Guru Dion, the Web 2.0 psychic
Step right up, folks! Get yer palm read and your cards taroted by the Web 2.0 psychic! What's your sign? Is Omnidrive ascendant in the house of TechCrunch? Dion Hinchcliffe (OMG perfect name) has the answer!
This consultant just published his "Summer '06 Web 2.0 Advisory," and boy is it a doozy, and a real treat for anyone who's ever browsed the Skeptic's Dictionary. After the jump, see if you can spot these signs of a charlatan in Guru Dion's "Advisory".
- "Barnum statements": vague and always-true statements like "Sometimes you're sad" or "There is a man in your life you're uncertain about," used to earn trust
- Counter-examples used as examples: Using, say, miserably failed ad campaigns as examples of healthy customer interaction
- Vague predictions: Unquantifiable statements about the future, using trend words hedged with "but" clauses, so that any outcome can fulfill the predictions
- Self-aggrandizement: Undue inclusion of the psychic and the psychic's organizations in the prediction
- Anything that reads like a book title: "New New Internet"? Give me a break.
From: dion@hinchcliffeandco.com
Subject: [FIRST NAME REDACTED]: Summer '06 Web 2.0 Advisory from Hinchcliffe & Company
Date: July 25, 2006 4:50:58 AM PDT
Hi [REDACTED]:
You're getting this e-mail because you've heard me speak on the topic of Web 2.0 or I've covered you in the Web 2.0 Journal.
It's the middle of summer and most of us are on vacation or in the midst of the summer slow-down. So, we thought we'd start to get folks ready for the fall and thinking about their plans by getting the latest Web 2.0 trends and related events in front of them.
First, since our periodic advisories have been so popular with most of you, enclosed is our specially condensed summary of some of the latest major trends in Web 2.0 in the enterprise. We've also just launched our premium Web 2.0 advisory service (details below) which can provide you with the most comprehensive research currently available. This service covers extensively the major changes that the Web 2.0 phenomenon is triggering in the worlds of business and IT. Finally, we're helping build out one of the most significant Web 2.0 in the enterprise conferences ever held on the East Coast, and we'd like to bring it to your attention, also see below for details.
Significant Web 2.0 Trends in Mid-2006
DisruptiveNew Companies Emerge:Web 2.0 poster child, MySpace, whose content is entirely user generated, recently surpassed Web leaders Google and Yahoo from out of nowhere only two years ago. Many now believe these techniques will be used by startups and existing organizations to disrupt other industries. For example, YouTube, whose content is also entirely user contributed, is now widely believed to have more viewers than network TV. The power of network effects are believed to be largely responsible for these success stories and businesses that can learn how to effectively leverage the scale of audiences on the Web will be the long term winners.
User Generated Software: The latest sites make it easy for users to pull together feeds, badges, and widgets to quickly create their own software out of blogs and wikis. IBM calls this use of mashups 'situational software' and here again MySpace and YouTube are leading the way with large numbers of people. Users are creating their own experiences and lightweight applications, doing what many of us we'd wished we could do in IT for years; building the small systems they need for themselves. We are calling this apparent trend Self-Service IT, and it will likely grow rapidly.
True Customer Disintermediation Stays Emerging Tech: While the rise of blogs among the younger generation is an incredibly strong trend this year, using blogs and other Web 2.0 techniques to build customer communities has only been isolated and mixed in CRM/CLM. This despite some fascinating success stories including " Dell Hell" and GM's fascinating Chevy Apprentice campaign . However, as the emergent effectiveness of customer-driven blogs continues to grow, the control over a company's brand increasingly moves beyond the corporation and the implications can be profound and far reaching.
Web 2.0 Social Architectures The Big Target in 2007: More and more companies are trying to determine how to positively embrace social computing with their customers and employees, which has the potential to unleash a great deal of untapped productivity, innovation, and value. Yet, the downside can be considerable since network effects magnify the good and bad both. Early adopters and fast followers will be putting these techniques front and center by the middle of next year, but the challenge will be to dampen the effects of upheaval while still reaping large enough benefits.
Our Premier Web 2.0 Advisory Service Launches
There is no world-class, dedicated research and analysis service on the topic of Web 2.0 presently available. Until now that is. As of today, Hinchcliffe & Company has a new premium online and print advisory service that includes regular published and online reports on the very latest trends and topics in the Web 2.0 era. I've carefully assembled a team of leading Enterprise Web 2.0 thinkers and researchers to help me create this service and I hope you agree that the effort was worth it. With a focus on Web 2.0 in the enterprise, but beyond that to Social Computing and Consumer Web 2.0 and more, we believe that the advisory is presently the best source of up-to-date analysis and detailed research - that you can find anywhere - that focuses exclusively on the next generation of business and IT. The premier issue includes detailed, painstaking researched information of the depth that you just can't find in the blogosphere or anywhere else:
September/October Premier Advisory Issue Contents
An executive survey of the Web 2.0 strategies of Fortune 1000 CxOs in the next 12 months
A detailed examination and comparison of current major enterprise mashup platforms
How enterprises can start positioning themselves to embrace Web 2.0 technologies strategically: A Roadmap
An in-depth exploration of how enterprise SOAs can be adjusted to enable social architectures.
Since you're a personal acquaintance, I've made available a unique personal referral code ("redacted ") that gives you 25% off the retail price of the yearly service for the next 60 days. This discount is only available prior to the publication of the premier print issue in September/October, and will never be offered again. What's special about this is that you are encouraged to share this discount virally, Web 2.0-style, via e-mail or your blog with your friends and acquaintances. And the more it's used the bigger the break we'll make available to you on our major events and conferences on Web 2.0 and Rich Internet Applications. Each of five uses of your personal referral code gets you into one of our world-class conferences of your choice.
Announcing The New New Internet Conference:
Web 2.0 in the Enterprise on September 20th, in Tyson's Corner, VA
Held at the Ritz-Carlton in Tyson's Corner on September 20th, this major Web 2.0 in the enterprise event will assemble some of the greatest minds on the topic, including Harvard's very own Andrew McAfee of Enterprise 2.0 fame as well as Microsoft's business and architecture strategist, Michael Platt, and many others. Stowe Boyd, another great Web 2.0 leader in the DC Metro area, had this to say about the The New New Internet conference. We're still in the midst of assembling exhibitors, companies for a very exciting Web 2.0 startup competition with a panel of leading VCs, as well as the all-star cast, so contact me if you want more details. Please visit our full events page to see more information, obtain coupon codes, and view all of our Web 2.0/New Internet events including the AjaxWorld Conference and Expo in Santa Clara in October.
And that's it for now, I do hope to hear from you and how you're doing if we haven't spoken recently. Let me know what you're up to in the Web 2.0 space!
Note: If you don't like these e-mails clogging up your mailbox, just let me know and I'll stop sending them.
Best Regards,
Dion Hinchcliffe
President and CTO
