Thursday
Jul122007
Engaging with the World From Behind the Boerewors Cluetrain
Thursday, July 12, 2007 at 7:39PM
Late lastnite I made a status update on Twitter saying that I was looking to name a new business venture*. It was an arbitrary musing, and I didn't really expect anyone to take notice - Twitter and Facebook status updates have become cathartic to me, they serve an end in themselves.
Within minutes, however, a guy by the name of Krikor Ohannessian, who happens to be in Lebanon, messaged me back to say that one of his hobbies is coming up with names for Web2.0 companies.
Krikor runs a site called Wikinomy which a well-respected web guy in America, Robert Scoble, introduced me to via a Facebook group invite. So there was a sense of inferred trust.
I sent Krikor more info, and this morning he sent me some brilliant suggestions, as well as one of those coveted Pownce invites. Awesome.
Anyway, it's a cool story of seamless global collaboration. And I thought I'd tell it to remind myself not to get too caught-up behind the Boerewors Cluetrain (i.e. just thinking and operating within the South African diaspora).
*ps. I'm not leaving Cerebra, as some people presumed - it's a related business.
Within minutes, however, a guy by the name of Krikor Ohannessian, who happens to be in Lebanon, messaged me back to say that one of his hobbies is coming up with names for Web2.0 companies.
Krikor runs a site called Wikinomy which a well-respected web guy in America, Robert Scoble, introduced me to via a Facebook group invite. So there was a sense of inferred trust.
I sent Krikor more info, and this morning he sent me some brilliant suggestions, as well as one of those coveted Pownce invites. Awesome.
Anyway, it's a cool story of seamless global collaboration. And I thought I'd tell it to remind myself not to get too caught-up behind the Boerewors Cluetrain (i.e. just thinking and operating within the South African diaspora).
*ps. I'm not leaving Cerebra, as some people presumed - it's a related business.
Reader Comments (5)
Dave, so true!
I need to constantly remind myself not to get bogged down in SA internet affairs. It just gets so insular.
Dave, it is exciting for the net to be open to everyone. But trust is still required to build solid relationships. We operate within South Africa because we trust the people we meet in real life. An idea is to build a irrefutable method of trust into current social networks.
Dave, try invite share for all your inviting needs. I posted that I wanted a Pownce invite and received one within 5 minutes. ;)
Err, that's http://www.inviteshare.com/. Forgot the link.
Uno, when you're in a bubble, everything seems magnified. We tend to take issues in our little community and blow the up out of proportion.
Michael... Hell yeah! That's why I think Facebook- and Pownce-like applications are going to be increasingly important in business. Trust is alles.
Johan: Thanks! It's soooo wierd, I just sat down at my computer and at the same time as your comment came in, I got an invitation to another site called http://www.invitopia.com which does the same thing! Rocking cool :)