The Entrepreneurial Free Agent and Dejobbed Small Business R&D Lab
Rants and Raves #09
Sohodojo 2010 A.D.
... We have a Dream
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Table of Contents

1. Around the dojo...
   • Announcing the Small Business Revolutionaries Webring
   • Join the Sohodojo Readers' Club
   • SBIR 2000 - Join our RB-EBM R&D SIG
   • Sohodojo Idea Incubators available


2. Sohodojo 2010 A.D. - We have a Dream...
• 2000 A.D. - The Pioneers and Trailblazing
• 2005 A.D. - The Swarm and Synergy
• 2010 A.D. - The World and You
• 1 November 1999 - Shall we dance?


3. What do YOU think? Three quick questions to go

1
Around the dojo...

In the first eight issues of Rants and Raves we solidly put our 'stake in the ground'. We rolled out the 'vision pitch' for the rise of the nanocorp as a 21st century business model -- for reinventing personal enterprise, for redefining worklife, for moving the work place from 'employee-employer to everything being 'business-to-business.' We've laid out the vision, now it's time to roll-up our sleeves, and bring that vision to life.

Your feedback tells us that the 'destination' (transforming yourself into a nanocorp) is very exciting. But how you get there is not yet well understood. A lot of you believe with us that the nanocorp, the 'corporate conglomerate of one', is potentially fundamental to the 21st century redefinition of the workplace. But only a few of you are ready to snap your fingers and become a nanocorp overnight.

We want Sohodojo to be your home-base, your community of kindred spirits, no matter where you are in your nanocorp life-cycle or how far you are on your transition into a small business revolutionary.

Welcome to Sohodojo,
--Jim Salmons and Timlynn Babitsky--
Hosts, Sohodojo

Join the Small Business Revolutionaries Webring

Are you a free agent or small business person that resonates with the ideas and attitudes here at Sohodojo? Are you excited about the nanocorp and the small business revolution? Are you eager to participate but think that only nanocorpers were welcome? Do you have a Brand You personal website or a happening small business website that deserves to be seen with the Usual Suspects?

Have we got a webring for you! Now you can join the Small Business Revolutionaries webring. Show your true colors. You're making waves and darn proud of it. Now you can be seen shaking things up as part of a community of your radical peers.

The Big Guys tell us it's a network economy. They tell us we don't have a prayer against mega-corp competition! Yea, right. Join the SBR ring as we show them just how wrong they are about a lot of things.

Join the Sohodojo Readers' Club

Still working for The Man but positioning for your day of personal liberation? Do you resonate with many of the ideas and attitudes you hear and see around the dojo but feel like you need know a little more to decide if, or how, to participate in the small business revolution?

Join Sohodojo's Readers' Club to take your first steps toward reinventing yourself in the workplace of the 21st century. Nanocorpers, free agents, small business revolutionaries, kindred spirits... a good read is worth sharing.

We're still working out how to facilitate our self-organizing reader groups. If you are interested in reading some interesting books and discussing them with other inquiring minds, drop by and help us organize the Readers' Club. Moderators interested in picking a book to read and leading a Readers' Club discussion group are especially welcome.

We're kicking things off by inviting you to join us to read and discuss the most timely and timeless, Buckminster Fuller's provocative Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. You know he would have loved to be here for the Internet, mega-powerful personal computers, the network economy, the re-emergence of the Individual, the Generalist, nanocorps, e-lancing... the New Millennium. Come on, buy Spaceship Earth now, in time to join us starting November 15th as we do some deconstructing Bucky.

SBIR 2000 - Join our RB-EBM R&D Special Interest Group

Are you a nanocorper or small business revolutionary with strong skills and interest in helping to envision and develop the software infrastructure of the 21st century workplace? Hey, sure it is a tall order. But we are an undaunted, self-organizing Special Interest Group interested in role-based executable business modeling technologies.

If you share this interest, please join us now. We are forming a proposal development effort to go after an Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR 2000) grant. We have identified our target technical topic, 'XML and Workflow Management', which is an appropriate agenda under which to pursue our community-based research and development. We are just getting started, so there is no time like the present to get involved. Join us as we get things rolling.

