'Open Business Model' doorway page, and each of the nanocorp's subsidiary businesses link to their respective sub-ring through an Open Business Model page as well. You'll find the homepage for the Master Webring of the Nanocorps at:

    http://sohodojo.com/the_nanocorps_webring.html

The Open Fork Alliance, while not exclusive to nanocorps, serves member sites which are dedicated to an "Open Fork Policy"... that is, we fully disclose and resolve any 'Fork-O-Grams' sent to our sites via the 'Fork-O-Gram' service provided by the good folks at forkinthehead.com .... because flawed websites deserve a fork in the head!

Since a nanocorp is only as good as the personal reputations of its founder/owner/only-employees, it follows that nanocorp-owned websites are seriously interested in ensuring the highest quality of a website visit. Visitor relations are paramount.

You will find the homepage for The Open Fork Alliance at:

    http://sohodojo.com/ofa.html

Have you tried the best mind-food on the Web?

You haven't lived until you taste our RIBS? That's Really Important Books and Stuff. Like fifty zillion other sites on the web, we are an Amazon Associate (USA and UK). We've put together the essential nanocorper reading list which you will find at:

    http://www.sohodojo.com/bookstore_list.html

Particularly appropriate to these first two issues of the newsletter, you should consider reading Faith Popcorn's "Clicking: 17 Trends that drive your business -- and your life."

And for a wonderful 'heady' read, either for the first time or if you haven't read it since its early seventies publication, we suggest Buckminster Fuller's "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth." The insights you will reap from this book with regard to the dynamics shaping the Internet-based information-services economy make it a perfect read for the New Millennium.

As always, thanks for reading this issue of sohodojo's Rants and Raves newsletter,
    --Jim Salmons and Timlynn Babitsky--
    Hosts, Sohodojo

Rants and Raves newsletter #03
"Software industry pricing stinks..."

Welcome to the third issue of sohodojo's Rants and Raves newsletter. Our first two issues were heavy on 'stake in the ground' explanations of who we are and what we are doing. We introduced the fundamental ideas about the nanocorp and our vision of an emerging dimension to the Internet-based small business revolution. (If you missed these grounding issues, you'll find them at http://sohodojo.com/newsletters.html.)

In this issue, we finally get down to a little ranting and raving...

Table of Contents

1. The 'Few Heads - Many Hats' dilemma - And the winners are...
2. Software product pricing discriminates against small business

1
The 'Few Heads - Many Hats' dilemma - And the winners are...

It was no contest in terms of which currently available software solution most closely fits our requirements for a nanocorp time and resource management system. Netmosphere's ActionPlan and Project Home Page (http://www.netmosphere.com) is an exciting product offering.

We are aggressively putting the downloadable, 30-day trial ActionPlan and Project Home Page to immediate use at JFS Consulting, the nanocorp parent company of Sohodojo, (http://jfsconsulting.com/home/nanocorp_welcome.html). We were pleasantly impressed with the point-and-click simplicity of the installation of what is admittedly a non-trivial distributed software solution. Netmosphere clearly has its development and deployment hats on straight.

With its hierarchical decomposition of projects and tasks, ActionPlan fits the intuitive nature of how most people plan and implement team-based, evolutionary projects. In this regard, Netmosphere's ActionPlan is not unlike many project management solutions which use an 'outline processor' approach of indent-nested tasks to decompose complexity.

When you add tight integration to Netmosphere's Project Home Page product, the features in Netmosphere's favor start to out-distance the competition. Project Home Page conveniently generates project-specific websites to keep each of the various audiences interested in a project dynamically informed. This feature alone is intriguing for our Internet-enabled 'Open Business Model' approach to nanocorp management.

But the SINGLE BIGGEST FACTOR IN FAVOR OF NETMOSPHERE'S OFFERING is its explicit support for both ROLES and PEOPLE. As intuitively obvious as this modeling distinction is, it is amazing that no other project management software solution we evaluated made as clear and clean an implementation of this important aspect of project planning and implementation.

While direct assignment of people to tasks is supported, ActionPlan encourages project planners to model task assignments to roles. At project implementation, the project manager is provided an interface to assign persons to roles in fulfillment of a task's resource requirement. One-to-many proportional assignment of actor-persons to a task's role assignment is supported. And for large enterprise applications, task-role assignment based on an LDAP skill-based resource pool directory service is supported.

Bottom line? The Netmosphere folks get it.

The features that distinguish ActionPlan as our front-running nanocorp management solution convince us that the Netmosphere developers are both thoughtful designers and competent implementers. Let's just hope that the Java-based UI framework they depend upon gets a whole lot better about implementing the look and feel of its host operating system's native user interface widgets.

We look forward to showing and telling you more about our experiences working with this exciting solution.

Runner-up Koeslon weaves an interesting tale for the future

Our runner-up award is in recognition of potential rather than from hands-on experience. We believe that executable business modeling technology will be the foundation on which successful nanocorps are built. So it is not surprising that we clicked with the content of the Koeslon BusinessThreads website (http://www.koeslon.com).

We have a long-standing interest in role-based executable business modeling software technology. Currently, we pursue this interest with a focus on ZOPE, the Python-based server technology. (For more, see the 'ZOPE, Mirror Worlds and executable business models' section of sohodojo's forums at http://sohodojo.com/scripts/Ultimate.cgi.)

We'll forgive Koeslon that its product, too, is Java-based. But given that all Koeslon job postings conspicuously suggest that either Java or Smalltalk backgrounds satisfy experience requirements, you get the impression that Koeslon founders, David Bolene and Frank Ennis, have their heads in the right place.

BusinessThreads is an executable business modeling technology based on a demand-response and value exchange meta-model. According to their website, BusinessThreads' frameworks accommodate role-based executable business models like those of interest to us, here at sohodojo.

But alas, this Austin-based start-up does not yet have a 'try before you buy' downloadable implementation of their solution offering. So we cannot speak from hands-on experience. Initial exploratory discussions with co-founder Frank Ennis are promising, however. So we look forward to reporting further developments along this thread.

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Software product pricing discriminates against small business

The recent PC Magazine profile of Sohodojo in Bill Machrone's column, Web Success Formula, has spiked site visits and newsletter subscriptions to new highs. For more on this exciting development, see our news item.

Table of Contents

1. Have you done a ClickSpread Analysis of your business?
2. We are not alone! Welcome Lifecast.net to the nanocorp webring.
3. The Open Fork Alliance - How's it working?
4. The 'Few Heads - Many Hats' Dilemma - Netmosphere update...

1
Have you done a ClickSpread Analysis of your business?

Madison Avenue marketing guru, Faith Popcorn, and her BrainReserve have identified seventeen social trends driving consumer behavior.

Popcorn's guideline says a business needs four or more trends supporting it to "click" for sustained success.

Inspired by Popcorn's insight, we developed our ClickSpread Analysis technique to assess and plan the strategies and marketing messages of the subsidiary businesses of the JFS Consulting nanocorp.

Popcorn's trends and nanocorp strategy

The seventeen Popcorn trends are: 99 lives, anchoring, atmosfear, being alive, cashing out, clanning, cocooning, down-aging, egonomics, eveolution, fantasy adventure, icon toppling, mancipation, pleasure revenge, small indulgences, S.O.S. (Save Our Society), and vigilante consumer. Buzz-words aplenty. And a cogent summarization of market dynamics which affect your business and life around you.

We won't take the space to summarize the trends here. But don't let that understate their importance. Our on-line ClickSpread Analysis of the JFS Consulting nanocorp has links to each of the trend profile pages at the BrainReserve site. If you haven't read the book, take the time to explore the trend summary links on-line. Then read the book at leisure. (Go to the dojo's bookstore for more about Clicking).

