Collaborate? Collaborate? Collaborate?

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(To be read in Alan Iverson’s voice.)

The collaborative economy is bullshit. Sorry Jeremiah.  The craft economy is not bullshit. Social business is bullshit. Social business design is not.  You see talking about talking or talking about doing isn’t doing. Doing is.  WTI readers know I’m all about organizing a brand before putting it into action, but that presumes action.

Imagine living in a hunter and gatherer society and having to listen to a guy is sitting on a stump telling everyone how to hunt, without him ever picking up a spear or arrow.  Or listening to him tell people how to cultivate without getting his ample butt into the fields. There are tons of people today in the social media realm who love to paste other people’s stuff. Collaboration?  Tons more who love to bloviate without really giving away actionable secrets.  Collaboration economy? Is it collaborative to write a vanity press book on collaboration?

Here’s a Benjamin Franklin rule.  Hang out with doers.  People who lead by example. Who get their hands dirty.  You will easily recognize them…they don’t talk about preparing to get their hands dirty. Or hand-dirtying processes. They don’t share charts on hands and more charts on dirty. They are too busy in the muck.  Learning by pushing and selling and talking about it to other doers. 

Please don’t take this screed as being about autonomy and working in a vacuum. I am just suggesting a business person with a plan, a hypothesis, and a doer mentality is a faster learner, better teacher and someone who makes better decisions.  The economy is not driven by collaboration. The economy is driven by people who put the puck in the hoop/net/goal. Peace.

(PS. Jeremiah is really, really smart. I’m leaving his last name off, because I don’t want to pizzle him off. But he knows consultants are paid for tangible recommendations, not collaboration.)