guerrilla PR

If we really want to call attention to ourselves ... would we stage a sit-in, would we make a documentary and post it on YouTube ... would we get really unusual vehicles to drive around ... would we spend all of our money in online ads ... or what the heck would we do...

Where is the biggest bang for the buck?

I know that part of the answer is

Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency

20X ... regardless of which avenue you choose, consistency and repitition

What if we produced unique items of special and lasting value and then conducted most of our business with with web, mobile phones, entertainment rendezvous?

Would people consider us to be artists, collectors or merely interested in auctions? Auctions are about accelerated and fair haggling ... without the emotional and unpredictable confrontation of bargaining with strangers, bandits and thieves. In other words, things like open air bazaars, flea markets and swap meets might seem interesting to some people ... others just want to reliably make a purchase of a product of known quality from a reputable source at a fair price and move on. That's is what auctions need to be about ... we need to drive the cheaters, grifters and conartists out of the auction arena.

Would we still need shopping malls?

Not really. We don't really need them now ... people buy in shopping malls because of convenience and the immediacy of purchase gratification. If we had better logistics choices (e.g. let's imagine that FedEx or UPS delivered three choices of what you want to where you are going to be ... not necessarily your home or workplace, because neither may be fixed ... for you to try before chosing the one you wanted), we would have NO need for shopping malls.

what should you do yourself, what should you outsource

Most folks are control freaks; they erroneously think that you need to do everything yourself ... or have it done by people you trust like wife, son, trusted friend, etc. Most of them, spend a lot of their time being deeply frustrated about why they can't figure out how something far outside their range of competency works ... or WORSE, they go through life imagining that they are in control because they did it themselves, but they do not realize exactly how poorly they did it OR they do not realize that they could have done better by focusing on what they do well.

When you try to do everything yourself, you simply cannot possibly be doing enough volume of the few things that you are really good at ... those few things are the very few things that you have a legitimate chance of being the best in the world at. All of us need to spend more time doing what we are fantastic at; let somebody else do what they are fantastic at. So, the one thing that YOU must determine is exactly where the boundary is ... what are you going to do, what are you going to outsource?

You are going to have to decide yourself ... here are some clues:

no matter how difficult they are, you cannot outsource those things that you need to understand thoroughly

That is worth repeating as a shout: NO MATTER HOW DIFFICULT THEY ARE, YOU CANNOT OUTSOURCE THOSE FEW THINGS THAT YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THOROUGLY. It simply makes no sense whatsoever to tell someone, "Here, take this, go understand this for me, bring back that understanding." You must understand what are focused on doing thoroughly, completely, exhaustively ... you must understand what you are going to be good at better than anyone else in the world. If not, you should have it done by whoever in the world is best at it.

Prioritization and focus is a matter of life and death of your business. It is the same as going to a specialist for a health condition... in most health matters, you do not need to understand all of the research and implications -- you just need to know what you need to do, like, "Ok, I guess it's time to make arrangements and book time in my schedule have that nagging shoulder 'scoped'" [along with basic daily maitenance owner's manual stuff you already know about your health, e.g. pray more, meditate, drink more water, eat less, get more sleep, exercise more, spend more time with people who love you]. On the other hand, if it is a life-threatening terminal condition, you need to spend time understanding that condition so that you can battle it successfully OR you need to get your affairs in order so that you can move on. It is exactly the same in business ... focus your understanding on the small subset of core issues OR move on to your next act.

When you outsource, you must understand the interfaces with your core knowledge and competencies ... in other words, you must understand and specify YOUR requirements ... again, that means that you need to understand what you are doing first in order to specify what you need; you do not need to understand waste any time understanding what someone else is doing until AFTER you understand your requirements precisely, accurately, completely. Since there is variation in everything, you need to understand exactly what range or tolerance is acceptable in your requirements. You do not necessarily need to understand exactly how someone will meet your requirements; you only need to know just enough about their process to be assured that they will reliably, repeatedly, consistently meet your requirements. Know this: you cannot visit out the variability in vendors; instead, you must try to completely understand the variability in what you are responsible for: YOU MUST WRITE GOOD VERIFIABLE REQUIREMENTS IF YOU ARE GOING TO OUTSOURCE.

using requirement patterns has several benefits

• Requirements are easier to read [because they have already been edited, reviewed, reworked]

• Requirements are easier to compare [because they are similarly structured, standardized]

• You can tell if something is missing [by comparing against the pattern]
  

• Requirements are easier to write [with a checklist of topics or list of patterns]
  

• Readers can be referred to the full written pattern documentation for more information.

beware of not thinking enough, thinking too mechanically, misapplying or partially understanding requirements

Ok, so what are the ...

archetypal requirement patterns

First of all, we want to look at the roadmap provided by Stephen Withall in his 2007 Microsoft Press book entitled Software Requirement Patterns.

Fundamental Requirement Patterns

• Inter-System Interface Requirement Pattern ... for basic details for an interface between the system being specified and any external system or component with which it needs to interact and not the user-interface, not internal parts of the system [unless parts might be outsourced] ... examples: property listing system interface, accounting system interface, payment clearing interface, CRM system interface
  
• Inter-System Interaction Requirement Pattern ...for a particular type of interaction across an inter-system interface including business-related interactions (e.g. bid/ask) as well as more technical and supporting interactions... examples: initiating and closing a connection, status requests and acknowledgments, requesting resend of previous message
  
• Technology Requirement Pattern ... for technology that must (or must not) be used to build or run the system OR technology with which the system must be capable of interacting or otherwise compatible ... example: must support different user technology needs for desktop applications, web applications, mobile applications
• Comply-with-Standard Requirement Pattern ... for compliance with a particular standard or de facto standard ... example: web semantic standards, other 'cloud computing' industry standard technology requirements
• Refer-to-Requirements Requirement Pattern ... some or all requirements in an external requirements specification must be satisfied as if those requirements were present in the current specification ... example: users must build apps that also comply with Google App Engine or Amazon Web Services requirements
  
• Documentation Requirement Pattern ... particular type/format of documentation needs to be produced ... example: IEEE 830 standard format for written requirement specification, executable Matlab - Simulink - Stateflow requirements specification
  

Information Requirement Patterns

• Data Type Requirement Pattern
• Data Structure Requirement Pattern
• ID Requirement Pattern
• Calculation Formula Requirement Pattern
• Data Longevity Requirement Pattern
• Data Archiving Requirement Pattern

Data Entity Requirement Patterns

• Living Entity Requirement Pattern
• Transaction Requirement Pattern
• Configuration Requirement Pattern
• Chronicle Requirement Pattern
• Information Storage Infrastructure

User Function Requirement Patterns

• Inquiry Requirement Pattern
• Report Requirement Pattern
• Accessibility Requirement Pattern
• User Interface Infrastructure
• Reporting Infrastructure

Performance Requirement Patterns

• Response Time Requirement Pattern
• Throughput Requirement Pattern
• Dynamic Capacity Requirement Pattern
• Static Capacity Requirement Pattern
• Availability Requirement Pattern