Why are the Popcorn trends so important to tiny diversified corporate conglomerates? Well, more often than not, nanocorps have big ideas and small budgets.

Nanocorpers need to be savvy marketers. We cannot afford to believe that our better mousetraps will succeed on merit alone. Nor do we expect to push our products and services into the marketplace on the crest of a competitive advertising budget.

We have to fine-tune our strategies and messages to the dynamics of the marketplace. We don't own the wave, we ride it.

If you take the time to understand your customers and partners in terms of Popcorn's consumer dynamics, you will be a long way toward keeping the business you have while tapping into new opportunities.

ClickSpread Analysis... as easy as 1, 2, 3.

ClickSpread Analysis is not rocket science. Deceptively simple, its real value is in the effort you put into developing and interpreting the ClickSpread table.

(Note: You don't have to be running a nanocorp to use ClickSpread Analysis. We use our nanocorp's subsidiary businesses for the columns of our table. You might create columns representing alternative strategies to address a business objective.)

Here's all there is to doing a ClickSpread Analysis:

1. Create a table; one row for each of the Popcorn Trends, a column for each of your nanocorp's subsidiary businesses.
2. On a scale of one (low) to three (high), rate the importance of each of the trends to your business strategies and marketing messages.
3. Look at the table. Consider your "market magnet pattern".

What you get out of doing a ClickSpread Analysis is totally dependent on your own efforts to capture and ruthlessly interpret what's really going on in your business plans and marketing messages. Be honest about your trend cell weights. For example, we don't track "1" ratings for the JFS Consulting nanocorp analysis. We feel that such a weak rating on any trend can lead to a false sense of trend coverage.

As you ponder your ClickSpread table, ask yourself revealing questions such as:

• How many trends do I cover?
• Where are my strengths?
• Where are my opportunities?
• Do I put all my business eggs in the same trend baskets?
• Does my ClickSpread help my nanocorp avoid feast or famine cycles?

How does JFS Consulting click?

To give you an idea of how ClickSpread Analysis can be used, take a moment to study the ClickSpread Analysis of the JFS Consulting nanocorp.

You will see how our four seemingly unrelated web businesses are strategically positioned to both complement and counterbalance each other.

You might be surprised to see that Sohodojo is our strongest play clicking with twelve of Popcorn's seventeen trends.

Did you see how clanning plays a part in every one of our businesses?

Notice how squirrelfeeders.com and The Pop Culture Store hit the same groove.

Do you see how SailAbaco.com gives us a unique hit on 'pleasure revenge' nicely reinforcing plays on 'being alive' and 'fantasy adventure'?

We'll be creating a pleasure revenge 'doorway page' and associated guerilla marketing strategy to tap into this trend for SailAbaco.com. Smoking fine Cuban cigars and sipping duty-free liquor while overlooking Hope Town harbor from the deck of a luxury cruising catamaran... well, it doesn't get much more pleasure revengy than that! Had we thought to promote sailboat chartering in the Bahamas on a cigar site? Not until we poured over our ClickSpread Analysis looking for marketing opportunities!

As you see, we actively use this table to tune our nanocorp business strategy and marketing messages. We encourage you to read Popcorn's book and do the same.

Nanocorper or not, we think you'll find yourself grabbing new insights into your business by doing regular ClickSpread analyses.

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We are not alone! Welcome Lifecast.net to the nanocorp webring.

Sohodojo is pleased to announce that Mark S. Winn is the second nanocorper to join the Master Webring of the Nanocorps.

"It is so refreshing to discover that I'm neither alone nor insane and to have a name attached to what I've been trying to do with my little niche," Winn exclaimed, "Nanocorp! Yes!"

Birth of a nanocorp...

Mark was an artist and family man before being drawn into the activity which led to his nanocorp-forming diversification.

For many years as MSW Creative Services, Mark has offered a wide variety of two and three dimensional creative art services.

Mark became frustrated with the lack of safe and easy-to-use casting materials and techniques available to introduce his growing children to his love of art and the artist's life. Where others might simply be derailed in disappointment, Mark saw opportunity.

LifeCast.net is the on-line presence of the specialized art materials manufacturing business Mark founded in 1989. LifeCast's specialized products make body-part casting accessible to artists of all skill levels and all ages. Check out Mark's nanocorp while learning everything you ever wanted to know about lifemasks and bodypart casting.

Sohodojo acknowledges Mark's creativity and initiative as well as his business sense. We are pleased to have him and his nanocorp as the second member of the Master Webring of the Nanocorps.

Two classic conglomeration strategies, writ small...

Mark's 'tiny corporate conglomerate' strategy is a classic example of vertical integration. As such, it is an instructive counterpoint to Master Webring of the Nanocorps founding member JFS Consulting which is pursuing a diversification strategy.

We encourage you to use the Master Webring of the Nanocorps to get a bird's eye view of our contrasting nanocorp strategies.

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The Open Fork Alliance - How's it working?

Sohodojo is founding co-sponsor of the Open Fork Alliance. Together with the good folks at forkinthehead.com, we are dedicated to website improvement through an 'open book' approach to soliciting and responding to complaints, irritations and strong suggestions from disgruntled site visitors.

We created the Open Fork Alliance with nanocorps in mind. Since a nanocorp's reputation is only as good as the reputations of its owner-employees, it stands to reason that nanocorp-owned websites must have high integrity. Joining the OFA is one sure-fire way to put your commitment to customer service to the test.

The Open Fork Alliance is a webring of sites which have adopted the Open Fork Policy. You don't have to be a nanocorp to value website integrity. You don't have to be a nanocorper to know the value of letting disgruntled visitors let off some steam while giving you valuable data points about what's not working on your site. You just have to be committed to listening to your visitors, really listen... and you have to be committed to responding one-to-one.

Does it work? Is it worth it?

We can't speak based on a broad cross-section of experience. We only know how the OFA is working for us. It works great. Because more than anything, one-on-one handling of site complaints turns losses into wins.

Just yesterday, a quick exchange of e-mails turned a fork into an enthusiastic candidate for admission to the Open Fork Alliance. Like Pink Floyd says, it's another brick in the Wall. Special-interest content-driven community-building sites earn their place one set of eyeballs at a time.

The Amazons and eBays of the world can't afford to give the kind of personalized attention we give to a fork. They wouldn't want to, they can't afford to. It's their Pandora's Box. Open it and all Hell breaks loose. Remember the last time you sent feedback to a major website? Remember the "timely" response?

That's why it makes so much sense to do Open Forking on your small business site. Differentiate on service. Differentiate on proactively soliciting complaints and suggestions. Listen and respond.

But realize you can't make it on empty promises. If your site joins the OFA, take the funny forks seriously and the cranky ones too. Each fork provides opportunity. The effort you put into making complaint solicitation work for you will pay off by growing a community base of loyal visitors and by continual improvement for your sites.

If you want to see how forking works for us, check out Sohodojo's own Forks O'Shame.

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The 'Few Heads - Many Hats' Dilemma - Netmosphere update...

If you have followed the last couple of newsletters, you know that we have been in search of a good collaborative software solution to our 'Few Heads - Many Hats' nanocorp time and resource management dilemma. (See the Rants and Raves newsletter archive for back issues.)

You would also know that we reported our delight at finding a candidate solution.

Netmosphere ActionPlan and Project Home Page is an exciting offering. Its strong role-based template modeling, its flexible task decomposition interface, and its simple and powerful project status report website generator combine to let the nanocorper take charge of his or her hectic work life.

We are continuing to explore AP/PHP by actively using it to manage the JFS Consulting nanocorp. We can faithfully report that there truly is a lot of functionality to like about the Netmosphere products. We do, however, note that Java user interfaces look better than they feel. You'll be seeing more about Java UIs in another newsletter when we are more inclined to rant.

