This post picks up the story of how I became an analyst of “irregular competition” which we know here on Telofski.com to be anti-corporate activists and NGOs.
In the previous post, “You Could Say That This Post Serves as My Annotated Resume,” I discussed my foundational experiences and knowledge that support my current expertise in the analysis of anti-corporate digital activism. If you haven’t yet read that post, you may do so by clicking here.
Now, here in Part 2, I pick up the story where I left off. Here in Part 2, I describe how The Kahuna Content Company, Inc. and I evolved from an Internet content supplier to that of anti-corporate digital activism analysis.
Web 2.0 Appears
Through 2001 I had acquired quite a bit of experience in competitive intelligence analysis as well as an expertise in online business. In Kahuna Content’s early days as an independent supplier of online content, I learned about what people wanted from their online experiences. During that period of time the web was a relatively static communicator of information; there was little “interaction” due to the technologies that existed then. However, around 2005, as the web started to evolve into the more interactive environment that I knew it could and would ultimately become, I began to learn about and experience what later became known as “Web 2.0.” At that time the Internet was truly becoming an “environment,” a social one. Because of technology shifts, it was then that people began to convert the Internet into an “environment,” one which affected them and one which they affected back in return.
It was at that time, in that “2.0″ shift in the Internet, that Kahuna Content, and I, began to change focus. As the wave of what later came to be known as “user-generated content” rose, I saw that the need for independently supplied online content would fade. So, Kahuna Content made a gradual move away from content supply. Watching the rise of the “social web,” I saw that with the tools that were starting then to become available, people could and would transfer their human “conversational jones” for interaction from the real to the virtual, taking it global and making it a 24/7 activity. I saw that people would start talking about every thing under the sun, and out in public. Going back to my roots as a competitive intelligence analyst, this shift told me that people, everyday people, could become “competitors” to the very companies from which they bought their goods and services.
The Insidious Competitor Threatens
Now, I wasn’t really the first person to realize this. The Cluetrain Manifesto had forecasted this change about a half dozen years prior. But at this point in the story, I realized that individuals could actually do what the Cluetrain had predicted. When Cluetrain was written, the “social media” tools that could enable markets to “laugh” at the companies who supplied them weren’t fully configured enough for that to be much of an actual business threat. But by around 2006 to 2007, my competitive intelligence/threat analysis personality was screaming at me, saying that the Cluetrain threat was truly here. In overdrive. Social media was going to develop fully and companies needed to be aware of what those “insidious competitors” (i.e., people of all shapes and sizes) were saying about them. Here was a problem, and I knew how to solve it. Web monitoring and analysis.
So in 2007 after gradually moving toward this new business of web monitoring and social media initiative analysis, Kahuna Content changed its business focus entirely to that, which I positioned as “competitive intelligence from social media.” We offered social web monitoring and analysis of online “conversations” related to a client’s products/services/markets, with an eye on discovering what customers and consumers were saying about the companies they patronized. This was an exploding area, and there was quite a bit of interest in our services. Offering this service called upon the threat analysis skills that I had first learned back there at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, when I first became involved in foreign competitive intelligence, and later perfected in my own competitive intelligence company, The Becker Research Company, Inc. And this “competitive intelligence from social media” service was also built upon the online and digital environment expertise that I had built at both eBusiness Analysts and perfected in the early days of Kahuna Content. My skills, expertise, experience, and knowledge had coalesced here in the enhanced version of Kahuna Content, perhaps more accurately phrased as “Kahuna Content 2.0.”
The Irregular Competitor Appears
Around 2008, as social media usage increased tremendously, it began to be employed by not only individuals, but also by corporations, both of the profit and non-profit variety, as well as by an American presidential campaign which reached its objective, largely via social media usage. Each type of organization, the profit and non-profit, started to use the medium to speak to their publics. I saw that these online media, being relatively inexpensive, were perfectly positioned for employment by non-profit activist groups as well as their non-governmental organization (NGO) cousins. These are organizations who, because of their financial structure, are always “desperate” for less expensive ways to communicate their agendas and gather support. During this year, as a by-product of my social web monitoring work, I saw that more and more activists and NGOs were taking their messages online where they were gathering support for their organizations. Their success with this medium at that time was likely spurred, and supported, by the online social activity generated from that aforementioned presidential campaign. Many of those activist and NGO messages were “anti-corporate,” some directed at specific companies while other of them were simply directed against capitalism in general. This new type of commercial competition, this “irregular competition,” is what you and I discuss here on Telofski.com.
Anti-corporate activists and NGOs have been picking up speed and supporters, in the offline world, since the early 1990s. During that decade, they had increasingly become a “competitive” threat to businesses. Then, in 2008, near the end of the first decade of the 21st century (can’t we just agree to call that decade the “Ones”?), they were enhancing that competitive threat through usage of the tools of social media. I knew how to analyze competitive business threats and I knew how to analyze online media. I had much experience and expertise in both. And I enjoy both.
A Return to Home Plate
My circle was complete. I had returned to my “knitting.” But this time, it was of the 21st century variety.
In 2009, I transitioned Kahuna Content from consumer-type web monitoring toward the area of anti-corporate digital activism analysis. And it is during this time that I have written my fourth and latest book, “Insidious Competition – The Battle for Meaning and the Corporate Image.” (Insidious Competition has a scheduled publish date of June 2010.)
As you can see, from Parts 1 and 2 of this post, my background is well-suited to the analysis of anti-corporate digital activism. This endeavor is one that I find interesting and enlightening, as well as one which is now absolutely necessary to business.
I hope that you have enjoyed reading my annotated resume. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Today, I write this post to help future enquirers and to give you some background on my previous experiences. In this post, you will learn about my credentials and the experiences I have had which have built my expertise in anti-corporate activism analysis, in general, and in digital anti-corporate activism analysis, in particular. You could say that this post serves as my “annotated resume.”
The majority party is now turning, in a deliberately obvious fashion, toward other “issues of concern,” such as the economy and jobs. Yesterday, Mr. Obama announced new, proposed banking regulations and frightened the financial markets. This strategic turn, which is more politically-based than economically-based and (this next clause was added after the market close on Friday, 1/22/10) looks to be nothing more than a temper tantrum from a guy who never even ran a lemonade stand, was made at this point in time in an effort to take the public’s attention off the health care reform failure. Today, he doubles down on this new “hissy-fit” strategy and goes to Ohio to give a speech about jobs. All done, I believe, in an effort to convince the electorate that the majority party is addressing the people’s main concerns, jobs and the economy. Duh. It took them this long to figure this out? (For now, let’s put aside the fact that Mr. Obama’s proposed banking changes would actually do more to hurt the economy than help it.)
Any time a street is named as such, it makes me think of what a great society this is; that people are given the opportunity to make as much of themselves as is within their ability to do so. Yet, as I completed my drive down my local Market Street, I wondered that given all the shifts to the political left that we have recently seen within the United States (and indeed, more of these shifts have been experienced in some states more than in others), how long will it be until we see business district streets named “Commune Street” or “Social Good Avenue?”
(just kidding, folks) they’ve asked me, “Who are all these Telofskis?” They’d ask their own father, my brother, but he has announced he has no interest in Facebook, claiming “I don’t need any friends,” although he probably has more real-world friends than most people I know. When they ask about the unknown Telofskis, their surprise is somewhat like finding others living on your own deserted island. Like on the show Lost. Well, not quite, but go with it. Or like finding chocolate on the moon. Or like waking up one day finding you really have six fingers on each hand and that idea about five fingers was some misguided vision foisted upon you by uninformed persons. Well, enough of the metaphors, but if you think of a better one let me know.
