Yes we did.!!!!!!!!!!!

The 20th century was like this. The 21st century is going to be like this."I ask you to believe -- not just in my ability to bring about change, but in yours. You can choose hope over fear, unity over division, the promise of change over the power of the status quo. If you give me your vote, we won't just win this election -- together, we will change this country and change the world."See the difference?Get out and vote.*bonus reading:"He told of his encounter with Edith Childs, a city councilwoman from Greenwood, S.C., who had lifted his spirits at the start of his campaign when his rallies were small and no one gave him a chance. She inspired him with her chant of "Fired up and ready to go."It's a story he's told hundreds of times but probably never so well. He lingered for effect, described the councilwoman's church hat with a broad theatrical sweep of his hand and somehow was able to convey a time when he was small and vulnerable to the crowd of 90,000 that came to see him. "That's how this thing started," he said. "It shows you what one voice can do. One voice can change a room, and if it can change a room, it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it can change a state then it can change a nation and if it can change a nation it can change a world."

I have been wracking my head trying to write a post for my HBS blog about the macropocalypse. There's so much to say.For now, I will say this: the Fed bailing out AIG is kind of jaw-dropping as a total evisceration of the bedrock of the financial system - and orthodox finance and economics.The real point is this. The time is now. Now is the time for revolutionaries to step up and build something better, something more real, and something greater.There will probably never - at least in our lifetimes - be an opportunity for total economic reinvention this tremendous. Or this meaningful. Because that's what it's really about - not shareholder value, money, or "competitive advantage". But doing something that means something.

Quick note from Seedcamp. I have a really, really feeling that today will be really bad. I'm pretty certain that yesterday was by no means the culmination of the collapse. If AIG goes down, we are in serious trouble of a systemic and catastrophic breakdown and unwinding.

How Obama should attack Palin. Someone forward to Axelrod.

Scott has a point, but I think that Facebook isn't exactly "normal" in terms of expectations, influence, or liquidity options, the secondary markets involved in what's "normal" aren't often made relatively open, the shares traded in them don't go at a >100% discount, and my guess (though the info is opaque) is they're not largely sold directly to private equity, etc...Look. I think a very thin market in Facebook shares at a $15 bil valuation might be OK. But a larger, more open one at a $5b valuation kind of sends not a great signal. The signal is that Facebook might go straight to some kind of restructuring - which is really the point of the post.Forget what's "normal" for a second - because there is no meaningful statistical "normal" in industries like venture. Just think about the strategic logic for a second.Now, I'm not saying I'm "right" - the post is there for us to discuss what Facebook's options are.

"...That said, none of this means the bailout is a mistake. "My own view is that the world isn't fair," says Zvi Bodie, finance professor at Boston University. "But would it be fair to put the economy into a deep recession or depression? I don't think so."There's the rub. If the monetary and fiscal authorities are right in their judgment that the risk of an economic plunge of frightening proportions is real, then the Herculean actions they're taking are fair to all of us. What's more, if innovation is the core dynamic in a capitalist economy, the engine of growth and higher living standards, then there will be booms and busts, especially during periods of rapid technological change. It's in the nature of the beast. Like it or not, limiting the downside damage when the boom goes bust is a critical part of the monetary authorities job."Wow. Are you joking?That this logic is actually somehow reasonable is fairly depressing. The logic of collective responsibility is actually the logic of anti-markets: the more we invest in bailing banks out, the longer and nastier the crisis is gonna be, and the less productive the economy is going to remain.Honestly, I don't even wanna write about any of this much anymore. It's almost inexpressibly lame.

Guys, I'm on vacation. So I decided to let my friend Kashif write some posts on Sales 2.0. I think you should give him a chance - the writing needs work, I agree, but he's got some interesting things to say. If you really have a bone to pick, (as usual) leave a comment.NB - I will consider guest posts on a regular basis - just email me. I will publish those I think are interesting, provocative, relevant, etc.