Sohodojo Idea Incubators available

Drum roll, please.... Now hear this! Sohodojo is pleased to introduce our genuine Idea Incubators, now with Improved Thought Retention Technology! Show you are part of the nanocorp and small business revolutionary community at Sohodojo. Buy One Now!

"Ever since I started wearing mine, I've become smarter, more attractive and taller!"
  - Dave S., ForkintheHead.com

"This is much more stylish than my old head-gear!"
  - Yasser A., Jerusalem, Israel

For the complete low-down on this remarkable invention, and for quick access to our secure on-line order system, visit us here The holiday season is fast upon us. If you act quickly, there's still time to grab an Idea Incubator or two for you and/or your favorite small business revolutionary.

2
Sohodojo 2010 A.D. - We have a Dream...

We recently redesigned the Sohodojo home page...home of the nanocorp and small business revolutionaries. We made our home page the web-equivalent of the entrepreneurial 'elevator pitch.' Tell the Big Picture in a nutshell. Read over the home page and it invites investigation. Investigation leads to participation, the community grows.

We uploaded the new home page, and grinned at our latest WOW project.

We were ready to jump right on writing this issue of Rants and Raves so we could tell you all about it.

But, it was late and we were getting very sleepy. Our eyelids grew heavy. The clock was ticking. Too tired to go on, we both slipped into the very same Sohodojo dream...

2000 A.D. - The Pioneers and Trailblazing

Hey! Just look around Sohodojo! A small but growing group of early adopters recognize that they are already nanocorps or on the verge of redefining themselves as a nanocorp and have joined the Sohodojo community. The Master Webring of the Nanocorps has grown as a showcase of the 'corporate conglomerate of one' business/worklife model. It's still a band of seemingly wacky, out-there individualists 'living large by being ruthlessly small.'

A larger group of community members resonate with the basic ideas and spirit of the dojo but they aren't yet ready to be a nanocorp. Many choose not to be a nanocorp but feel at home with kindred new-models-for-small-business spirits. Some are long-time small business people who have always believed that Quality of Life and Self Determination are the two most important reasons for being in business.

These non-nanocorping small business people join the Open Fork Alliance because they know that the foundation of 'Brand You' is Personal Integrity. By extension, they ensure the integrity of their small business websites by adopting the Open Book approach to website complaints and suggestions. These folks also join the Webring of the Small Business Revolutionaries because they know that web-based small business is all about networking, and the SBR ring folks are a happening crowd. Good company.

Surprisingly, the largest contingent in the Sohodojo community have 'day jobs.' Some even think they have careers. All know that radical change is transforming their workplace, probably much sooner than later. The dojo's Readers' Club and other discussion groups exude a 'Can do!' spirit that makes reinventing yourself in the workplace something you can (and should) start today.

On the nanocorp front, the first steps toward realizing the 'Marketplace of Brand You' have been taken. The 'n2C' component of the 'n2n-n2B-n2C' business model of Sohodojo takes hold and grows first. Our 'Buy nanocorp: Products and Services Directory' is becoming known as the place where consumers find offerings from a growing community of nanocorp-based businesses.

A techno-geek fringe of the dojo is focused on role-based executable business modeling technologies (RB-EBM). They believe that RB-EBM is the software infrastructure of the 21st century workplace. This Special Interest Group (SIG) is both self-organized and self-funded. Stimulated by a U.S. Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant under the 'XML and Workflow Management' technical topic, the RB-EBM SIG has delivered the first release of 'The Nanocorp Game'.

2005 A.D. - The Swarm and Synergy

Due in part to the dojo's political action SIG , the U.S. federal government has recognized the Home is the Enterprise Zone of the 21st Century. Congress foresees significant global competitive advantages in nurturing a swarmable, self-reliant workforce. Other dojo-sponsored local organizing 'cells' are pushing for similar reforms in their home countries.

Consumers have learned that 'small is good.' The Brand You has extended to the Brand Us. Folks make a conscious decision to 'Buy nanocorp': first by way of the Integrity channel, 'I know and trust Jim and Timlynn, I wonder if they sell or recommend a this or a that?', then as a community-based synergy and branding dynamics kick in, folks intentionally seek out nanocorp products and services whether they know the nanocorper or not. The Brand Us shines back onto the Brand You. The global economic playing field is increasingly leveled for unconventional small businesses to compete with mega-whatever.