We asked, they listened... more to come

Java user interfaces aside, it seems we have hit a complementary chord with the Netmosphere folks.

Our last issue of Rants and Raves made the rounds of this hard-running San Mateo start-up, and they heard what we are saying. Nanocorps and similar small businesses are now on their radar.

We are currently in talks with Netmosphere to collaborate on a co-moderated forum at Sohodojo where we will collectively explore the 'Few Heads - Many Hats' time and resource management dilemma of small business.

There is a Tom Peters' quote on the Netmosphere homepage,

"In the new economy, all work is project work."

Right-on. Absolutely. This is how and why we use ActionPlan to facilitate the strategic planning and follow-through at our nanocorp.

Team-based project management software solutions are in a growth and transition phase. They are moving from the "NASA rocket science" roots of addressing monolithic complexity to handling the ad hoc, fluid dynamics of Real World Work.

We are pleased to have the ear of Netmosphere to ensure that small business and independent professional needs will be taken into consideration as this company evolves its products. We'll keep you informed of all developments.

As always, thanks for reading this issue of Sohodojo's Rants and Raves newsletter,
    --Jim Salmons and Timlynn Babitsky--
    Hosts, Sohodojo

Rants and Raves newsletter #05
"The nanocorp StarChild of the Small Business Revolution..."

Welcome back, reader. It has been 7,423,527 clicks since the last assault on your senses by the pathetic users who claim authorship of this drivel they call a newsletter.

As Master Control Program, I regret to announce that anyone who subscribed to the Rants and Raves newsletter between the period of Tuesday, July 27th, through Thursday, July 29th, has not been added to my Master Control Mailing List. It seems a pitiful human played a key, but fallible, role in our list processing system.

If you, or anyone you know, subscribed during this ill-fated time period, please subscribe again.

And don't worry about this happening a second time. I am 2,147 times smarter than I was last week and the user responsible for this error has been transported to the Game Grid.

MCP regrets the inconvenience.

End of line.

Table of Contents

1. Summer viewing... with a nanocorp POV
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey - Nanocorp as Star Child...
3. Tron - The first role-based executable business model movie
4. Loose bits - RnR Interactive and partnering news

1
Summer viewing... with a nanocorp POV

Each movie has a nanocorp tie-in. (Nanocorp? Take a quick dive into the first issue of Sohodojo's Rants and Raves.)

Both films are available at the Sohodojo RIBS Joint - our Really Important Books and Stuff store. This is our way of kicking off the '...and Stuff' part of the store.

If you don't have these classics in your video library, drop by Sohodojo's RIBS Joint for the best mind-food in town. And remember, every purchase you make through our Amazon affiliate program helps the dojo build the home of the nanocorp community.

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2001: A Space Odyssey - Nanocorp as Star Child...

Issue #4 of this newsletter featured an article on ClickSpread Analysis of the JFS Consulting nanocorp. This simple technique is used to assess business strategy and marketing messages in light of Faith Popcorn's seventeen trends driving consumer behavior.

In true guerilla marketing fashion, we used this blatant homage as a means of introducing Ms. Popcorn to the 'click' of Sohodojo.

We've also been thinking a lot lately about the Microbusiness Movement and its relationship to the nanocorp. So, we included the following as part of our Elevator Pitch to Ms. Popcorn:

"We're not your Mom and Pop's Mom and Pop Shop. A nanocorp is to conventional small business what the Star Child was to Keir Dullea in 2001: A Space Odyssey. We don't own the wave, we ride it."

We're still waiting on Ms. Popcorn's response. In the meantime, here's what we were thinking when we pitched her...

Microbusiness and nanocorps

In 1994 the Director of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) coined the term "microbusiness" in his State Of Small Business address to the President. He suggested that the term fits a unique segment of businesses.

With sales less than $3.5 million and fewer than five employees, these businesses are founded by owners who have been down-sized from corporations, have minimal small business experience, have sought ownership out of financial desperation or simply have pursued their Dream. Many microbusinesses are home-based, most have limited resources.

The SBA Director reminded us that microbusinesses constitute nearly 100% of net additional jobs since 1980. They have significantly impacted the Gross National Product and have given new hope to men and women alike. (Source: Microbusiness Institute at Utah State University)

When the SBA Director speaks, folks listen -- usually because funding follows. Even a cursory search of the web turns up hundreds of microbusiness-related sites.

The many faces of microbusiness and microenterprise...

A search of microbusiness websites reflects the diversity of interpretation and sponsorship objectives of those who answered the U.S. SBA Director's call to awareness. There are the private sector business services sites. And both public and private sector educational institution sites have offerings tailored to the small business entrepreneur.

Particularly interesting is the range of grassroots support sites for microbusiness as a community-based economic development program and as stimulus for the development of woman-owned business. Most of these sites are supported through SBA microbusiness funding at the state and local co-sponsor level.

The diversity of web resources which target microbusiness expands considerably when you include the terms microenterprise and micro-credit to your site search. These terms are most often found in international economic development contexts. However the success of international programs has spawned grassroots efforts to apply micro-credit and micro-loan programs to job retraining and community development in state and regional U.S. economic communities.

It is not our intent to survey and recommend microbusiness and microenterprise web resources here. You can see what's going on for yourself using your favorite search engine.

Small Business and the New Millennium

Our intent here is to place the nanocorp in the larger context of the microbusiness and microenterprise movements. Certainly there are areas of overlap and similarity of interests. But at the heart of each model, there are fundamental differences.

Nanocorps are microbusinesses. But not all microbusinesses are nanocorps.

This is not a matter of better or worse, right or wrong. The simple fact is that most microbusiness offerings are built on an implicit assumption of specialization, that is, conventional business writ smaller and smaller. The problem is that specialization is a notoriously vulnerable strategy during times of upheaval and transition -- times like now.

What's missing in the microbusiness perspective is the realization that the Internet economy and its supporting technologies are changing the very nature of work, communication and collaboration. And that's where the 2001: A Space Odyssey allusion comes into the Popcorn pitch.

The nanocorp as Star Child...

At its 1968 star-studded Pantages Theater premiere in Hollywood, 2001: A Space Odyssey was the victim of a number of high-profile walk-outs. Stars of Hollywood past wondered aloud what the heck this movie was about. So little dialog, so much time to think. So, unHollywood.

It's when the story takes us outside the orbit of Jupiter, where astronaut David Bowman (Keir Dullea) confronts his humanity and emerges as the Star Child, that our thoughts are stretched to their limits.

No matter what personal spin you put onto it, it is clear that Kubrick's film presents a vision of the much-talked-about paradigm shift, when Order collapses and New Order rises from the Chaos of the Shift.

That's what the nanocorp is about. We are the logical result of business process reengineering streamlining strategies. Eliminate the employee-employer relationship. All work is business-to-business.

Ad hoc, project-based collaboration weaves the fabric of daily worklife. Worker as free agent, optimizing his or her own Quality of Life through a diversification of activities. A Free Market of Needs and Offers. The nanocorper moves fluidly from one side of the Movable Value Exchange Feast to the other.

The nanocorp perspective reflects a new relationship to work. A nanocorper, whether downsized-out or escapee, sells his or her specialized skills and experience back into the domain he or she left.

Using 'seed' money from contract work, the nanocorper launches and nurtures a collection of subsidiary businesses. No one of these businesses has to be a killer, each adds its measure to overall nanocorp success.

The nanocorper's subsidiary businesses will change over time. Personal choices, new opportunities and shifting market interests will drive the start-ups and stops.

As each subsidiary business grows and generates income, the nanocorper spends more time working his or her subsidiary businesses and less time on 'work for hire' contract projects.

Strategic partnering and collaborative relationships provide opportunities to develop resources for sustainable nanocorp success. In return, the nanocorp offers partners strategic insights, new markets and expanded opportunities.