Flexibility Requirement Patterns

• Scalability Requirement Pattern
• Extendability Requirement Pattern
• Unparochialness Requirement Pattern
• Multiness Requirement Pattern
• Multi-Lingual Requirement Pattern
• Installability Requirement Pattern

Access Control Requirement Patterns

• User Registration Requirement Pattern
• User Authentication Requirement Pattern
• User Authorization Requirement Patterns
• Specific Authorization Requirement Pattern
• Configurable Authorization Requirement Pattern
• Approval Requirement Pattern

Commercial Requirement Patterns

• Multi-Organization Unit Requirement Pattern
• Fee/Tax Requirement Pattern

Salebarn Requirements Specification Notes

Think in terms of Use Cases … write FMEA for each use

CRM

• Security and authentication
• Encryption / security
• Containment / enforcement strategy for breaches … security FMEA
• User sharing of their data objects (1 object at a time) among users
• Administrative sharing data objects (aggregate data, not individual objects) as meta data API

Contact information

• Typical contact suff: name, addresses, phone numbers
• What is MOST important about this person … identity FMEA
• UI app preference: Any, web, PC, mobile phone, snail mail, printed material, face-to-face, impossible
• Logistic information
• Delivery info -- rigging info
• What is MOST important about arrangements for this person … logistics FMEA
• Payment info -- credit rating
• Delivery timing, frequency
• Interests

Item of interest

• What is MOST important feature of this item … item FMEA
• Intensity of interest
• Buyers / sellers / complementary sources / both / other

Ideas / Opportunities

• Nature of idea or opportunity … how do I categorize, sort, tag these?
• What are keys to this opportunity … SWOT business case FMEA
• Items of interest covered by opportunity
• Intensity of interest
• Buyer / seller / both
• Frequency of order
• Method of payment: cash, payment-in-kind

Auction Item Register

• Item for sale
• Offering price, bids, sale price, reservation price … pricing FMEA
• What is MOST important aspect of this transaction, to who, why … transaction FMEA
• Who is interested, why

Auction Logistics / Financing SRS

Logistic Optimization

• Generation of optimal routes -- stochastic integration/summation -- stochastic dynamic programming (i.e. adding uncertainty to traveling salesman algorithms, Wolfram|Alpha)
• Beyond distance, what adds "cost" to a route; how does user weight these costs (e.g. pie chart wieghts sum to 100%)?
  
• What adds uncertainty or risk; what are shapes of probability density functions; how does a user change the shape of a probability density function?
  

Transport Item Register

• Item for sale
• Offering price, bids, sale price, reservation price … pricing FMEA
• What is MOST important aspect of this transaction, to who, why … transaction FMEA
• Who is interested, why

Contact information

• Typical contact suff: name, addresses, phone numbers
• What is MOST important about this person at this point in time … see identity FMEA above
  
• UI app preference: Any, web, PC, mobile phone, snail mail, printed material, face-to-face, impossible
• Logistic event information
• Delivery info -- rigging info
• What is MOST important about arrangements for this person … logistics FMEA
• Payment info -- credit rating
• Delivery timing, frequency
• Interests

Financing Alternatives

• Generation of financing alternatives -- (i.e. finance mashups with FRED, Wolfram|Alpha)
• Accelerated negotiation of financial terms ... auction among financing providers
  
• Secondary market for financial paper [for assets that can be used as collateral]
  

Cloud Computing Players ... the really big engines you should follow ...

This is all about delivering IT resources as managed, outsourced services rather than packaged products to be installed and administered by an organization's IT personnel ... but I don't need to explain that to everyone I guess ... in fact, if you are still reading this, maybe you already know something about cloud computing startups, such as:

Appirio: Front Lines Of Cloudsourcing
Coghead: Platform as a Service (PaaS)
CohesiveFT: Servers As A Service
Elastra: A Dual-Purpose Server
Engine Yard: Cloud Takes On A Ruby Hue
Enomaly: Open Source Application Hosting
Flexiscale: Utility On Demand Cloud Computing
GoGrid: Linux and Windows Cloud Hosting
Heroku: Ruby on Rails Development, Hosting
Hyperic: CloudStatus Performance Monitoring Service
Intridea: Open Source Sosting Environment With Pre-Built Images
Joyent: On-demand Virtual Infrastructure Called Accelerators
Kaavo: Cross-Vendor Cloud Control
Layered Technologies: On-demand Dedicated Servers
Mosso: A Division of Rackspace
NewServers: Bare Metal Cloud, Dedicated Servers, Instantly Live
Nirvanix: Beyond Online Storage
ParaScale: Clustered Storage Environment For Public or Private Clouds
RightScale: Fine-Tuning The Cloud
Relational Networks LongJump: Application Hosting Service
Skytap: Virtual Software Testing
10Gen: Linux-based Grid Management Software
3Tera: AppLogic Grid Operating System

Beyond these, there are dozens of other startups in the scaleable grid world of cloud computing and management ... they all have access to geeks, power and bandwidth -- they will aggressively compute for nickels and dimes ... they all out there on top of, competing with, working alongside, offering solutions or competitive alternatives to the likes of

Amazon.com's Web Services,

Google's AppEngine,

Hewlett-Packard Labs Research Cloud Computing,

IBM Cloud Services Initiative,

Microsoft's Azure, and

Sun Microsystems' Cloud Computing Portfolio of companies

but I wonder, "Who am I missing?" Who should we be following ... if you are in this game, comment to this post ... let others know about what you do!!!

we NEED better data infrastructure ... need should drive investment ... information and data APIs will do much to eliminate need for inefficient resource utilization and inherently costly behaviors driven by an economy based on autos, trucks, boats, tractors, highways

In a nutshell, we no longer need to drive about looking for great deals if we have better [more useful, context-appropriate, JIT] information ... also, we no longer need to guess in choosing the optimal inputs ... we no longer need to produce anything that somebody hasn't already paid for ... it is orders of magnitude more efficient to transport information than it is to transport energy ... or gas ... or fuel ... or products ... it is orders of magnitude more efficient to allow for a consumer to virtually customize a product before ordering it and kicking off production in the factory than it is to just build stuff and auction it off to the highest bidder ... there is so much wa$te that can be eliminated, there will be people lining up to pay [or watch ads] in order to get at the valuable, dynamic content that people will create. We need to think about a post 2015 world with HANDY, RELIABLE, INEXPENSIVE mobile devices wirelessly connect to the internet get data from professionally-managed redundant clouds of server farms that rain information upon demand.

This brave new cloud computing world has been in the news a lot in the last year but it ain't gonna happen without efficiently-managed, highly reliable infrastructure ... this is so NOT about desktops connected to servers that are connected to internet ... that vision of computing is as dated as Windows 95 PCs accessing the internet through AOL ... or Access databases that work fine for one user but are inherently crash prone when two people try to use the data ... or visionary, proprietary Apple products [like Macs, iPods, iPhones] with a hyper-loyal following but zero interest from the broader developer community.

The cloud computing revolution simply ain't gonna happen without broad and deep investment ... this is NOT about government picking winners and losers ... broad and deep investment will come for the same reason it always does ... when the gold rush is on, investors are remarkably efficient at finding ways to sell things to the crazy idiots who will do anything get to the gold fields before the other guy stakes a claim ... as with any gold rush, the best return on investment usually has very little to do with fighting savages, brawling and bragging, living in intolerable conditions and just generally losing everything for gold fever.