So how can organizations make Sales 2.0 happen?First things first, Sales 2.0-enabled organizations see the correlation between customer intimacy and sales results. Shocking! There are 4 characteristics world-class 2.0 sales organizations, they:Maximize selling time- remove mundane tasks associated with salesDefine a clear sales process focused on high value activitiesDetail the mechanics of a meaningful conversationsSynchronize selling activities with the buying processIn this space, Landslide and InsideView stand out for their innovative approach to time-tested problems. For the evolving sales organization, the good news is that they recently announced a partnership. Awesome, this space is really picking up momentum.Landslide has turned traditional CRM on its head by putting a premium on sales rep time and consistently enable sales force effectiveness. Remember the sales organization needs to maximize time with prospects and Landslide helps enable that-Details your organization's sales process and the tools required at each stepProvides a free sales assistant service for sales reps (off-shoring snobs, their service is US-based)80% of all functionality is enabled from one screen...within 3 clicksInsideview- quite simply provides a mash-up of the results that can be used by sales organizations. Why is it good? It works.Remember our definition of Sales 2.0 is really fundamental: increase proximity to prospects. We will continue to explore innovative companies that help maximize sales rep time and minimize the tasks/ activities that steer reps away from this goal. These are the true Sales 2.0 pioneers.With that, we take the first steps towards greater sales force effectiveness. Coming up next: what are sales organizations doing wrong?

Sales 2.0 is a new approach to B2B sales. Quite simply, the Sales 2.0 approach provides sales organizations:Increased proximity to prospectsThe ability to replicate and standardize selling best practicesSuperior visibility into sales rep effectivenessThe result is greater intimacy with your prospects/ repeat customers. However the process in effect actually works in reverse:Top organizations understand what their best sales reps do to sell effectivelyUnderstanding high value sales activities helps detail the sales process stepsSales 2.0 organizations then take this best process and standardize it across the sales team. In effect, they can upgrade the behavior of their mediocre sales reps.Of course, the end result is increased proximity to prospects and customers (and implicitly, increased sales with effective use of resources)The ability to implement this change is enabled by sales 2.0 applications and tools. At this point a good question to ask is:What about the Sales 2.0 social network?So far, it's been difficult to see an application has been able to define meta-social network at an organizational level. However, I believe that social networks do exist within within sales. The sales social networks in any given territory are informal social networks that are clustered around prospects with a similar profile or problem set. The best sales reps are able to recognize, understand, build, penetrate, and connect within these sales social networks at a local level and that defines their ongoing success. Engaging the social network is part of the sales reps best practice.Sales 2.0 applications help you recognize and implement such best practices. Coming up next: How?

Hi folks, we have published the first strategy paper from my Lab today - details are here if you're interested in downloading.Enjoy!!

Hi everyone. I hope you're all doing well. From today, I am going to be publishing quite a bit more frequently at both my Lab and my blog at Harvard Business. If you're interested, please update your feeds/etc accordingly.Bubblegen is going to be be here, don't worry - we will be discussing the heavily theoretical stuff (uhhh...just like we normally do :)

Very good stuff, highly recommended.

A nice example of how to get it wrong.Hey, look, I used an example that's not Google...!

My take on Microsoft paying for search traffic is up on the Media Lab's blog. Enjoy!

"...i usually find it hard to despise. but umair is full of shit re: @scobleizer & "Valley is Blowing It" post: http://tinyurl.com/6hf2vh"lol. Look - call me full of shit all you like. That's fine, and it helps us have good discussions.But isn't "despise" a bit ott? Would Dave really feel he had the license to ummm...despise me...if I wasn't a brown dude in London?No, I'm not saying Dave is racist. But it sure feels like there's something deeper than mere disagreement happening. And it's perhaps easier to jump into "despising" people who are different from you. I take a lot of attacks. Funnily enough, the people that make them usually come from a very specific demographic. So I don't feel like Dave would have said this about someone, well, more like Dave. Maybe that's wrong, I'm sure many of you think I'm being too sensitive, I'm probably more than guilty of it myself. But from my perspective - it doesn't feel like debate: it feels like hate.This will be the last admin for a while, I've had enough of this navel-gazing.And thanks to everyone for all the feedback on yesterday's thread - it was really, really helpful, awesome stuff.

