Journal: News & Comment

Chris Messina and Tara Hunt of Citizen Agency at Gnomedex

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Chris and Tara talk about being small, and working around the margins, and working together to make civilization better...

• Thinking small.
• Showing the presentation without talking.
• The room is actually nearly silent.
• Improve civilization by making independents able to do what they want and be non-zero-sum.
• BarCamp happened in six days, and now there are dozens of derivates around the world in less than a year.
• What are your stories of small success?
• Boris: you mean you can do stuff without a "giant liquidity event"?
• People seem to think that you have to go after multimillion dollar income.
• Succeeding by doing things that people like and respect.
• Dogster etc. focus on what the users want. Keep a focus on reasonable expectations and building a real business.
• Darren: meet the 800-pound gorilla with 100 eight-pound orangutans.
• Derek: don't forget the huge "dark" market of companies and customers that aren't some big hot whizzy ad-supported Web 2.0 thing. Sometimes it's about building web-based, Internet-focused software and services that customers will actually pay good money for.
• Success means different things at different times in your life.
• Interaction between independents and big companies, maybe in the same office space.
• Form relationships with your customers. Forget a "community strategy," just talk to real people.

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