Now, the stupid, unrealistic dreams of affluent automobility for everyone are finally, finally, finally beginning to appear as obviously foolish as they are ... times are tough, but they are not that tough, at least not YET. The gold rushes will happen again, but the tough times mean that MOST people are seriously rethinking their choices and whats is important ... that's not quite the same as saying that everyone is so exasperated by challenges that it looks like Japan or Germany after WWII when the Japanese and Germans needed to RETHINK everything and in doing so RADICALLY, HISTORICALLY transformed the world economy 25 - 50 years AFTER the war was over ... but just the same. People have been chastened ... there are new rules ... who is going to understand what people need and want, who is going to find ways to help people give it to them?

location theorists tells that cities [like San Francisco] develop over time because of the efficiency of consolidation for things like search, transport, interaction, transaction

Why drove people to get to California and establish a city like San Francisco and then Palo Alto and then Silicon Valley ... here's a clue: gay pride is an effect, not a cause. The gold rush is what drove people to head to California in droves; free land and all of the opportunities that resource rich continent like North America represents were another thing that attracted people from around the world to become Americans ... there were a host of other geopolitical reasons for the United States to capitalize on its resources [before someone else did] and incentivize people to "go west" before someone else invaded and put Americans into concentration camps ... California wealth, development and culture is derived principally not from gold or other resources, but rather in serving the needs of people bent on getting to the opportunities [represented by gold, mineral resources, timber, land, etc., etc.].

Of course, this is about competition. Human activity will ALWAYS be about competition. Ultimately, THE competitive skill that matters is not about building buildings big, fast and cheap [ghosttown-style or tract-home-style], making panning tins or shovels or Hummers, digging holes or any other form of activity tied to resource exploitation, but rather in finding and perfecting the habits that are about more efficiently, more creatively serving the needs of others than the next guy.

With information infrstructure we have other, better choices ... just like cheap fuel made other choices possible 60 years ago with the suburbs that developed after WWII happened because fuel was especially inexpensive; it became possible for an average schmoe to own a "castle" ... as fuel becomes relatively more and more expensive, things will change, people will adjust ... location and geography will be only one factor that causes people to form "cities," the people who understand "where" the next San Francisco will be are the ones who will invest in the correct "intellectual" property that enables the optimum city. What I'm wondering about is exactly WHAT was the difference between San Francisco or some ghost town just up or down the coast that was developed as a suburb of San Francisco 100 years later after the original investors had lost everything they had?

When I look at lists of things like 20 Cloud Computing Startups That You Should Know -- I am sort of wondering which of the companies on this list are building a little ghosttown in a canyon somewhere and which are the ones that have really picked the right spot and are building something close to where the next Golden Gate bridge is going to be!

... the apple fell from the tree, hit me on the head and I started to realize something about the gravity of the situation ...

If there is one thing that the government excels at, it would be in the almost useless collections of data and reports on things like fruit and nut tree outlook ... ok, these reports are not entirely useless -- they are just much less useful than independently developed mashups which use government data APIs could be ... we can only hope that eventually the serving of this data will start getting much smarter ... there are a few examples out there like Federal Reserve Economic Data, or FRED API, the Google Patent Search API, European Open Patent Services or NOAA's National Digital Forecast Database.

In other words: MORE government officials should buy a clue from their government brethren who are using government data APIs to publish all of their data in an API format so that they can outsource the reporting formats to a hyper-competitive group of developers bent on developing mashups that synthesize real information from almost useless data ... if governments can get out of the way, developers will create mashups that utilize data in ways that you have not imagined and cannot possibly commission or pay for ... all of those uses of government data will be strictly positive, societally-optimal developments because consumers of the mashups will select those few mashups that are especially useful and informative to them ... even the "bad" mashups will be instructive and will further the process of rapid evolution toward optimal, transparent, fair, low transaction cost markets ...

in addition to governments, there are plenty of other industry organizations that need to get a lot smarter about how they publish their data ... if they get smart, their members can begin participating in more efficient markets sooner

Examples would include the Florida Department of Citrus, Almond Board of California, California Walnut Commission, Administrative Committee for Pistachios, Hazelnut Marketing Board, California Olive Commission, California Kiwifruit Commission, North American Blueberry Council, American Frozen Food Institute

how do we orchestrate a really great sale ...

Great sales are not accidental, haphazard or disorganized, they are not just planned. Great sales are orchestrated even symphonized! What gets in the way of doing this is focusing on the parts of the process that we want to focus on, e.g. bid calling, salebills, PR ... and not really thinking about what the customers of the process need or want.

financing, insurance, rigging, logistics, shipping, storage, handling ... inspectors, veterinarians, affiliated services

There are others with an intense interest in the sale ... most importantly, many participants in the sale will not be participants without these parties. Financing is a key example of service integration ... if they desire, buyers and sellers should be part of the bank which is part of the reputation management system. It is possible to foresee a biometrically protected credit/debit card which allows buyers to access credit and sellers to deposit funds. The rate of interest on this card would be slightly higher [yet competitive] for buyers; slightly lower [yet competitive] ... the point is not to replace a bank or to turn this service into a profit center, but rather to provide convenience.

buyers, sellers, speculators, interested parties

Every single person who comes to a sale has to have a DAMNED GOOD REASON for being at that particular event at that particular point in time ... you do not want sales that are attended by people who have nothing better to do or are just killing time ... the people who make things happen at auctions have important things to do with their time. It is necessary to have an event that is BETTER than whatever else they can do. Moreover, the attendees will not return to another auction if the event was not worthwhile. Hopefully, it is obvious that the event has to be about much more than just the merchandise that is being sold, it is about the interactions among the attendees that happen at the sale. Accordingly, it is up to the event coordinator or auctioneer to see to it that relationships among the attendees are arranged, blended, composed, concerted, coordinated, harmonized, integrated, managed, presented, well complemented, scored, set up, unified and synthesized.

auctioneers, ringmen, entertainment, other orchestrators

Of course, an auction depends upon someone who can call bids. Of course -- but that is so obvious that people forget about the OTHER orchestrators who will also be necessary. Some of the key orchestrators of the sale will do so because they will get paid; at minimum, they will earn experience.

merchandise, preparation, catalogs, salebills

Your COMMAND of the information about the merchandise is key. In registered cattle, for example, nobody will tolerate an auctioneer who does not know bloodlines, the history of the breed, who won grand champion at last year's state fair or even the reputation of commercial herds within 500 miles.

signs, tables, displays, other props

This might be where you can economize ... it is not necessary, for example, for the tables to outshine the merchandise that is displayed on them ... except that the props must LOOK good enough.

