The big-flow blog will return, as part of a larger offering
Friday, October 8, 2010 at 10:58AM 
Right now negotiating with the Israeli start-up Wikistrat (click here to download their brochure) to have them host my blog as part of an exciting new offering we're collectively working on. For now, the outlines of the plan are such that I will continue to offer a free blog version (with a flow not too far off what I'm offering now) and a subscription-based big-flow blog (to include an additional periodic flow of meta-analyses on globalization's trends, turns, etc.). The larger goal is to create an online offering for individuals and enterprises alike that leverages Wikistrat's platform, meaning the content flow is but one traditional aspect of what we are crafting in terms of online strategic planning tools. You know my old bit about wanting to replicate my skills in the next generation? Well, this will be the primary outreach tool: a place where you can come and gain access to a super-scenarioized model of how globalization works and evolves, where you can create your own scenarios and pathways and shocks-to-the-system and explore them to your heart's content, interacting with me and other analysts.
What excites me about this venture? This isn't the traditional black-box approach, where you turn over your particulars to a consultancy and they draw upon their expertise back at the shop and then crank you answers that you cannot trace in logic (beyond what is shared). This will be a place where the very underlying technology will be shared with you, and where your intellectual forays will be pursued in collaboration with strategic thinkers, meaning, at the end of the day, a real transfer of both technology and intellect is obtained.
I believe that the great outsourcing of strategic planning that corporations pursued in the 1980s, creating the rise of mainline business/strategic consultancies since then, is over and in the process of being reversed (insourced). I think the globalization landscape is just too complex and every-changing for companies, government agencies, etc., NOT to have that skill set within their organizations.
And I think my collaboration with Wikistrat (an experiment just beginning) will provide the human-capacity-building that a host of companies, educational facilities, public agencies will find compelling--far more so in the rising/emerging markets, where the need is greatest.
And so I am very excited to begin this adventure, putting the blog to more focused use.
Reader Comments (4)
Very exciting Tom! Kind of the 'connecting' concept of Global Students Connect. Elevates you to the Statesman level in my book.
Congrats!
How much will the subscription be?
Looking forward to following as you re-purpose the blog to be poised to continue to blaze new trails into a future worth creating.
Great to hear of this new exciting creative adventure & that we will be able to carry on with you as we have for several years. Sounds like Wikistrat thrives on world strategy & globalization, no wonder it attracted you. Bring it on!
I hope this works for you, but I'm concerned that the subscription price may put this out of the reach of "non-professional" readers like me, who wouldn't view this as a 'deductible business expense'.