So I got this tweet from Kate:"... Am I allowed to say that I think Umair Haque is a little... offputting? He's got great things to say, but I just don't like reading him."Now, I think that's actually on the money - so thanks, Kate. Man, I don't even like to read what I've written lately - it's ugly. When I think about it, there are three reasons why.The first is personal. My mom was pretty sick. She's better now, but it was a rough couple of months.The second is that I've just been working way too hard (book, lab, etc).The third is a bit deeper. Before, it was just kind of wonkish fun for me to write about this stuff. But the more I've thought about it, the more I've gotten a little angry about the ways in which business is failing us. I've really been feeling it - instead of just detachedly analyzing it. Maybe a bit too much - because it's bleeding through in how I've been writing lately. So, I think I am going to try and back off a little bit - and apologies if it feels like I'm shouting at you. Do me a favour and let me know if you feel the way Kate did.

"Umair is fighting the good fight, taking the capitalist investor at his own evaluation, that he creates value by doing good.The fact is, the capitalist is just an exploiter making his profit any way he can, whether he does good or ill.I believe Umair when he says there are opportunities to do good AND make money investing in solving big problems ... but that doesn't mean there aren't opportunities to make money fucking the world up and causing misery too ... and people will take those.While VC and good *can* be aligned, Umair's wrong to think it's an "inevitable" law of economics. You need people with integrity and virtue to see and do the right thing. Not just those following their self interest." Interesting comment from Phil - but it couldn't be more wrong.If you follow bubblegen, you'll note that, in fact, I do very much think business as usual is more often than not deeply evil - capitalism is assuredly not always good.What's different about the edge is that good beats evil. Guys, at this point, I say this every day, and some of you still don't really get it - don't understand what this simple statement really means. I think perhaps that's because it's such a radical reversal of the way we're used to thinking about business.So let me make this as absolutely, totally, utterly simple as possible.Don't complicate it. It means exactly what it says: not a moral judgment - but as razor-sharp economics.Yes, there are opportunities to profit by evil - from misery. But there are now greater opportunities to profit by doing good than by doing evil.That's not a belief. It's an economic fact. If you look at the numbers, they are unambiguous. Google didn't just launch Google Arms Trading. They launched Google Health. See the point?

Q: Can better advertising save Microsoft from strategic irrelevance?A: aahahaha."...I suspect what Microsoft would most like to instill in people's minds is they are innovators and leaders."Windows? I kiss you!!!!!@1111The epic, epic lulz.

"...But the problem with your blog is you don't write often enough. You make false promises (etsy article). Then you complain about communitied out as if there is a gatekeeper. I know you won't post this, but this is for your benefit."Dasher, take a deep breath. Relax. I give you as much as I can. The Etsy article will be up as time permits. FYI - Both here and at my HB blog, it's only comments with personal attacks that are modded out.

Scoble: "...I'm a noise junkie. ...I've been studying noise and news now for quite a while. ...let's do a little definition of the difference between news and noise. NEWS: tens of thousands dead in China quake.NOISE: BrianGreene: some pirate is playing old radio nova tapes on 92FM dublin, with old jingles and old ads. adverts for rent a 20″ TV 48p a day (48 pence!)"Bolding's mine. You know this would be funny - if it wasn't so sad. Why is the Valley so lame these days? Why aren't revolutionaries solving any real problems?Because, apparently, they're navel-gazing so hard, they can't see gigantic meteor-sized economic problems crashing and exploding around them.For my money, the real issue isn't (for the love of sweet Jesus) news, or noise. It's the hundreds of thousands of people who just died in China and Burma. You know - the ones Scoble just...ummm...ignored with the zombified glibness of a frat-boy at a kegger. Those tragedies point to a whole slew of problems that need to be solved: disaster relief, income inequality, political repression, hunger, thirst, censorship/acess to information...the list is endless. To Scoble's credit, he's discussed exactly one of these topics lately. That's better than nothing - but it's not nearly enough.Honestly - it's no wonder the Valley's trapped in a profound state of decay: it seems to have lost the ability to, well, think.