IT systems, PA systems, clerking systems, CRM systems

There is too much that has to be done right at a sale ... the best way to accomplish the flawless execution of these important tasks is to use tested, proven, analyzed, perfected systems.

deep professionalism, added value beyond the sale

If we want to imitate somebody, let's look at the best ... let's think about what Sotheby's Auctions does to manage relationships and cultivate the other opportunities that their auctions open to the door to such as

• Auction Estimates -- several different ways for sellers to learn the value of items in their collections
• Trust & Estates, Tax & Heritage -- advice regarding personal property assets to trusts, estates, and private clients
• Appraisals & Valuations -- completed appraisal that include detailed property descriptions and itemized values in a bound document with an affidavit and summary page
• Museum Services -- personal, professional assistance and advice tailored to meet the unique needs of museums and nonprofits in the commercial marketplace
• Corporate Art Services -- prepared appraisal reports, advise on acquisitions and deaccessions, management of all aspects beyond just consignment and sale in developing strategic corporate arts-management strategies
• Picture Library -- images in a variety of formats, available for licensing.

going through the progression to develop requirements of perfect sale [and systems to support that sale]

If we want to develop anything that really addresses the needs and wants of the customer, there is no substitute for the QFD progression (see Treasure Chest of Six Sigma Growth Methods, Tools, and Best Practices by Lynne Hambleton). You should read / buy the book or at least subscribe to O'Reilly's Safari, but if you just want the cliffnotes version ... the QFD progression is relatively straightforward progession of requirements matrices. In each matrix, the "Wants" are translated into "Hows" and, in turn, the "How" become the basis for the "Wants" of the subsequent matrix in the progression. It looks something like this. It STARTS with going back to fundamentals and understanding what drives customer satisfaction.




This effort is just getting underway and will continue to be a work in progress, but if you curious about what the matrices look like, you can follow this link.

A discussion of the results is included below ... this post will be updated, so if you are interested, you can link to this post.

QFD1 Customer Requirements

Transparency, fairness, openness

Complete merchandise descriptions

Financing, logistics, storage, inspection, appraisal, affiliated services

Legal, secure transactions

QFD2 Auction System Requirements

In order to establish a climate of transparency, fairness and openness, it is necessary for all would-be buyers to be "in the room." Achieving this is a matter of communication; appropriate communication for each person is driven by needs identified in CRM (see QFD4 below).

Auction accoutrements such PA system, tables, tents, signs

QFD3 Auction Process Requirements

Bid calling

Clerking

CRM updates

QFD4 Auction Quality Control Requirements

Video of auction ... to improve bid calling, to resolve / prevent disputes

Validation of data: Clerk records, CRM updates ... publishing results to interested parties

Getting your head in the cloud

You might ask something like "Why the heck would I want to use cloud computing services?" The answer is that you really don't want to hire, supervise and motivate an IT staff to make sure that your server is up and running ... you want to focus on your core business and turn over the "utilities" to a centrally-managed provider that can benefit from economies of scale and scope. There are a variety of providers out ... and a variety of "experts" have emerged including InfoWorld, Gartner, even a publication devoted exclusively to this area like Cloud Computing or High Scalability.

Nimbler, Hungrier Players

AppNexus

Cloudera

GoGrid

The folks at Heroku (a yCombinator company) have created a web-based development framework for Ruby on Rails applications. In 2008, Heroku went from 0 to over 20,000 Rails apps. Right now, the development framework is free; it's a beta and betas are always risky. The heroku platform architecture seems to point toward a business model based upon the paid hosting of [financially-viable, highly-scaleable] apps running in the heroku dyno grid cloud, so the development part would likely stay free if all goes according to plan. The idea behind Heroku is that you upload a Rails application into Heroku and it automatically deploys into Amazon AWS

http://aws.amazon.com/">EC2 and it automatically scales using behind the scenes magic. They call this "liquid scaling." You just dump your code and go. You don't have to think about SVN, databases, mongrels, load balancing, or hosting. You just concentrate on building your application. Heroku's unique feature is their web based development environment that lets you develop applications completely from their control panel. Or you can stick with your own development environment and use their API and Git to move code in and out of their system.

Rackspace

Savvis

Terremark Hosting Services Division

Verari

Established, Larger Players

Salesforce

Developer.Force.com

Microsoft

Microsoft is seldom if ever a first mover in anything web-related, but if you work in a Microsoft environment [and have customers / clients who do as well], you will want to check out Microsoft Azure.

Google

The Google App Engine developer preview opened in December, 2008 with many hours of free CPU time in the Google cloud, free storage and free bandwidth for developers ... by mid-February, an estimated 45,000 applications had been built. Examples of these applications include BuddyPoke and LingoSpot. The TwitterGeist Search for "Google App Engine" would indicate that there are a lot more out there every hour.

The Google App Engine applications are implemented using the Python programming language and Django web data framework, so you will want to be sure to peruse a few texts like Core Python Programming or Programming Python or Python Web Development with Django or Programming the Google App Engine so that you when you download the App Engine SDK you will have a pretty good idea of what you are doing.

Amazon

If you value longevity, gravitas and vision in ecommerce, you cannot ignore Amazon and will want to sign up for an account with Amazon Web Services. You are going to need to understand Amazon's specific implementation, the types of glue that is going to bind your technology to Amazon's web services AND you will want to know something about where Amazon is going with this venture (i.e. how do they stack up against their competition, what is their strategy for the future, etc, etc).

Amazon Web Services started out in 2006, so it's not exactly bleeding edge stuff anymore. The first product was a relatively straightforward data-storage service, called S3; then AWS progressed to doing computing and processing with its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Now AWS provides companies access to online database, content delivery, and secure payment services—as well as outsourcing of tasks through what it calls Mechanical Turk. That service uses the skills of people worldwide who sign up to complete small tasks for small payments. Examples of extremely compelling ventures using AWS include Smartsheet, Picnik, Encoding, Knewton, MedCommons, Sonian, Pixily, Yieldex, and Zephyr. If you're interested, in seeing how AWS compares to the Google App Engine, use Twitter Search for AWS to get an indication of how hot AWS is.

you cannot tame your user's data, but you can harness it

It's going to get wilder; it's going to get a lot wilder; the ecology of information flows is a little tough to predict, but there are some things we know are going to happen in spite of the fact that habits die hard ... the cluetrain was out there 10 years ago and it's still going to drive through your home. The point is that information technology both ENABLES and DRIVES people to look harder for bargains and opportunities.

Opportunities are a function of one's network. The Dunbar number [is a theoretical relationship max count for a human which] predicts that humans will form a maximum of roughly 150 stable connections with other humans. But the brain is malleable; humans use tools differently ... people will adapt information and communication technology differently to the needs of their lives ... we can expect and predict wider variation in individual Dunbar numbers -- some people will become more isolated and developed deeper relationships as they rely on technology to obtain their needs without having to resort to broader outreach, networking and relationship-building; others will become more connected as they rely on technology for network maintenance, outreach, PR and broader relationship-building. Some Dunbar numbers will be 25, others will be 150, others will be 25,000.

A variety of online networks will produce data from their users ... this data will be shared with others through APIs and mashups ... to some degree, companies will share their data in order to drive traffic back to their sites; in other cases, they will find ways to extract money directly from those who want to use it ... the data will not compromise privacy since most people who are not stalkers just are not that interested in personal data; they are more interested in trends and what the group is doing ... for example: twitter's public timeline or search.

