Building Blocks for Indendents - now a personal mission

Day 1 of being an independent.

So far, so good. Although my phone wasn't delivered today (yech. Amazon was good about it, though and is refunding my delivery charge.) so I'm phone-less. The emails keep flooding in. Amazing support from people...job offers...consulting gigs...back and forths with the important people in my life to determine what it is that I actually want to do. Well...I know what it is. My head is spinning just a wee bit, though. ;)

Meanwhile, my PiC left for the south of France this morning and I'm working on a presentation for France Telecom. (next time, I'm taking the south of France gig. ;)) I'll be presenting on a subject that Tantek popularized at SXSW.

And, as a matter of fact, this photo is one of us waiting to go over the slides with him before his presentation the next day (being a perfectionist, Tantek wanted to give it a run-through at around 1:00 a.m. LOL. We were a willing audience.). But more than just being guinea pigs for him, I realized that presentation and that idea in particular is what brings it all together for me...for what we are working towards.

Building Blocks for Independents. Man. Totally. This is a powerful concept...not only for an individual, but for companies wanting to empower the individual (which, I believe is the core business model of the future). It includes, but is not limited to:

• The Technology
• Self-publishing platforms (such as blogging tools)
• Wikis
• Photo-sharing/storage
• Video & audio sharing/storage
• Tagging
• Microformats
• IRC
• Skype/VoIP/IM
• SMS
  
• APIs
• Open Source software
• Search
• Event registry sites & organizing tools
  
• The Connections / Actions
  
• Barcamp
• Mashpit
• Winecamp
• SuperHappyDevHouse
• BrainJams
• The Infrastructure
• Coworking
• Munifi (mesh networks)
• Creative Commons
• EFF - for those nasty legal suits ;)
  
• Intelligrid
• Pinko Marketing
  

...and there is more and more. A little story. Five years ago, I launched Rogue Strategies in Calgary, Alberta. I had great connections based on my reputation as a pretty decent guerilla marketing professional. I had oodles of work. I hired other consultants to handle projects with me. I had major growth.

...then I decided it wasn't enough. I felt trapped in Calgary. I packed up and moved to Toronto and left my reputation behind. In Toronto, nobody knew who I was. I had to rebuild everything, but didn't have the time or money, so ended up taking a full-time job with a client.

FFWD to today. By using the above tools to some degree or another, I've been able to build a reputation for not only my former employer, but for myself. Literally, I could move almost anywhere and carry my reputation with me. I'm more than a free agent. I'm completely free. This is the power that these building blocks have given me.

And I see it happening for so many others. We are able to make connections further and faster than ever...as individuals. Bootstrapped. And with the right affordable connectors and spaces, we can build deeper relationships as well. We need both. Then, add in the infrastructures where going out on our own is affordable and supported and *wowsers!*

However, as we are enjoying our uber out-there successes, there are so many people in the world who haven't experienced this. They either don't have access or don't understand the power of it. It is my personal mission in life to spread the word far and wide...to empower the individual...to support the small business owner...to subvert top-down power structures and make the fact that everyone has a choice obvious...and to make a living at it myself so I can keep doing this work.

In the next while, I'm buying a video camera. I'm going to start recording snippets of the amazing conversations and travels that we're having...meeting people all over the world that are engaged and excited by this...who are doing this...who continue to inspire our work. (I'm going to learn some lessons to help me out this weekend at Vloggercon)

I'm also going to continue to post the progress here. The lessons. The lumps. The victories. Total transparency. Total openness.

Man...am I ever excited. I'm bursting out of my skin...

Tags: buildingblocksforindependents, roguedeparts