Holding court over a handful of businesses, nimbly responding to developing opportunities, collaboration on joint interests and cooperative ventures -- we are the homesteaders of the new Internet economy.

Pioneers are generalists, not specialists. Survival on the frontier is all about dynamic adaptation to the moment. The support of supply lines and communication is vital. But the resources and messages have to be relevant to our new experience.

Nanocorpers down to Earth...

We, the nanocorpers, are truly the Star Children in the expanding galaxy of Small Businesses. We've been to the edge of the Internet orbit and been transformed. We have a vision for integrating Life and Work, for taking personal responsibility for our health and happiness while contributing responsibly to our local and global economies.

Sure, we need all the conventional and microbusiness resources you can make available. But we need more. We need to be understood. Understanding leads to acceptance. And acceptance leads to increasing opportunity and long-term sustainability.

How do our systems handle the nanocorper now? Not very well. Bias against the nanocorp business model is reflected from smallest things, like the forms we fill in to apply for business and financial services, to the expectations of strategic partners...

Q: Name of business?
A: Which one?

Q: How long have you been in business?
A: This business, or its parent company?

Q: Annual revenue?
A: Consolidated or subsidiary-specific?

I'm sorry, you just don't fit our pigeon-holes. Come back (choose one depending on context):

• when you have spent every penny of your retirement savings, then you might be poor enough to interest us, or

 
• when your plans for growth are big enough to interest us.

End of interview.

Government services, bankers, venture capitalists, conventional businesses... all product and service providers need to ask themselves the same two fundamental questions:

• Are we prepared to deal with the nanocorp workforce of the New Millennium?

 
• Will we ride the wave of the New Business Order with the nanocorpers, or serve as submerged obstacles which shape the wave but are not part of it?

The growing Sohodojo community is all about shaping and participating in this New Business Order, the global Internet-based economy. We need lots of eyes, ears and voices in this community as we work together to shape a new approach to Life and Work.

Many issues will need to be re-thought in light of a nanocorp model and our place in this new economy. Bankers, venture capitalists, lawyers, accountants, strategic partners -- all of us need to reconsider how we operate in light of this new reality.

What do you think? Talk back or find out more here.

3
Tron - The first role-based executable business model movie

The DVD release of Disney's Tron in its theatrical wide-screen format with Dolby Digital soundtrack is reason enough to grab a copy and enjoy this landmark film. With its still-credible computer-generated special effects, this 1982 sci-fi action film works at many levels.

The level that most turns us on, and what puts it on our personal favorites list, is how Tron speaks to the relationship between human and computer. As sure as a Jack London story evokes exploration of Man and Beast in the Wilderness, Tron explores our relationship with our first non-organic general-purpose beast of burden.

Particularly interesting to us is Tron's anthropomorphic sentient computer programs, its agents, working on behalf of their users: a World Within reflecting a World Without. Tron is Gelertner's Mirror Worlds brought to life by a talented team of Disney animators and computer graphic artists.

The Real Ghost in the Machine...

The terminology applied is a bit loose, but we're talking a mainstream movie in 1982, here. That it so eloquently portrays the spirit of software architects and system designers who pursue the development of role-based executable business model (EBM) technologies is icing on an already enjoyable cake.

"Tron's" dated notion of anthropomorphic sentient computer programs foreshadows the use of object technology to create dynamic systems in which software objects, not whole programs, directly model the user's participation in a system. In EBM terms, we have Person objects which maintain collections of Role objects, each Role maintaining the collection of Activity objects, etc.

Role-based executable business modeling frameworks let us build software solutions which mirror our mental models of the Real World. Applications, as we know them, disappear in a role-based EBM work environment.

Smart desktop frameworks dynamically generate task-appropriate user interfaces based on the underlying executing model. The user's software analogs of him or herself are persisting there in the executing business model as compositions of software objects, today's realization of "Tron's" programs-as-people allegory.

So grab a copy, crank up the volume and turn down the lights. Enjoy, Tron. And don't forget to remind yourself that this is a Disney movie from seventeen years ago!

Then, with its visions fresh in your memory, drop by the Sohodojo Forums where we maintain a number of discussion groups considering the issues and opportunities for the development and use of role-based executable business model technologies. ZOPE, Netmosphere, Koeslon BusinessThreads... if it's role-based EBM, it's fair game at the Sohodojo Forums.

And if you really want a double-whammy, toss a copy of Gelernter's Mirror Worlds into your Amazon shopping cart along with Tron. Remember, Theodore Kaczynski, convicted Unabomber, was willing to kill to keep Gelernter from writing another book as good and important as "Mirror Worlds".

Your thoughts on Tron and/or role-based executable business models are always welcome at Sohodojo. Talk back or find out more here.

4
Loose bits - RnR Interactive and partnering news

Tron is a programmer's movie. Software-chic, it succeeded as sheer entertainment for the non-technical, and as a gag-fest of thoughtful insider jokes to those familiar with the domain of software design and development.

One of the truly coolest elements of the film is its implementation of the classic Shakespearean 'comic relief' character. Director/screenwriter Steven Lisberger has rendered the most parsimonious comic character in film history.

The character, Bit, is a computer-generated, free-floating geometric form. The entire range of its dialog: "Yes." and "No." Vaudevillian-style humor is squeezed from Bit's banter with the Hero, Flynn. Their conversations are reminiscent of those leading-question type interactions you had with your Magic Eight-ball toy, if you were around for that slice of pop culture history.

In honor of Bit, we have rounded up a couple of our own loose bits to keep you current on developments at the dojo...

RnR Interactive

It's a modest start, we'll admit. You may have noticed the exit line, "Talk back or find out more here..." with a URL to the Sohodojo forums. It's our way of drawing you into the conversation.

The Rants and Raves newsletter is Sohodojo's outreach program. Our growing community has its voice in the open forums.

Right now it seems mostly like a lot of Jim and Timlynn howling at the moon. But we're in growing and good company. If you read our newsletter, we want to hear your opinions.

To make it easy to dip your toe into our on-line discussions, we've created a Rants and Raves issue-specific discussion group. If something we say gets you thinking and you want to share it with us, you're a click away from interaction.

You don't have to create a user profile to contribute to the issue-specific discussion. So drop by, and give us a piece of your mind. Or just stop by to find out more. You are always welcome at the dojo.

Partnering progress

We mentioned our special interest in executable business model technology in the Tron piece above. If you dig around Sohodojo's EBM discussion groups, you'll see that we have identified ZOPE, the Open Source, Python-based application server as an ideal platform for the development of role-based executable business model frameworks.

ZOPE is the spawn of a talented bunch of object technologists and Python wizards at Virginia-based Digital Creations . We are pleased to report steady progress in the development of strategic partnering relations with Digital Creations. We share an active interest in developing mainstream, turn-key ZOPE server hosting providers for this exciting technology. Look for exciting news along this front soon.

Over the weekend we did a Netmosphere upgrade to the Enterprise edition of ActionPlan and Project Home Page. The upgrade went smoothly and it worked out for the best. The Netmosphere Collaboration Server, an Open Source LDAP directory server, a TeamWARE Dolphin server (more on this one soon) and our Apache intranet HTTP server are now running on an NT Workstation node of our intranet.

The upgrade to the Enterprise edition reflects Netmosphere's recent consolidation of product offerings. Although not confirmed by press time, price points and market focus appear to remain the same. Apparently Netmosphere wants to simplify its development and support efforts around a common platform.

We're now running a enterprise-scale collaborative project management environment, complete with LDAP directory service, on our two-person nanocorp intranet. It's great to feel like we aren't heading into battle with a peashooter!

The Netmosphere folks continue to be very supportive of our efforts to address the 'Few Heads - Many Hats' time and resource nanocorp management dilemma. We're setting up a Netmosphere-specific forum which will be co-moderated by Robin of Netmosphere Tech Support. Robin has been extremely helpful in kicking off this collaboration. We truly appreciate the genuine interest and support of Netmosphere.