One of the challenges of using someone else's relational data is understanding how the various tables relate to one another ... multiply this challenge, then square it, then cube it ... the exponentially difficult challenge is using the rest of the world's data ... you must find a way to do this.

programmableweb's mashup of mashups ...

We might struggle with this today, but in the near future it will be easier for humans to move and process information than it is for not to collaborate and then to produce the wrong thing, process it the wrong way, store in the wrong place and try to sell it to the wrong market.

If you have not noticed, there has been a transformation to a highly decentralized, adaptable, connected framework of web browsers, desktops, handheld devices, proprietary firmware, programmable toasters, etc. Content and functionality is being delivered via on-demand software-as-a-service (SaaS), cloud computing, open APIs, standard web-based protocols, and semantically-rich data formats. This has been going on for a couple years so there is an emerging, rapidly evolving ecology of different programmable mashups ... some of these work quite well all the time, some never seem to work, some are highly useful, others are pointless gadgets or craplets that do not seem to fit anything more than programmer's curiousity ... maybe it's a matter of drowning in a data firehose and being happy to see anything that looks like solid ground, but the rate of change is encouraging.

The mashup tag cloud from the Programmable Web illustrates a portion of what is out there ... it is pretty easy to find nearby auctions [but it will get better]... or let's say you want to buy gourmet food online ... or, maybe you're in NYC and want to find a restaurant ... maybe you want to look at online real estate auctions ... SEO continues to go to new levels of detail in website traffic comparisons and sophisticated trendspotting and hitgeists ... or If weather matters to you (e.g. you travel a lot), why you would not look at WeatherBonk before wasting time on the road.

It is relatively easy for anyone who is following this trend to find at least one highly useful mashup each day; for example, ManyMoon was today's ProgrammableWeb Mashup of the Day. It will not be that all that long before a critical mass of people find ways to make this stuff very useful for economics, markets and finance and VERY DISRUPTIVE to the status quo. For example, one has to wonder if it can be that easy to find venture capitalists and investors and it can [concievably] be just as easy for lenders to find borrowers needing loans, then how long will it be before we do not need banks [as we know them today] anymore? Please do not claim that there is something special about banking and finance -- we have heard the same thing not all that long ago about stores, auctions and mission-critical enterprise software applications.

But how can we best attempt to prepare for this disruption? Five or ten years is a relatively brief period of time -- many people would claim to be able to foresee quite precisely what will happen within their discipline in such a period. However, looking at the evolution of the web that has occurred in this relatively brief time, we can see that data integration across the web is characterized by rapidly and unpredictably changing types of data. No one ever quite knows completely or exactly what data will be available and how people might want to use that data. Adaptation will occur; there is simply too much at stake. It is important to follow this.

The semantic web is one particularly fundamental topic that we should be aware of. A whole discipline of software engineering has emerged and is maturing to deal with schema issues, using techniques like stored database procedures and object relational mapping layers to hide as much of the underlying schema from the business-logic layer. Migrating the data schema each time a new type of data is encountered is simply not tractable when dealing with mashups and data integration across the entire web; it doesn't even work in smaller corporate networks and similar environments faced with constantly receiving new datasets. Too often people have to resort to manual lookups, overly convoluted linked-spreadsheets OR [more often] just setting the data aside until they can decide what to do with it [and that day never comes].

lessons of web service architecture ...

quantify or you don't really understand; measure to prioritize, drive focus

Try to understand where the traffic is going ... look at programmable web zeitgeist to understand trends ... the best shepherd of expertise is not in IT departments or in IT companies. User interfaces, for example, have been suffered from feature pollution; seldom have IT professionals carefully studied users themselves, evaluating the efficiency of the user interface and tried to find measurable improvements.

It's matter of focusing on results rather than features. Think about radically constraining your attention to what is the most important problem that people want to, need to solve ... Twitter, for example, is currently the most rapidly growing base for mashups, API development and integration because the Twitter architecture is addresses one thing extremely well: that one thing is the need for people to network and update their network.

It is important, therefore, to understand where the need is or what is really bugging people without getting paralyzed by it yourself. If you want to solve problems, you have to be close to the problem but detached from it. Fundamentally, this is all about discipline and the mechanics of controlling one's own mind.

Go see, dig into the crap, understand it, then step back, shut up, forgive the people attached to the crap, get control of your mind and SOLVE

This takes a lot of practice -- fortunately, there is plenty of grist for the mill. Treat ALL of your everyday personal relationship issues, hassles with inconsiderate bureaucrats and managers and shortcomings in yourself and others as opportunities to learn, grow, examine, reflect and better manage your own emotions.

Put the customer's long-term needs ahead of your own short-term needs. Architecting is about more than just the classical technical activities; it is about balancing technical requirements with the business requirements of stakeholders in the project. Realize that as you solve, you always be negotiating -- so you had better be thinking Win-Win all of the time AND forcing others to think Win-Win as well.

Complexity is a bug!

Do Simple Things! You are very smart and capable of quite complex things. Don't do them. Keep your your tricks up your sleeve; use your powers for simplification. "There's a fine line between fishing and goofing around on the shore with all kinds of gear looking like an idiot."

sharpening the saw: managing every portion of every transaction as a significant economic event for the buyers and sellers

Auctioneers manage important financial and social events; we must think about what is most important in what we do. When we auctioneers think about our transaction management processes and systems, we should think in terms of five levels of maturity -- from staffing with capable people to policies to managed practices to metrics to optimization. In other words, capable and mature management goes beyond just having capable people, good practices and a great culture ... although we should not overlook the importance of selecting, developing and managing people OR the importance of benchmarking and implementing policy OR the importance of culture ... it is important to think about key metrics, to develop quantitative measurements and to optimize based on quantitative data as we continually re-invent our companies.

The march to capability and maturity is certainly not a one step journey ... but there needs to be a roadmap and vision for rapid, scalable progression. The vision of that progression might look something like the following.

gaining knowledge, thinkering, distillation ... simplification is complicated and the ultimate sophistication

The first step is gaining as much knowledge and industrial intelligence [on the competition] as rapidly as possible ... innovation cannot happen without learning: make innovation and boldness part of who you are, role-model innovation as often and in as many forums as you can, institute a management process that fosters innovation rather than fear ... having good ideas is a matter of having LOTS of ideas and sifting the best ideas from those that are pretty good ... in other words, you must constantly working on improving your the ability to improve.

The speed of knowledge acquisition and the assimilation of knowledge matters so much because very few people are really any good at because there are very few people who really work hard enough at it ... note: here's a clue for the TV-watchers: the people who are the worst at innovation believe that they are innovative because the universe in their brain is a very small, protected place; it is impossible to be innovative when your life is about passively watching what other people are doing on TV -- explore the universe, get up off your couch!

networking, employees, investors ... understand the point your criticizers are trying to make

Unless you are the worlds smartest human, the first step in any endeavor should be about the involvement of other people and building quality relationships... extended your network of problem solvers AND learning how you can be of service. An effective network will make you more knowledgeable and better grounded, as well as a more agile learner and a better collaborator. The more goodwill you spread across your network, the more powerful your network will be. And the more powerful your network is, the more profound an effect it will have on your personal and professional life. Think about:

• How many people are in your personal, professional and virtual communities? How many are relatively close or in your personal circle? {NOTE: The theoretical maximum, or Dunbar number, of social relationships that can be stably, sustainably maintained is hypothesized to be approximately 150 people.}
  
• How strong are your relationships with the members of your personal circle? How diverse are your networks, in terms of age, gender, culture and profession? What could you do to make your personal circle or broader network stronger, more durable, more diverse?
  
