My thoughts on the new Wikistrat model

First off, one thing you have to understand with start-ups is that they morph.  Counting two other firms I'm currently involved in, Wikistrat is the eighth start-up that I either worked for or started myself.  And I'm proud to say that all of them are still running - save for the NewRuleSets.Project that was bought up by Enterra Solutions.  So change is inevitable.

When I first linked up with Joel Zamel, he and his compadres were mostly about selling the technology platform, which was cool enough, but the work didn't meet their personal ambitions. So we link up and I'm brought in primarily to start populating the global model (I pen almost a book's worth of material and, on that basis, radically revamp my current speech/brief) and write a biweekly globalization review (CoreGap Bulletin) designed to pull readers into becoming subscribers/authors in the Wikistrat universe.  I liked doing both, but I liked working the global model a whole lot better, because I learned big stuff - big time, and I greatly enjoyed the discipline the system forced upon me (evidenced in the all the new material for the brief).  So, on that score, I was sold and said so many times here in the blog.

Regarding the CoreGap Bulletin, it was fun to write and I enjoyed getting up to speed on the production of digital video shorts, but it seemed like a lot of effort compared to the payoff I/we got from my working on the model, and it wasn't generating the draw for analysts that we wanted.  The first small simulations did better, but we still weren't getting a critical mass participation we were looking for - nor the proof-of-concept on large-scale play.  Looming over all this frustration was the sense that we weren't sufficiently exploiting our best stuff: the analysis that came from expanding the global model and the simulations themselves. So why go on processing global news when we had the means to generate truly differentiated analysis within the Wikistrat universe itself?

So I went back and forth with Joel and the guys and eventually they hatched the idea of the grand strategy competition. The notion was simple: the global model was mature enough to constitute a serious backdrop for a massive play stretched over weeks.  Instead of small numbers of hand-selected types, we'd go for creating a critical mass number whose very size would generate the group dynamics we kept aiming for.  Plus, the game itself would become its own recruitment tool, so we get the double-whammy of proving out the "massively multiplayer consultancy" model while stocking up (in effect, interviewing-by-play) on solid young bloods.

So here we are now with the new package:  rather than the smaller network that expertly works the wiki environment, we go for a much larger network that learns with and grows the global model as we pursue simulations on behalf of interested clients.  Instead of staying lean and mean and trying to grow in that tightly organic sense, we stock up on bodies, ideas, material and price everything out - in all directions - on a discrete basis, thereby avoiding the classic start-up conundrum of "do I get the work first and scramble for bodies or stockpile bodies and then scramble for work?"

So here's my personal thumbnail versions of the rationales that we've settled on in this next iteration of the company:

We run the show like one of those big aggregating sites that pool all the photos shot by professionals (Getty, Reuters, etc.) and then spool them out to buyers: the more you put in, and the more that stuff gets picked up, the more you earn.  You don't try to go for paying people by the "job" so much as by the ideas, which get competitively marketed to buyers.  This way you don't build up unsustainable labor costs but if anybody strikes gold (brings in the right client, produces the right material that attracts the same, etc.), they're immediately tied into direct compensation.  Everybody is directly incentivized. Nobody is ripping off anybody else, and worst case in the meantime, we're still building a great global community of strategists who - at the very least - educate each other and network.

From the perspective of the analyst, we say: you like to do this sort of thing anyway, and many of you already give it away on blogs, so why not pool all the nuggets and market them collectively, and let your bits and pieces earn you bucks here and there.  It's the same effort you're already making; just make some money and network more explicity in the process.  Plus, we've given you - the independent operator working for yourself - a place to bring this or that piece of work you might not be able to handle on your own (so you can't take advantage of the opportunity or connection).

Thinking back over my career, I've always welcomed that sort of stuff when it has - from time to time - popped up.  I consider it sharpening-the-blade activity and I love to share just about everything I generate.  Frankly, this is the same logic I'm applying to "The Emily Updates":  why bother with the big book route when I can sell discretely and directly myself over the web?

Beyond the earning potential, there's the simple reality of more formally and fruitfully connecting up with those of your own kind.  Most of us strategic planners and thinkers live in a professional world of "others," where, quite frankly, we're the odd lot. This model allows us to connect to one another and interact however much we see fit to pursue.  Again, blade-sharpening and useful and . . . fun, when it comes down to it.  Dogs like to play with other dogs - plain and simple.

Exercises fit into the blade-sharpening notion as well. Hell, that's why the military does them. Most professionals don't get that much chance to pursue this sort of thing, buried as they constantly are in producing the plan/report/review/etc.  The simulations simply organize the building up of the global model (GloMod, as I call it), which is the intellectual backdrop for the overall interaction - the Wikipedia-meets-Facebook dynamic.

When all the previous aspects come together in an actual opportunity to advise, via the massively multiplayer consultancy, then so much the better, because the more gigs means the more eyes, and the more eyes means more money for the analysts' whose material attracts those eyes.  

All in all, it strikes me as a wonderfully virtuous circle: stuff I want to do anyway, in a cool environment, with people I want to interact with professionally.  We organize our activities in exciting ways (simulations) that are either bespoke efforts done directly for clients or are used to generate material that clients can explore and exploit on their own.  Worst case: the effort builds up the model that much more, and the blade-sharpening aspects are only that much more heightened as a result.

Again, at the end of the day, it's all stuff I want to do anyway for professional standing. I can do it all by my lonesome in a blog, or even group blog and compete on that level, or I can replace those efforts (or even just compliment them) with something that's more collectively focused so as to generate side income-generating opportunities.  As an analyst, my risk is minimal - as in, you only get what you give, while the upsides are solid and potentially quite empowering.

Most of us analysts fall into this category: we've got all sorts of things going at any one time.  We don't need any single one of them to be THE thing, but we like having several be money-making, career-enhancing in that ramping-up manner (starting small and building).  I think the new Wikistrat model falls into that category: cool association, good skills build-up/maintenance, great networking, solid learning, fun environment, and - through the power of the collective - great opportunities to do big things for big customers, operating at a large scale level of interaction that we typically only get in short bursts in our careers but individually crave on an ongoing basis.

Wikistrat becomes that ongoing basis - the professional association that pays it backward to the members themselves.

Comments

[Dan Hare]

The simulation efforts was a big hit! In fact, I'd say it was a grand slam on the first outing!