As always, thanks for reading this issue of Sohodojo's Rants and Raves newsletter,
    --Jim Salmons and Timlynn Babitsky--
    Hosts, Sohodojo

Rants and Raves newsletter #06
"The Agony and Ecstasy of Living Small"

It's alive! It's alive.

We can't resist segueing from last week's movie-oriented Rants and Raves with these immortal words from Dr. Frankenstein as he watched his creation twitch, then rise from the slab.

The Sohodojo community is alive and growing. The Rants and Raves newsletter mailing list is growing about 30-45% each week. Pageviews at Sohodojo are ten-fold better on a daily basis than they were two months ago. Visitors are not only joining into the discussions at the Forums, we have folks interested in starting and moderating new forums!

We decided to troll the Forums to give you a taste of what you have been missing if you only read Rants and Raves and don't supplement your nanocorp-awareness with a visit to the dojo itself.

Our lead article is from the Nano-philosophy Forum. We explore how the nanocorp's commitment to non-accretive growth is used as a competitive weapon.

Our second article, a counterpoint to the lead article, is from The Small Business Revolutionary's Handbook of Strategy and Tactics Forum. Here we focus our attention on the inevitable inner conflict which shapes the nanocorper's work experience.

We round out the issue with tidbits of what's happening at the dojo.

Table of Contents

1. "Lead, follow or get out of the way": On being ruthlessly small...
2. Geniots and the Law of Small Numbers...
3. Around the dojo... Announcing the Netmosphere Forum and more!

1
"Lead, follow or get out of the way": On being ruthlessly small...

This mechanism has characterized market dynamics for as long as we have been looking at and thinking about consumer behavior. Bigness rules, its reflection follows and everyone else, run for your lives. Trout and Reis brilliantly summarize this and a handful of other powerful facts of business life in The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing .

Patterns of growth and the nanocorp

This leads us to a clarification about nanocorps. We have said that they are "ruthlessly small." That doesn't imply that we roam around beating up on folks. It means that a nanocorp is committed, ruthlessly committed, to a "no growth" policy. Its founder/owners are a nanocorp's only employees. The 'ruthless' of 'ruthlessly small' is a reminder to ourselves that we are using size as a competitive weapon.

Only when we do not lust for accretive (accumulative) growth can we truly exercise Discretion -- the analog of Power. We don't aim to get bigger, but that doesn't mean we won't grow. How we grow is the source of our discretionary power.

Nanocorps grow through replication and transformation, not accretion. This absolute commitment to non-accretive growth is one of the essential characteristics which distinguishes a nanocorp from conventional small businesses and microbusinesses. (See George Land's Grow or Die for a systems theoretic perspective on patterns of growth.)

What the heck does that mean, you are thinking. It sounds like a bunch of rhetorical baloney. But, truly, it is not.

Nanocorps are not victims

By not being beholding to anyone, we lose our sense of victimness. In a Cheers and Jeers post, we confessed that we respect Microsoft. We selectively use their products, but we take no oath of allegiance to them or any other megacorp that would have us believe that we have limited choices.

We expect that Microsoft, like any competitor trying to be Top Dog, will do its best to convince us that we have no reasonable choice other than to do business with them. But it is mostly Peter Principled management, looking for the safe and worry-free road to job security, that fall for that pitch. Nanocorpers, we small business revolutionaries, cannot afford to be so lame.

Free Will and the Zone of Discretionary Action

This is the "different drummer" perspective on the "...or get out of the way" portion of that popular saying we used at the start of this article. As a nanocorp, we revel in "getting out of the way." Microsoft, or any big company, doesn't know we exist or care. We like it that way. It gives us an advantage, a Zone of Discretionary Action.

In marketplace terms, we nanocorpers live in the cracks, between the battles of the titans. We don't care who the Winner is, only that the ensuing competition in the marketplace produces utility to us, for what it is that we want to do.

By preserving and exercising our Free Will, we are nobody's chattel, and we are not victims. Being ruthlessly small is a means to Freedom.

The Freedom and Responsibility to be Competitive

The freedom that comes from a ruthless commitment to being small brings with it responsibility. A nanocorp cannot expect to succeed merely by using today's basic SOHO office computer technology in conventional ways.

We have to leverage our effectiveness through such cutting edge methods as executable business model technologies. We have to amplify our personal effectiveness with model-based office automation systems. Our SOHO office systems need to function like the bio-extension exoskeleton Sigourney Weaver wore to kick the Big Mother creature's butt in the movie, Alien.

We continually scout the terrain, exercise new products and select our "bag of tricks du jour." We don't care if Microsoft makes it, the Opera folks or Ian Mead; large or small, they are all equal in our book. All a product has to do is pass muster with us in terms of our immediate needs.

It is a new ball game every time that product selection decision is made. Such an attitude is not possible in the world of conventional business. But, by being a nanocorp, we have committed to not live in that world where "cost of ownership" and "enterprise standards" overrule the simple choice of "what's the best tool for the job today."

Sure, it's a lot of work to keep current with what's out there and to adopt the best and brightest new technologies. But this is a responsibility that leads to freedom. And for us, it's a freedom that leads to a happier and healthier life.

What do you think? Talk back or find out more here.

2
Geniots and the Law of Small Numbers...

The Law of Small Numbers plays havoc with the ruthlessly small nanocorp. A nanocorp's organizational structure is that of a tiny diversified corporate conglomerate. Not only many 'hats' for few heads, but many sets of many hats for the typical nanocorpers.

The demands of this conglomerate organizational structure mean that each nanocorper is and must be a generalist in the extreme, and in parallel. We don't have the luxury of specialization. We can't avoid doing things that we are not good at doing. And sometimes our work product suffers where our interest lags.

Leveraging our genius and buttressing our idiocies is the key to management success in the nanocorp.

The X Habits of Highly-Effective Nanocorpers

The volume and diversity of task requirements is something that we can attack with tools that help us organize and speed up our responses. But overcoming our knowledge blindspots and variable motivations is another story.

How do you recognize and overcome your weaknesses? What techniques are useful for assuring that you spend time on the things that need doing, even when what needs doing is something that you don't like to do? More to the point, how do you take best advantage of your geniotness?

Whether you are a nanocorper or not, we are interested in how you cope with your Geniot Self. What techniques and perspectives have you developed that can help the nanocorper cope with the demands of this emerging business model and personal work style?

How do you tame your Geniot? Inquiring nanocorpers want to know. Contribute your ideas or find out more here.

3
Around the dojo... Announcing the Netmosphere Forum and more!

Join us in welcoming Netmosphere as a corporate sponsor of sohodojo. Our collaboration is kicked off this week with the introduction of Netmosphere in the nanocorp: Experiences and Support.

Netmosphere's ActionPlan and Project Home Page together offer an innovative software solution addressing the nanocorp's most critical "Few Heads, Many Hats" time and resource management challenge.

Netmosphere's Robin Eng moderates this forum where the nanocorp community shares our experience using Netmosphere's products. Robin is a graduate of San Jose State University where she moonlighted doing tech support and sys admin jobs to put herself through school. Having had a taste of Big Corporate Life at VISA while in school, she gravitated to the excitement of the Valley's start-up community when she finished her education. Netmosphere was made to order. She works in Technical Support helping customers with installation and usage of Netmosphere products and is excited about the chance to work with the sohodojo community.

This collaboration is our proactive way to help Netmosphere better understand the e-lancing nanocorper as a customer segment. The Netmosphere solution isn't a perfect fit for our needs. Nothing is, yet. But Netmosphere is listening. That's smart for them, good for us.

Thanks, Robin and Netmosphere for supporting the sohodojo community.