• How high-quality are your network contacts? What could you do to improve the quality of these contacts? Practically speaking, what can you to be of service to your personal circle and your broader network?
  
• How much effort do you put into building your networks? Do you: 1) try and observe different communities, 2) evaluate different communities, 3) enlist others from your network AFTER you have evaluated, 4) initiate conversations, answer questions, 5) promote your community, 6) improve your community?
  
• How often do you actively seek new contacts? Where do you find your best new contacts? How often do you use the internet to expand your networks? {NOTE: Although the Dunbar number might be 150, there is nothing that says that you cannot expand your community in order to optimize your Dunbar circle.}
• How much do you share with others in your networks? Have you defined your boundaries, your privacy limits or your "personal networking space?"
  

architecture, vision, defining the scope

It is necessary to think a lot about about architecture and the vision of where you want to go ... you simply must think about the broader picture... as Don Trump would say, if you are going to think, you might as well think big. If you are in the auction business, why not think about what Sotheby's Auctions does and the other opportunities that their auctions open to the door to such as

• Auction Estimates -- several different ways for sellers to learn the value of items in their collections
• Trust & Estates, Tax & Heritage -- advice regarding personal property assets to trusts, estates, and private clients
• Appraisals & Valuations -- completed appraisal that include detailed property descriptions and itemized values in a bound document with an affidavit and summary page
• Museum Services -- personal, professional assistance and advice tailored to meet the unique needs of museums and nonprofits in the commercial marketplace
• Corporate Art Services -- prepared appraisal reports, advise on acquisitions and deaccessions, management of all aspects beyond just consignment and sale in developing strategic corporate arts-management strategies
• Picture Library -- images in a variety of formats, available for licensing.

requirements engineering, automation of tools, responsiveness

We want to build systems that allow us to work smarter, to be more efficient at THE GOAL ... it is absolutely necessary to get rid of everything that is tedious, but we must allow for customization ... responsiveness matters.

An important part of requirements engineering is the understanding what is already available and building upon that. For example, when it comes to auctions there are already excellent fundraising auction tools out there such as Auction Systems or Auction Pay; if you are interested in a more general package you will want to evaluate NextLot. This does not mean that there is not room for improvement in these packages OR that there is not room for a better competitor -- it simply means that it is necessary to think about these systems if you want to improve or add requirements for your better system.

markets, firms, industrial organization and the future of auctions

A very credible hypothesis in the theory of industrial organization that business firms represent a more efficient mechanism than markets for the coordination and exchange of resources. For example, it has ordinarily been seen as more efficient for workers to engage in lengthy careers in which they build close working relationships with colleagues in order to complete projects and launch products than it is for each member of a project team to bid on completion of work assignments. That is changing ... it will change even more rapidly when auctioneers find ways to market professional time. If we auctioneers can become more proficient at managing every aspect of every transactions, we will revolutionize capitalism.

a specialized software provider can target global markets with SaaS ... in the future, we will all have our 15 minutes of global software providerdom

A hosted application can instantly reach an entire market, making specialization within a vertical not only possible, but preferable. This in turn means that SaaS providers can often deliver products that meet their markets’ needs more closely than traditional “shrinkwrap” vendors could. We can expect the use of SaaS-based applications to continue to grow even dramatically because agents on both the supply- and demand-sides see that they have an interest in seeing this happen. Changes to the way we work have paved the way for rapid SaaS acceptance in the future We can dream about the creation of new auctions tools, marketing services, publicity for existing and new marketplaces, more efficient distribution channels.

Computers are a common staple; the internet has become ubiquitous

Most information workers have access to several computers in several locations and are at least as familiar with conventions such as mouse usage or web interfaces as they are with a fork and spoon. The learning curve for new, external applications is lower and less hand-holding by internal IT is needed.
Corporate mainframes are no longer a strategic advantage. The data itself—customer records, workflows, and pricing information—matters. Computing and application licenses are cost centers, and as such, they’re suitable for cost reduction and outsourcing. Insourcing IT systems requires expensive overhead including salaries, health care, liability and physical building space.

Adoption of SaaS will drive the internet to become an increasingly, more affordable commodity. Bandwidth of wide area networks has grown drastically following Moore's Law will reach slower local networks bandwidths within months or years [not decades]. Added to network quality of service improvement this has driven people and companies to trustfully access remote locations and applications with low latencies and acceptable speeds. Web systems are already reliable enough, but they will become even more reliable as systems mature AND people are usually pretty good at adapting to recurrent failure modes (e.g. frequent saves, small emails).

Applications and data are not especially strategic -- the ability to collaborate and create knowledge is strategic

With some notable and painful impediments, industry-specific exceptions applications have become standardized. Most people [want to] spend most of their time collaborating through standardized, customizable web-based applications. In older applications, the only way to change a workflow was to modify the code. But in more recent applications, particularly web-based ones, significantly new applications can be created by users. Organizations can create many different kinds of business logic atop a common application platform and a shared ocean of accessible data.

more efficient markets, financing, and advertisement will emerge; the pace of emergence will continue to increase as we humans become more more adept at moving and managing information rather than material

There is little we need from the material world; information has always optimized how we best enjoy what we need. Even though there are all kinds of people with an interest in obstructing the flow of information or trade -- information is fluid and fluids have ways of defeating baffles or barriers; we are at the point where information will begin to corrode and rapidly destroy the baffles. The next twenty years will be an especially, exciting time to be alive; we are richly blessed. More efficient markets, financing, advertising will lay the groundwork for more freedom and liberty and the progess is unstoppable. At its core, SALEBARN is nothing more than a search for a way to better disperse gas the pour on the bonfire of barriers erected by corrupt institutions and inefficient, old thinking.

What is the 'secret sauce' of what you do?

Without a secret sauce or special competency, your value proposition for your customers, employees and investors is meaningless ... since in the long term, the profits of ALL competitive businesses are driven to zero, you do not have a sustainable business position without secret sauce. Exploiting your employees, investors or customers [like most of the other businesses in this economy] is not sustainable; if this is your business proposition, eventually your business will be in trouble when people figure out that you really don't have much to offer... it is small wonder that most business leaders are like communist party bosses in the Soviet Union twenty years ago. Their organizations are morally, emotionally and pychologically bankrupt and in very deep trouble AND they must use fear, secrecy and doubt to keep their employees in line -- they don't have anything special to offer. Nobody really trusts them or their products anymore -- maybe we are more civilized now, but if were back in the late 18th century, many corporate chieftains and their lieutenants would be overdue for the guillotine.

So what about the secret sauce, Comrade Chairman?