So, I get a lot of emails these days (thanks :) . Many of them start with (I kid you not) "I love what you write!! I don't usually agree, but..."OK. Guys, let me try and explain the point of bubblegen very, very simply. I think a lot. Then I build models (you can see some of these in the ppts). The models forecast future outcomes. I keep notes on these forecasts here at bubblegen.Now, the thing is: these forecasts are usually surprisingly accurate. I called media hyperdeflation literally years ago - in 2004. I called the death of Yahoo years ago, too - in 2005. I pointed out Facebook's errors when the kool-aid drinking was in full effect. I continually point out why Google rocks everyone. Blah, blah, this isn't a scorecard - you can trawl the archives for tons more examples.The point. Yes, you can disagree. Or call bubblegen contrarian (really? contrary to who? Jerry Yang? Mark Zuckerberg? lol). It's irrelevant to me.But you're perhaps doing yourself a disservice, by missing the point of bubblegen entirely. If you're taking the time to read what I write, your fundamental questions should be - even if you disagree with their logic - why are these models so consistently accurate? How do these models really work? What does that imply for next-gen strategy, advantage, and management? Let me sharpen that. A few years ago, I went to talk to the C-level guys at a Giant Internet Company who's now on the ropes. We had a nice few days of chats. But they never asked those fundamental questions - and I was a kid at the time, so I didn't press them - instead, they just said: "We love what you write! We don't usually agree, but..."And the rest - unfortunately for them - is history.Now, to some of you, that sounds arrogant. Sorry - but nothing could be further from the truth. I put a lot (a lot) of work into sharing this stuff with you, instead of keeping it locked down. I'm simply pointing out that - as for the guys in that boardroom - perhaps a deeper investment would allow you to get more out of it.

So Tim O'Reilly just kicked off the Web 2.0 conference with a talk about we're not solving big problems. Wait - that sounds just like what we've been discussing repeatedly this year.Paul Graham just wrote an essay about why good vs evil is a principle to live by for companies. Wait - that sounds like something we've been discussing for the last four years.Lol. Nice to see you guys finally joining the discussion. An acknowledgement might be nice (if, of course, one is due). NB - Thanks to everyone who sent me a heads-up about this.

So I think many of you are new to bubblegen, and my HBS blog. Some of you are understandably a little bit skeptical. Who is this guy, and what the £^%*$! is he talking about?Here's what we've been discussing with investors, startups, and boardrooms for the last few years.In 2004-5, we began discussing how the economics of media were undergoing profound transformation as a result of cheap interaction.In 2006, we began discussing how new modes of coordination, like peer production, were reshaping production and consumption.In 2007, we began discussing how markets, networks, and communities were the focal points of an edgeconomy.In 2008, we will be discussing how the edgeconomy requires firms to fundamentally rethink DNA, strategy and advantage.We will be doing that through my new organization - the Havas Media Lab. Which, if you think about it for a second, is one of a very, very small handful of organizations in the world dedicated absolutely to next-generation strategy.The point is: bubblegen has been shaping thinking in this space for years now. I wrote this article about why copyright was economically broken and strategically irrelevant, for example, in 2004. That was when Larry Lessig was focused on IP. He was thinking about the legal aspects - I was thinking about the economic aspects. The point of the paper was to try and discover new paths to advantage in a world where old ones were breaking down. Now, I can't give you all the answers. But if you've been reading bubblegen through the years, I suspect you have gotten a tiny bit closer to at least some of the answers. The edgeconomy has a funny effect on people: it's so counterintuitive, often people refuse to believe it exists at all. That's because yesterday's assumptions are incredibly difficult to truly let go. How can Google profit by not being evil? How can Wikipedia exist? Isn't Twitter just a fad? Etc.Let me offer a very different example.Look at Hillary. How could Obama - using near-perfect edge strategy - close and then reverse the gap? It seems impossible to Hillary's team - still playing by yesterday's rules.What Obama's team has realized is that a world of cheap interaction is a very different world economically - and so they are focused on very different kinds of advantage. Bubblegen has been at the forefront of exploring that world for years. You're welcome to join the discussion. You will get a lot (lot) more out of it if you recognize that I do have the expertise to guide you through these issues - and if you can see the world with fresh eyes, not jaded ones.

Why is blogging a pain? Here's an example.Fred recently wrote a post responding to the latest post at my HBS blog. Today, the highest ranked comment on Fred's discussion is by a guy who clearly hasn't read bubblegen much (ie, I didn't start writing about peer production yesterday, but before most of the guys he's talking about were doing it).Which requires me to then have a not very productive session of pointing exactly that out. That's a pure transaction cost, which makes building communities much harder than it should be.That's fine - I can do it every once in a while. But amplify that by like ten billion and you get a tiny taste of what guys like Om have to deal with.The point is: we need better DNA to make communities cohere. Twitter, for example, is a very nice start. So here's my Twitter, if you want to add it.