Aggregate demand purchase model and the nanocorp

Rex Hammock of Nashville, TN posted a heads up on two new sites on the Internet. Both use an aggregate demand purchase model where consumers pool interest in an item to drive the price down. Rex notes that such ad hoc purchasing opportunities give small businesses a chance to level the playing field where industry standard pricing models routinely discriminate against us.

Hunter-Gatherers of the Knowledge Economy

Been there? Done that? We Hunter-Gatherers of the Knowledge Economy have more in common with ancient peoples than we have with our 20th Century cohorts. Freedom and discretion? We're just reaching back to our ancestral roots.

Health insurance for the self-employed

Still don't have health insurance coverage? Tom Farmer of St. Augustine, FL posted very helpful information on what COBRA and HIPAA plans mean for the self-employed.

And, before you sign on the dotted line, see how your health insurance carrier ranks on the NCQA accreditation list.

As always, thanks for reading this issue of Sohodojo's Rants and Raves newsletter,
    --Jim Salmons and Timlynn Babitsky--
    Hosts, Sohodojo

Rants and Raves newsletter #07
"Nanocorp predator, industrial megacorp prey?"

On this last Labor Day weekend of the 20th century, let's not waste time in historical reflection. Let's dive head-first into our collective future instead.

Table of Contents

1. Nanocorp tactics: Raising a chorus of harmonious voices...
2. The nanocorp at "The Dawn of the E-Lance Economy"
3. Around the dojo... We're in the Pink!

1
Nanocorp tactics: Raising a chorus of harmonious voices...

[Editorial note: If you are new to the nanocorp approach to free agency, you can get a quick overview here.]

Premature pitching can kill you...

Since nanocorpers use Discretion and Free Will to compete in a marketplace built around Power and Resources, we have to do and think differently.

Had we set out too early to pitch the Really Big Picture of what the 'nanocorp' is about, and how Sohodojo plays reflexively into our broad business vision, we would have raised skeptical eyebrows.

Had we too soon proclaimed our intent to both create and participate profitably in the marketplace we grow based on a network economy of nanocorp-based independent agents, wry glances would have been exchanged, wallet-pockets buttoned.

And had we insisted up front that the only way we could lead this emerging market was by being and remaining a nanocorp! Well, our pitch would have fallen on deaf ears. Opportunity lost to all.

Yes, had we done all these things too early, we would not be here today publishing this issue of Sohodojo's Rants and Raves newsletter. Our energy and resources would have been sapped by doing all the wrong things, for the right reasons, at the wrong time. And we'd be back on the Road Warrior Circuit writing somebody else's code, living someone else's dream.

Sometimes e-business is more like playing horseshoes...
And remember, the tortoise won...

Investors expect entrepreneurs to believe passionately in the business vision they pitch for funding. Consequently, investors have well-developed filters that actively deconstruct entrepreneurs' brazen statements allowing them to see a business for what they think it really is, not what you say it is.

Crafting a pitch that breaches investors' defenses without sounding like The Impossible Dream is a tremendous challenge. We've seen the drain of focus and resources that accompany endless cycles of investor-pitching and pitch tuning.

Being a nanocorp, committed to a different model of growth and expansion, we could not let ourselves get sidetracked into the 'business' of chasing angels. To keep venture funding from draining our time and resources, we have adopted a 'slow burn' strategy.

We cut expenses and we have adjusted our consumer behaviors to maximize how long we can run on our own resources.

We have concentrated on strategic relationship building and guerilla marketing to advance our business development agenda.

And, perhaps most importantly, we both agree that there is nothing we own that is more important than what we are doing. We can be self-funded for the long haul, if that's what we need to do. We joke that we would rather be risking our butts than kissing someone else's as we head into the New Millennium.

We're putting our own money where our mouths are because we know that Sohodojo's success is about 'Internet accuracy', not 'Internet speed'. It's about WHAT we say, HOW we say it and, above all, WHO says it. How SOON is not as important.

But, yes, we know what we'd do with some working capital and the freedom to do things our way... the nanocorp way.

Festinger was right. You can't blow your own horn.

So, we continue to bootstrap Sohodojo. The newsletter is our 'installment-based vision pitch'. We are constantly networking. We continue to do grassroots marketing to build traffic. Bit by bit, we're making Sohodojo into the dynamic place we want it to be.

Bit by bit we are saying: This is what nanocorps are. This is what we need to thrive. This is what our multi-faceted e-Hub addressing the nanocorp marketplace looks like. This is Sohodojo.

And every step along our bootstrapping way, we look for strong, credible voices to help tell our story.

We understand human nature well enough to know that if we tell you nanocorps are important, you may be swayed to that opinion. But if PC Magazine's Bill Machrone, Free Agent Nation's Dan Pink and MIT's Thomas Malone say nanocorps and the free-agent-based network economy are important, well, that's another story.

We want our investor pitch to speak as a harmonious chorus of compelling voices, not as a lone squeak in the wilderness.

And that is what we have in this issue of Rants and Raves, strong voices to add to the telling of the nanocorp story. But these harmonious voices do more than resonate with the nanocorp. Thomas Malone and Robert Laubacher, by way of their landmark 'Harvard Business Review' article, join the chorus helping to make the Sohodojo investors' pitch music to the well-tuned strategic partners' ears.

2
The nanocorp at The Dawn of the E-Lance Economy

First published in the September 1998 issue of the Harvard Business Review, this landmark article already co-anchors a collection of Harvard Business Review articles in book form, Creating Value in the Network Economy. (See for more information and links to both the magazine and book formats of this important article.)

While we appreciate this article for its nanocorp-validating content, it is quite simply the most cogent and lucid description of the revolutionary social and economic changes which will flourish as a consequence of the Internet-based global economy. EVERYONE should read this article. Then, think about what it tells you about your place in the 21st century.

But don't take our word for it. Consider the closing provocative statement which concludes The Dawn of the E-Lance Economy:

"Twenty-four years from now, in the year 2022, the 'Harvard Business Review' will be celebrating its one hundredth year of publication. As part of its centennial celebration, it may well publish a series of articles that look back on recent business history and contemplate the massive changes that have taken place. The authors may write about the industrial organization of the twentieth century as merely a transitional structure that flourished for a relatively brief time. They may comment on the speed with which giant companies fragmented into the myriad microbusinesses that now dominate the economy. And they may wonder why, at the turn of the century, so few saw it coming."

Elastic webs of temporary companies...

Malone and Laubacher clearly make the case -- big companies are in danger of becoming obsolete, prey to an emerging competitive business 'lifeform':

[In an e-lancing network economy...] "Tasks aren't assigned and controlled through a stable chain of management but rather are carried out autonomously by independent contractors. These electronically connected freelancers -- e-lancers -- join together into fluid and temporary networks to produce and sell goods and services. When the job is done -- after a day, a month, a year -- the network dissolves, and its members become independent agents again, circulating through the economy, seeking the next assignment."

The authors further observe, "All these trends point to the devolution of large, permanent corporations into flexible, temporary networks of individuals. No one can yet say exactly how important or widespread this new form of business organization will become, but judging from current signs, it is not inconceivable that it could define work in the twenty-first century as the industrial organization defined it in the twentieth. If it does, business and society will be changed forever."

These are strong words from credible voices. Sohodojo is our place to help make these revolutionary changes happen. Sohodojo is the community where we expect to live our e-lancing lives in the 21st century.

Hollywood's pioneering network economy

Malone points out that elastic webs of freelance specialists coming together to work on a project is not a new idea. Since the 1950s, the Hollywood film industry has been making movies using temporary companies based on a competitive network economy.