The secret sauce is about creating a practical, enjoyable, effective work environment for your employees to do two things. 1) Your employees must understand what your customers need and what they want (i.e. VOC) as well as what your customers don't even realize but are dreaming about (i.e. Mind Of Customer, MOC). 2) Your employees must understand process and technology (i.e. VOP, VOT) better than anyone else to manage critical parameters and deliver a valuable product that continually delights your customer. In other words, the secret sauce is about the environment that results in products that are SPECIAL.

What is the secret sauce of this thing you call SALEBARN?

Salebarn is fundamentally about the energy and excitement of an open, transparent marketplace and creating the customer-driven mindset. In other words, it will always be a bit of an arms race in competitive markets; SALEBARN provides the arms, or the key ingredients for the secret sauce for a variety of agricultural enterprises. Specifically, SALEBARN does this by bringing information technology and better methods to bear on the problems of marketing and product development:

• Marketing is about pricing (e.g. auctions), customer relationship management and saleforce automation in order to understand current Voice Of Customer and Mind Of Customer.
• Product development is about critical parameter management and developing processes that yield the most predictable results possible in the highly unpredictable environments found in agriculture.

More chaotic markets will accentuate the importance of closing profit leaks due inefficient pricing strategies

Pricing is bound to be difficult; it is at the core of how you create and deliver value to your customers. If you value your company's profits AND it reputation with long term customers or the value of your company's brand, it behooves you to learn something about pricing operations and six sigma pricing!

Challenges in the pricing process cause "defects" in terms of excessive discounts OR excessively high prices ... sometimes these pricing defects are especially severe and immediate ... as is the case when a same customer is given two different quotes. Which quote will the customer take? The answer to that question is that neither quote will be good enough; the inequivalent duplication is disastrous -- many customers will no longer trust your company or your integrity, even the lower price that they demand and get this time will not be good enough next time and, worst of all, they will likely tell everyone they can find that your company cannot be trusted and that your prices can always be negotiated DOWNWARD.

pricing operations and six sigma

Six sigma pricing is not about creating a pricing strategy. Rather, the point of this quantitative problem-solving approach is to define, measure, analyze and improve pricing operations and to bring of degree of control through an optimized and coordinated pricing strategy.

The five stages of six sigma pricing are taken from the six sigma toolkit, but they are specifically adapted for pricing processes:

Define the pricing-related "defect" in operational-, transaction-, or contract-specific pricing processes and the extent of the defect.

Measure the extent of the defect along with parameters of the pricing processes as well as the invoice, say by analyzing past invoices.

Analyze the data collected in Measure to infer how the size or incidence of defects varies with different aspects of the pricing processes as well as brainstorm on the other causes of defects related to the existing process.

Improve the process by making process change recommendations along with quantitative estimates of how much improvement in related prices or other metrics would take place following implementation of these changes.

Control the proposed process. For example, recommend controls to ensure that people are following the agreed-upon modifications and that the estimated benefits are achieved.

In other words, six sigma pricing applies to the repeated processes of pricing operations; it is about controlling discount levels off list prices in contracts or in individual transactions. Six sigma pricing is not about either yielding control or about inflexible pricing. It is about optimization, coordination and intelligent implementation of strategies that give sales and other personnel flexibility to respond quickly to the customer.

pricing operations and trust

The largest impacts are the indirect impact upon trust. There is an immediate impact as well even when customers do not realize that your pricing operations are sloppy: excessive discounts hit the top line and bottom line of the company directly. Excessive realized prices may appear attractive to the company, but customers eventually will learn about arbitrary haggling, "secret deals" and will deeply resent being slighted. These customers affect revenues by either leaving or decreasing their business, or they affect profitability and price by brutally negotiating for extra discounts in future transactions. Maintaining trust and integrity is EVERYTHING -- it is the ONLY THING for any company that is not going out of business today.

Pricing problems are relatively pervasive -- regardless of the sophistication or size of the company -- this is not problem only for haphazard, mom-and-pop small businesses. The following are some specific examples of "sloppiness" in many larger companies:

• Customer had paid less for a product at one time and so feels entitled to that repeated, unwarranted discount indefinitely.

• Lack of effective controls over pricing analysts, customer service representatives or salespersons renders pricing operations ineffective.

• Deep discount promotions and obsolete quotes may remain alive and companies continue to leak revenues forever.

• There are IT system-related issues where a process breakdown does not allow an item to be priced correctly or a human error permeates in the system unnoticed.
  

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of examples of situations with price leaks. All that we can say with certainty is that defects in pricing will be absolutely detrimental to a company's growth prospects and deleterious to the company's long term survival. Learn something about pricing operations and six sigma pricing!

accelerated pricing, transparency and trust

If you do not believe you need to know about six sigma pricing, you might want to contact an expert. If you are not serious about pricing as a core competency can expect that sloppy pricing will make your company look like a collection of clueless, unscrupulous fools. We all know what they say about the parting between money and fools.

If you are interested in tactics for setting prices, you will also want to learn a little about the mechanics of auctions or engage the services of a topflight auctioneering services firm. Some form of accelerated price discovery (e.g. focus groups, quantitative analytics of advertisements, auctions) should be an important component of an intelligent marketing, pricing and publicity strategy. It is tough to beat the transparency of an open, live, professionally-managed auction -- particularly since transparency is necessary to engender trust.

Most companies will ultimately deal with an auctioneer. You might want to think about what sort of an auction do you want? There is a huge difference between a gala specialty auction event that drives PR, creates excitement and sets the prices of unique, high value items and newly launched products AND a closeout firesale that is executed with the negative fanfare and speed by a liquidation auctioneer and buyers circling like vultures.

every person is a partner, find out what your shared interests are

Develop your community of partners by trying to understand and advance the motivation of every person you meet

it is always up to YOU to be the most creative one in the group

The best way to be creative is to LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN and find out how to be of service ... nobody likes a blowhard who is full of his own ideas

Quality planning is business planning

Lean thinking is about getting rid of the unimportant, perhaps urgent chaos ... instead we work on the vital few things that matter ... we develop SMART objectives (Specific, Measurable, Aggressive, Realistic, Timebound) as transform our values into actionable plans with measurable objectives

Every business should be run as if the objective were to win the Baldrige National Quality Program

There is no reason to re-invent the wheel when it comes to defining what quality means or how to develop a quality metric framework ... this work has already been done; the standard exists; the standard is the Baldrige National Quality Prorgam criteria ... success is about

• Leadership (12%),
  
• Strategic Planning (8.5%),
  
• Customer Focus (8.5%),
  
• Measurement, Analysis and Knowledge Management (9%),
  
• Workforce Focus (8.5%),
  
• Process Management (8.5%) and
  
• Business Results (45%). The 45% of the Business Results category can be broken down into Product Outcomes (10%), Customer Focused Outcomes (7%), Financial and Market Outcomes (7%), Workforce-Focused Outcomes (7%), Process Effectiveness Outcomes (7%) and Leadership (7%).

Learning from the examples of Microsoft, Linux, Google, Salesforce and iPhone

Give people a reason to join your community ... lure developers by making them part of the platform. Give people more options even if those options do not necessarily involve you -- you can become successful to the extent that you become a foundation from which others can build.

