I’m still processing thoughts and catching up after a great – no, wonderful – time at LegalTech in New York. I expect to begin posting about some of that in the next few days.
In the meantime, the most important post you’ll read today is Doc Searls’ new Suitwatch column called Beyond “Content”: Digging the New Intermediation Business
One of the many money quotes in this column echoes an “aha!” moment I had as I thought about blogging on the plane back from New York:
“Now, rather than look at how intermediaries will stay in business and thrive, let’s look at the bottom-line questions, which are, of course, centered around money. There, the biggest question isn’t ‘How will they make money?’ It’s ‘How can they connect artists with customers?’
Markets, as I’ve often reported: http://www.searls.com/doc/lunacy2003/ds_keynote/source/slide47.htm, are not only about transactions or even conversations, which was Cluetrain’s first point. They’re about relationships. That means, if you’re in the business of intermediating the sale of the artistic goods we still call ‘content’, your job is facilitating relationships between artists and customers.”
If you are a blogger, there is no more important text that you will find today to meditate upon for the next few days.
In my view, if you flip, rotate and turn over these concepts, as I have, you end up at some very interesting places.
We’ll be talking more about this soon.