BizDev 2.0 - The Wet Edge
There’s some interesting discussing surround the nature of “deals” in this current generation of web applications. I believe it was Caterina Fake who first called it BizDev 2.0, quickly picked up by Fred Wilson.
As Caterina nicely summarizes, there’s the old way:
Traditional business development meant spending a lot of money on dry cleaning, animating your powerpoint, drinking stale coffee in windowless conference rooms and scouring the thesaurus looking for synonyms for "synergy". Not to mention trying to get hopelessly overbooked people to return your email.And then Fred drills down with the new way:
The bottom line is that web 2.0 offers a new way to get integration with leading web services and you don't have to waste your time and the time of other busy people trying to craft deals that will probably work out badly anyway.I've noticed this in much the same manner - though it works only when staying inside the chamber. Once you go outside, you're back to many of the old rules - there's just a handful of us that actually understand and embrace the new rules, unfortunately.
But I digress. I actually do like the notion of BizDev 2.0 since I think it is very tangible. Personally, I prefer to think of it as the Wet Edge. In painting, you move from one side to the other, maintaing the edge at all times so as not to get streaks and other artifacts when everything’s done. I don’t think this is all that different from how we are developing our businesses now.
The Wet Edge in the Web 2.0 world is the Open API. The edge is constantly moved by the developers that come along and increase the surface area - extend the reach and use of the underlying system by innovating the brush, so to speak. The survival of this enterprise assumes that the mixer (system developer) constantly adds new colors (features) to the palette, hence keeping painters (web developers) interested in the offering.
Wow. That’s one hell of an analogy, haha. Ultimately, though, I think this is the complex dance now labeled as BizDev 2.0. In many regards, it’s potentially just as much R&D as it is Business Development - just depends on the circumstances of the system developer.
Where’s your wet edge? How are you enabling creative folks from all walks of life to participate, extend, and enhance your message and offering?
technorati tags:socialroots, bizdev2.0, business, apis