nuance intelligence

I had a great lunch today with John Corbett, CEO of AWhere and Bill Gail, Director of Strategic Business Development for Microsoft’s Virutal Earth. I’ll have a lot more to say about John and AWhere (disclosure: AWhere is a client of mine) in the days and months to come, and have a ton of respect and excitement about their work.

Today’s discussion ranged from the intersection of virtual maps and virtual worlds like Second Life. Interesting to hear Bill emphasize the cross-platform impact he expects here, combining artifacts of the imagination and real-world information represented in a fully immersive (like SecondLife) view. Continue reading

They were always my favorite – well written, more relevant, and not so ad-strewn. And they were the first to disappear from the news stand during the massive web contraction of 2001. But now The Industry Standard is back. The site is built in a newly-familiar style, with social network, news, blog and commenting elements. The interesting addition is that of prediction markets, which have a sticky quality, and establish expertise and thought leadership in a way that’s tough to beat.

The trouble is, they follow the lead of another dot.com magazine resurrection – specifically Tony Perkins’ AlwaysOn — which has a lead of almost five years, two years longer than The Industry Standard survived their first incarnation. AlwaysOn is now an independent media goliath, with so many versions, chapters, conferences and lists that it’s hard to figure out what to read. How will TIS publisher IDG handle this direct competition? It’s going to be a tough one.

I have always been a strong believer in the power of leapfrog technology. When Latin America adopted cell phones at a rate much faster than their northern neighbors, it demonstrated in geo-economic terms Dylan’s prescient observation that the first one will later be last.

An article in this week’s Economist (subscription required) highlights some interesting results from the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects report that reveal some nuance which refines my view of when and how leapfrogs work, and the differences in correlation between early- and mass- adoption in the developing world, and in the developed world.

The Economists highlights the difference between good candidates for leapfrog (cell phones, distributed power generation) and the bad ones (web services, $100 laptops, advanced medical technology). The latter have in common a need for existing infrastructure to already be in use and widely adopted.

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Rapleaf, the social network and reputation aggregator released some interesting stats they are seeing across six of the largest social networks (LinkedIN, Facebook, Hi5, MySpace, Plaxo and Friendster).

Whether or not Rapleaf turns the corner on usage, the concept is here to stay. I’ll have much more to say on reputation in coming posts, but with the convergence of OpenSocial, OpenID and web2.0 overload, people will be looking to centralize the management of social network profiles and information creation (blogs, Flickr, twitter, etc.), which results in a pretty critical summary of a person’s digital — and eventually social and business — reputation.

What’s the nuance? 

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Environmental Entrepreneurs is another organizational evolution devoted to “being the change,” to wit:

E2 is a network of over 2,000 people who believe that good environmental policy makes economic sense. We have over 800 members from 22 states who work in technology, consulting, venture capital, financial services and a number of other sectors. These members have been involved in financing, creating or working in the early development of over 800 companies, which have created more than 400,000 jobs nationwide. They currently represent more than $20 billion in private equity capital that will flow over the next several years into new companies.

In partnership with the NRDC, they engage progressive business leaders in advocacy, lobbying and organization in order to deepen their reach into the mechanism of change. I think the reality of the capital flow into the triple bottom line space is going to outpace expectations, and, will outpace several business evolutions precedents, including CSR, CRM and a host of three-letter acronyms, setting a new investor-driven triple-baseline within a decade.

February 2008 dawns, and the next chapter in my life begins. nuance provides me a place to catalog thoughts, share experiences and define the intersection of seemingly disparate concepts that fill my brain.

February is a big month. My daughter, Delilah, turns 1. My son, Jasper, turns 4 on the 14th anniversary of my father’s death. Of course, this is always an interesting day, and although we keep this information from him for now, it’s really a great metaphor for the concept of omnivalence. It’s not that I’m just happy for Jasper and sad about missing my dad, but a more complex set of feelings – optimism for our collective future, ambition to pass a legacy along as a bridge between generations that did not get to meet, concern that our national -ism is on the wrong course, as just a sample.

Feb 5 is also Bob Marley’s birthday, an inspiring connection. And it’s Super-Tuesday, but I’ll keep the political commentary on the sidelines. For now.

Keep an eye on this space; development continues.