The 'n2n' component of the dojo's model, nanocorp-to-nanocorp, has blossomed. Dejobbed virtual companies (DVC) are swarming with role-oriented entrepreneurial co-owners. These nanocorpers take responsibility for their own 'fringe benefit packages' thereby cutting the ties that bind them to conventional employment relationships. Free agents, tired of working for 'The Man', are heading to the Sohodojo community like bees to honey as they realize that the best work is your work, WOW work, and they set about collaborating on a host of new dejobbed virtual ventures.

The 'n2n Opportunity Board' is abuzz with dealmaking. Some folks take equity stakes in nanocorp-owned DVC subsidiaries the old fashioned way... they buy their way in. Some earn their stakes through a formalized approach to sweat equity. Some nanocorping 'superstars' are offered DVC equity just to get their attention and participation on 'the team.'

The RB-EBM SIG is has produced and supports a number of Open Source technologies which enable and facilitate role-based work in the myriad of dejobbed virtual companies owned and operated by the growing legion of nanocorps. The RB-EBM SIG takes on an 'n2B' role as increasing numbers of product and service vendors recognize the size and power of the nanocorp community. The RB-EBM SIG helps such businesses identify and tune their products and services to the needs of our community.

It took them a while to get it, but venture capitalists are now making 'retainer' investments into Brand You individuals in addition to their investments in conventional businesses. They realize that the elite nanocorpers are the 'best and brightest' that they would love to see working for any ONE of the conventional businesses in their portfolio. But these nanocorping folks don't work FOR anybody... they work WITH them. So these retainer investments assure the VCs that a proportion of the time and energy of these self-directed catalysts will be aimed at adding value to the VC's conventional business holding.

The first buy-outs of nanocorp subsidiaries have happened. Some nanocorpers can't resist the pull over to conventional business models. They transition their dejobbed virtual company subsidiaries into conventional businesses with employees and all that riga-ma-roll. Co-owners who remain committed to the nanocorp business model are bought out. Some nanocorps maintain board positions on the 'cross-overs.' Some DVC subsidiaries have grown so successful that they are targets for acquisition by mega-corps who still don't get it and think they can do it better than 'those little guys'... the nanocorpers laugh all the way to the bank while planning their next adventure in business.

2010 A.D. - The World and You

More than any time in human history, there are no bounds, no limits. The institutions which once defined and constrained our participation in the World still exist. But we don't NEED them like we did in the past. Nothing stands between Me and the World. The global wired, network economy has been realized as the Ultimate Freedom Machine... I define who I am, how I relate to the world, what I am going to do and with whom I will do it. No bounds, no limits.

The lights go down, the floor lights flash, the mirror ball starts spinning, our toes start tapping and we leap up to take to the dance floor with an excitement like never before...

Briinnnng! Brinnnnng! Morning already?

We both wake up, shake the sleep from our eyes with a smile on our faces. Wow! I had the BEST dream! Me too!?

1 November 1999 - Shall we dance?

This dream of the future of Sohodojo is only one of many that we share between us. We believe in the Big Dream we've described here and we are doing everything we can to live it every day. We see the signs in the world all around us. The dejobbed, everything as business-to-business work place is definitely emerging. The only question is, how fast will the changes take place? And will we lead, follow or simply get out of the way?

With the world changing so rapidly around us, you, too, can't help but think and dream similar wonderful dreams. Everything about the world that you thought was true and unchangeable is up for grabs.

Are you going to be a passenger on Spaceship Earth as it warp-drives into the 21st century? Or will you grab the joystick and help steer the course?

The future has always been shaped by dreamers. At Sohodojo, Dreamers are always welcome.

Come join us as we help shape the Small Business Revolution.

3
What do YOU think? Three quick questions to go...

1. Drag a text selection starting at '------Start copy here------' through '------End copy here------' and do a COPY to put the questions on your editor's clipboard.
3. Paste your questions from the clipboard into your pollster reply message.
4. Put an 'X' on the line in front of the BEST answer for each of this week's questions and send them back to us.

( Click and paste, respond and send.)

As always, thanks for reading this issue of Sohodojo's Rants and Raves newsletter,
    --Jim Salmons and Timlynn Babitsky--
    Hosts, Sohodojo

Endpiece
About the Sohodojo Rants and Raves newsletter

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