We improve the range and quality of alternatives, furnish meaningful information and generally enable opportunity with markets ... so how do we make markets happen?

Most of us take markets for granted ... we take financial markets, live auctions and eBay for granted and try to use those markets to sell or buy stuff OR to find out what the going price is for something we are trying to appraise.

Auctioneers cannot take markets for granted ...

Auctioneers must make markets happen

Without a functioning markets we get situations ruled by dictators, godfathers, middleman, hustlers and mongers ... markets for things means that people have choice.

I am bid one dollar, one dollar now two, two dollar, now two, now two, now two, woody bid two, woody bid two, woody bid two

... sometimes I forget why I went to auctioneer school ... I went there as an economist to learn more about the microfoundations of economic theory especially accelerated marketing and other intensely practical facets of transaction research ... in other words, I went to auctioneer school to learn about the same things I thought I cared about when I embarked on a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics ... I left academia because it was anything but intensely practical. Agricultural policy is practical if you are very powerful -- there is nothing more practical for someone in power than to control food and environment through agricultural policy ... in spite of what they might want to believe, academic economists NEVER EVER set policy, they are used by people in power to furnish the tools and arguments to control policy.

I got more than I expected ... the auctioneering profession is ALL about people and helping people manage some of the most important and meaningful negotiations of their existence ... in other words, such auctions have a lot of energy and excitement -- the lack of auctions or lack of markets that clear is manipulation, haggling and asymmetric information ... lack of auctions is where somebody gets screwed on the sale of their most important asset or the sale of the fruits of an entire year's labor because a middleman hides information and pays too little ... people might try to do this in auctions, but it's tough to do when there is another knowledgeable bidder in the crowd.

Elements of the auction are also intensely important -- the solicitation of bids, for example, is about the auctioneer making a personal connection with bidders and pushing them to the moment of truth ... as a bidder, you have to know what you are willing and able to pay when you bid -- you come to an auction to bid ... the seller brings items to be sold; the seller has to be ready to part with the items if he/she is confident that the auctioneer has assembled a crowd with people interested in the merchandise ... the auctioneer must communicate and reinforce the roles to sellers and buyers before and during the sale.

Finally, the auctioneer must control the tempo of both the auction and the bidding on each item to bring about the most efficient multilateral, multilevel, multiparty negotiation between many bidders, buyers and sellers. This is all about courage since it involves taking the responsibility for organizing what is ordinarily the MOST important economic and emotional event in most people's lives AND taking ALL of the heat for whatever goes wrong. It is about discipline and development of the necessary poise to bring off a successful auction -- this includes stuff like practicing the chant and presentation skills, understanding the law of auctions, giving speeches at Toastmasters to build necessary oral clarity and a host of other things.

That means that it's always important for us auctioneers to work more diligently on getting that chant PERFECT ... it is ALWAYS time to work on that chant, if you are going to be a serious auctioneer ... because if you are going to be a serious auctioneer, you can HELP people by making transactions happen so that PEOPLE ARE BETTER OFF ... the little things like practicing that chant are ALL about making others better off.

We will have plenty of opportunities to make other people better off. We are now at the beginning of what will be one of the most severe economic collapses in history ... as auctioneers, we help people by being sensitive to their desires while being realistic about what they can do achieve those desires. Doing that will require incredible courage and perseverance on our parts ... INCREDIBLE COURAGE and PERSEVERANCE.

The reason is that we still haven't found the bottom ... prices will likely decline from here. Finding the floor is about finding the point where everybody KNOWS it's the bottom ... when we find it, prices will likely rally -- and there will be retreats. Auction is necessary to clear markets and prevent market failure ... the absolute worst outcome possible is where no one buys, sells, trades, haggles anymore ... as auctioneers, we must step in and make markets happen.

Prices will decline until we find the REAL floor is ... when we find a floor, we will start building a tower of Babel again; in the future we will laugh at the last tower of Babel and tell ourselves lies about the new one we are building ... remember your priorities: faith, family, friends, neighbors, community, other members of society, citizens of other nations, the environment and trailing the field 'material wealth' and 'power' are in a humiliating race for last.

So it's not about wealth or power ... it's about helping others ... it is also about helping others to become auctioneers ... the world needs free markets, the world need entrepreneurs, the world doesn't need more credit cards and walmarts -- the world needs a million auctioneers.

$270 billion of auction sales might be a lot of business, but it's still less than 2% of GDP

The amount of merchandise is substantial and growing roughly on a par with GDP at 3% per year, but one has to wonder: if everything were priced with the use of auction services of some form (including commodity futures and options trading), there would be almost no need for inventory or many of the inefficiencies of retail marketing, right? ... producers could become one inventory store; consumers would effectively be another [because they could buy/hold/re-sell merchandise] ... each 'holding' for their price, but effectively 'pricing' inventory every day

what are the impediments to greater use of auctions?

Marketing is an attempt by producers to maintain an artificial scarcity or monopoly on their branded product ... companies also use distribution chains to provide service that adds value.

Consumers are not entirely comfortable with auctions ... especially since auction merchandise usually carries an "As Is" or "Going Out Of Business" description ... there is a perception that auctioned merchandise must be somehow used, unwanted, irregular, tainted or stigmatized (e.g. foreclosed real estate that a Realtor cannot sell) in order for merchandise to sell through an auction channel.

... let's say that we wanted to develop a web business that serves the needs of auctioneers and auctioneering ..

Where would we look for industry trends ... how would we try to analyze opportunities?

The best way to start with this investigation ... for any industry ... is to use a funnel and opportunity sieve based the web and web technology to sift through everything that is going on in the world ... at some point the investigation will become local and face-to-face, but first there's a lot of data and information to process.

useful auctioneering searches

Google "auctioneering" search on web, news, blogs, YouTube, or

...a map of auctioneering services


View Larger Map


Of course, at some point, it will be necessary to attend an auctioneering school ... in order to understand the language, culture and customs of the auctioneering profession..

useful pages from an 'auctioneering school' search

92 Hours of Professional Instruction and Training from the champions at Worldwide College of Auctioneering

Developing Auction Chant and Bid Calling Voice Control and Effectiveness Professional Auctioneering Ethics Appearing at Ease Before Large Audiences Overcoming Stage Fright Getting Started in Auctioneering How to Book Sale Selling Absolute Versus with Reserve Video Training Working with a Sound System How to Become a Top Ring Man Advertising and Managing Every Type of Auction Clerking and Cashiering an Auction Computerized Clerking and Cashiering Real Estate Contracts and Titles Residential Real Estate Agricultural Real Estate

Auction Laws and Licenses Appraising Federal/State/County/City Laws - United States & Canada Bookkeeping General Farm and Machinery Auctions Collector Car Auctions Wholesale Dealer Auto Auctions Auction House Sales Livestock Pavilion and Registered Livestock Auctions Registered Livestock and Reading Pedigrees Effective Body Language Antique and General Merchandise Auctions Consignment Auctions Bankruptcy Auctions, Estate and Business Liquidation Auctions Personal Image Tobacco Auctions Liquidations Auctions