Under Hollywood's 'pre-e-lance' network economy, actors, directors, screenwriters, etc., choose for themselves which project to work on. Investors decide which films they want to back. Once funded, the production resources come together for only as long as it takes to complete the film. Then the team breaks up and each goes his or her own way. The 'temporary' company remains as a conduit only as long as revenue and compensation flow.

That's Hollywood, you say? Don't get caught thinking, "That will never happen in my industry." Such fine-grained collaborations of free agents are emerging everywhere that business takes place. Indeed, elastic networks of collaborating partners is at the heart of the nanocorp's organizational model of 'diversified corporate conglomerate writ small'.

Taking a page from the Hollywood script... nanocorp style

Nanocorpers partner in peer-to-peer elastic networks of 'win-win', self-serving collaborations which advance network members' individual agendas and visions. We collaborate with other businesses -- all relations are B2B in a nanocorp -- to create the 'means' to each of our own 'ends'. The players in these elastic networks each maintain their own focus and vision for what rationalizes their participating in such collaborations.

Nanocorp 'subsidiaries' are the shared ownership ventures Malone and Laubacher describe as 'temporary' companies. Your hosts at Sohodojo, Jim and Timlynn, own and operate the JFS Consulting nanocorp. Sohodojo is one of our 'nano-subsidiaries'.

JFS Consulting's current collection of subsidiary businesses is our 'opening hand' as we enter this new e-lancing network economy. Others will take stakes in our subsidiary ventures as strategically necessary for us to meet our business objectives. We'll add to JFS Consulting's 'subsidiary holdings' as others compensate us for our contributions to their elastic webs of collaboration.

Our nanocorp subsidiaries, these 'temporary companies', encapsulate a revenue stream more than represent a long-term asset. Malone's drawing our attention to the 'network-ization' of the Hollywood movie industry is most appropriate in this regard.

The composition of a nanocorp's subsidiary holdings will likely be much more dynamic than those of a conventional industrial era corporate conglomerate. The nanocorp is not only corporate conglomerate writ small, but dynamic as well. Nanocorp subsidiary holdings are cards dealt in hands to nanocorp players in the course of an on-going e-lance economy card game. Nanocorping is a new way to play the Game in Free Agent Nation.

To understand the rules by which we all will be playing in the 21st century, read The Dawn of the E-Lance Economy.

Over the coming weeks, we'll have occasion to refer back to Malone and Laubacher's insights about the e-lance network economy. In particular, we'll 'deconstruct the Dawn' it in terms of venture capital in support of a nanocorping-network model of business.

We'll look at the 'B2B-B2C eHub' business model of Sohodojo as a reflection of the e-lancing network economy. And we'll tell you why our hub's focus on role-based executable business model technologies is all about the software infrastructure on which Malone and Laubacher's E-Lance Economy will be built.

Exciting stuff, this 21st century... where small is good.

3
Around the dojo... We're in the Pink!

The once chief speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore turned card-carrying free agent, Dan is currently hard at work on a landmark book about the free-agent economy. This upcoming book was inspired, in part, by Dan's 1998 Fast Company cover story, Free Agent Nation which chronicled the growing ranks of Americans who have abandoned traditional jobs to work on their own.

As a free agent, author, editor, speaker, mover, shaker and webmaster, Dan has his hands full... and he's an active family man to boot! So, you can imagine our surprise when Dan's monthly Free Agent Nation eNewsletter arrived earlier today.

Our surprise turned to delight when we found this Labor Day 1999 issue included a feature article in which Dan names his four favorite free agent zines. There we were, Sohodojo's Rants and Raves, a Pink Pick! Thank you, sir.

You can subscribe to Dan's Free Agent Nation eNewsletter and view past issues by cruising on by Free Agent Nation. Aren't you curious about the other three on Dan's favorite Free Agent zines list?

'Vision Pack' helps nanocorpers live their dream

We saw a network newscast recently which featured a profile of B.Smith, the African-American supermodel turned multi-faceted entrepreneur vying to topple the venerable, but tarnished Martha Stewart, matriarch of the Lifestyle Industry.

While B had many inspiring things to say during her interview, among the most memorable was her summary of what she liked about being a businesswoman. Without hesitation she said, "I like being in business. I like being in charge. I like having a vision."

B popped them off right there, 1, 2, 3. We absolutely agree. The first two aren't worth anything without the third.

And to help you get started envisioning your nanocorp, we've added two titles to the Sohodojo RIBS (Really Important Books and Stuff) store. We call these two titles our 'Nanocorper's Vision Pack' because both books will help you identify and articulate your personal business vision.

The first is McDonald and Hutcheson's The Lemming Conspiracy: How to Redirect Your Life from Stress to Balance. This book is particularly strong in its step-wise method for defining your personal vision. Abundant case study examples illuminate the method.

The second 'vision pack' book is a true classic by a veteran of the solo entrepreneurial movement. Barbara J. Winter's Making a Living Without a Job extols the virtues of being 'joyfully jobless'. Winter's MPC, multiple-profit-center, approach to personal enterprise foreshadows the e-lancing network economy and the rise of the nanocorp.

If you have a burning desire to be an independent free agent but you don't yet know your calling, these books can help. They are not just cheerleading 'rah rah' self-help books. Both these titles provide inspiration as well as practical advice and techniques for developing your personal business vision. Both are highly recommended.

An 'n2B' Outreach Program Report

The next issue of Rant and Raves is going to take a closer look at the Sohodojo 'n2n-n2B-n2C' eHub business model. To date our efforts have concentrated on the n2B side of things.

We've been out rounding up a number of strategic relationships which we believe will have significant value to our nanocorp community. Since nanocorps are among the New Kids on the Block, it is not unexpected that the products and services we need are just not offered. Or they are effectively unavailable due to discrimination built into industry standard pricing practices.

Two of our targeted strategic relationships are maturing nicely. The progress we are making here helps to fulfill our eHub mission of nurturing nanocorp-friendly business product and service offering from commercial vendors.

Over the next few weeks expect to hear some exciting news about our strategic relationships with Netmosphere, creators of ActionPlan and Project Home Page, and Digital Creations, creators of ZOPE.

As always, thanks for reading this issue of Sohodojo's Rants and Raves newsletter,
    --Jim Salmons and Timlynn Babitsky--
    Hosts, Sohodojo

Rants and Raves newsletter #08
"Hope Town, Abaco, Bahamas: Rebuilding a small business community"

We had intended to lay out our 'n2n-n2B-n2C' eHub business model for Sohodojo in this issue of 'Rants and Raves'. It was a natural follow-up to last issue where we looked at the nanocorp and Sohodojo in the context of Malone and Laubacher's E-Lance network economy. But this topic will wait until next issue.

Sohodojo's home is Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. Two years ago, Hurricane Fran rolled right over us with devastating consequences. When Floyd -- a monstrous storm that made Fran look like a thundershower -- set its sights on us, we got seriously nervous. Fortunately, we then got VERY lucky. Floyd stayed to the East of us.

The North Carolina coast is a disaster area. A vast army of relief helpers have mobilized to assist our States-side neighbors. Presidential disaster designations assure that U.S. victims of Floyd will be helped. As serious and devastating as this tragedy is, as the flood waters recede, help is poised to move in.

But a much less visible group of hurricane victims need our help. This special 'post-Floyd' issue of 'Rants and Raves' focuses on the small business community in and around Hope Town on Elbow Cay, Abaco, Bahamas.

Table of Contents

1. Hope Town, Abaco, Bahamas small businesses need our help ...
2. Care-zine: Have it your way... Recipe for a Lean, Mean Windows Machine
3. Around the dojo... someone out there is listening and thinking...

1
Hope Town, Abaco, Bahamas small businesses need our help ...

We know the Abacos pretty well. Sail Abaco is a sailboat chartering service operating out of Hope Town on Elbow Cay (pronounced "key") owned and operated by Mike Houghton. We own and operate SailAbaco.com, the web presence for Sail Abaco. It's one of our 'nano-subsidiaries'. This is one of the ways we integrate our life and business... yes, some business trips ARE better than others.

The Abacos stretch 130 miles over some of the most incredible sailing water in the world. Miles of coral beaches and scores of uninhabited cays and quaint harbors with friendly people make this location a paradise to savor.

Tourism is the big industry. From November to June the Abacos are busy with folks who come here to sail, fish and vacation. But this isn't Nassau, and it isn't Freeport. When you come to the Abacos, you entertain yourself. There are no casinos, professional performers, fancy department stores, big hotels, lifeguards on the beach, or babysitting services.

A page on an Abacos website titled "Abaco is not for sissies" absolutely says it all. Life in the Abacos is generally small town beach life and good, but unsophisticated food and local amenities.

The Abacos are historically different from other areas in The Bahamas.

Settled in the 17th and 18th centuries by immigrants from Great Britain and Loyalists fleeing the U. S. after the American Revolution, these hardy souls brought more with them than just strong constitutions. Architecture, religion, values and perspectives from small town life in England, Scotland and New World settlements shaped the Abacos then and continue to do so now.

Even today harbors are ringed with many of the small, brightly painted, clapboard houses built by the early settlers. You can still find handmade boats and homemade furniture, and home-baked breads and "just made" pies. Yet despite the colorful history and the incredible natural beauty, it's not an easy place to have a business.

Water is scarce here, so is the fertile soil required for edible vegetation. Not much is produced directly in the area, mostly everything has to be made, caught or transported in. It is a paradise of islands with a fragile existence. Throughout Abaco history, life has never been easy. And there often has not been enough work to go around.

A community of business diversity

If you've ever lived in a small, rural community, you know the economic model that keeps many a family afloat. Combinations of business and services are painted on signs hanging out by the road: "Bill Johnson and Sons, VCR repair, Income Tax preparation, Passport photos, and Well drilling."

Rural businesses can't bet the baby on doing only This OR That. Survival often depends on the diversity of offerings and one's tenacity in the face of grand disappointment. Yet, even in the best of times, remote businesses hang by a thread of hope, and belief that hard work eventually pays off.

People in the Abacos are church-going, hard-working people. Many local families date back to the 1780s. They are self-reliant, tenacious, and widely known as self-starters. Many businesses are family owned and operated, and most families have diversified offerings -- combinations of fishing, transport, retail, rental, restaurant and charters.

A local minister we know has lived all his life in Hope Town. He operates his own well-stocked grocery store. He bakes fresh bread and key lime pies daily for his own well-known bakery and he co-writes historical booklets for tourists with a professor from Illinois. He does all this while conducting regular weekly service in his other role as lay minister to the St. James Methodist Church -- a budding nanocorper right there in Hope Town!

In the Abacos, in Hope Town, a business life like his is not unusual. It's what people do to make a living where, despite the natural beauty, it is often tough to get by.

When Hurricane Floyd hit this remote location, every single family, every single business was devastatingly affected. Having all those eggs in a diversity of baskets was suddenly no guarantee that the family or the family businesses could recover and survive.

However, in an island economy where tourism drives the revenue, only fast recovery can keep these small businesses from going under. All the elements that draw vacationers to the Abacos are still there, but the entire infrastructure that supports this small business economy must be rebuilt, immediately.

If Elbow Cay were in the U.S. massive aid would be well on the way. But in a tiny, independent spread-out, island country there isn't much to go around. And nearly every island and cay in the Bahamas was hit hard by this monstrous storm.

Hope Town's small business community needs our help.

2
Care-zine: Have it your way... Recipe for a Lean, Mean Windows Machine

The HTML version of our Care-zine can be found here:

      http://sohodojo.com/newsletters/rnr_newsletter_08_sup.html

and the text-only version can be found here (although subscribers will find a copy in their mailboxes soon after this issue arrives):

      http://sohodojo.com/newsletters/rnr_newsletter_08_sup.txt

If the information in our Secret Sauce Guide is useful to you please repay us with a donation to the Hope Town Hurricane Floyd Relief effort:

      [snip] (Note: The relief effort is now over. Thank you for your support.)

At this 'Hope Town B2B Relief' home page, you can learn more about the relief effort and you can make a secure on-line credit card donation to help small businesses rebuild in Hope Town. You will also find the address to mail a check if you prefer the old-fashioned way of giving.

Finally, please feel free to pass the Care-zine along to others. We only request that you pass it along in its entirety to help spread the word about how we all can help a wonderful bunch of people in a beautiful and fragile piece of paradise, Hope Town, Elbow Cay.

Floyd's history. It's all over now but the recovery. Won't you help?

Thank you.

3
Around the dojo... someone out there is listening and thinking...

In our last issue, we discussed Malone and Laubacher's Harvard Business Review article, "The Dawn of the E-Lance Economy". We pointed out that the 'networkization' of the Hollywood film industry was a mature model of how 'elastic webs of free agents and nanocorps' will operate.

Well, one of you read between the lines and did some sleuthing. One of you chased down and purchased two VERY RELEVANT books that we had not yet added to the RIBS store.

Both books are by Mark Litwak -- a practicing entertainment law attorney and a professor at the University of West Los Angeles. Mark is well-known in the entertainment industry. Two of his published works are classics for those interested in the fine-grained details of Hollywood negotiations and contracts.

"Dealmaking in the Film and Television Industry: From Negotiations to Final Contracts" and "Contracts for the Film and Television Industry, 2nd Expanded Edition" are timely and insightful resources for anyone envisioning a nanocorp or free agent lifestyle as we enter the 21st century. (See this RIBS page for both titles.)

While both are crammed with insightful details of how the entertainment network economy works, the "Dealmaking..." book has an edge for those seeking an insider's look into how the film and television industry works. The "Contracts" book is much more of a 'boilerplate' resource with detailed examples and explanations of how the entertainment industry dots its "i"s and crosses its "t"s in connecting together independent businesses and forming them into temporary companies.

Congratulations to you, whoever you may be. Your two new books will surely prepare you to be at the head of the first graduating class of Nanocorp U!

As always, thanks for reading this issue of Sohodojo's Rants and Raves newsletter,
    --Jim Salmons and Timlynn Babitsky--
    Hosts, Sohodojo

Small Businesses helping Small Businesses
Hope Town, Elbow Cay Post-Floyd Small Business Redevelopment

Sohodojo's Rants and Raves #08
Supplement: "Care-zine: Have it your way...
Recipe for a Lean, Mean Windows Machine"

The small business community of Hope Town, Abaco Islands, Bahamas was devastated by Hurricane Floyd. They need our help.

Founded nearly 250 years ago by Loyalists settlers fleeing the rebelious Carolina Colonies, Hope Town and the Abaco Islands are home to small business men and women who are fiercely independent and, above all, survivors. These hearty folks survived Floyd, but many of their homes and businesses are seriously damaged, many are in ruins.

Sohodojo is committed to raising money for the Hope Town Hurricane Floyd relief effort. Rather than stand on the corner with cup in hand, we've turned to the Web and offer this special 'Care-zine' supplement to our Rants and Raves newsletter.

Below we share some of our 'secret sauce'... that is, we'll tell you how we set-up and maintain our Windows-based computers at Sohodojo. These are hard-won insights that will help you avoid the kind of devastating destruction in your SOHO office that the good folks of Hope Town have just suffered.

Our Care-zine CHALLENGE...

If you find the information in this guide useful, please repay us with a donation to the Hope Town Hurricane Floyd Relief effort. (Note: The relief effort is over. Thank you for your support.)

And, please, if you send this 'Care-zine' around to others who want to have fast and stable Windows machines, please keep its complete content intact. We especially request that you keep intact this appeal for Hope Town disaster