Chapter 1 - Introduction: Why we need a Revolution

Being a Cheap Revolutionary is more than just finding inexpensive tools and applying them. It also requires you to think carefully about how you plan to make meaning in your business (if you get nothing else out of this blog-book, please check out Guy Kawasaki’s The Art of the Start and read about making meaning in a startup. It is central to being a true entrepreneur.) It requires you to extend the definition of your company into that of the virtual team (and it also involves knowing how to treat your new team members, some of whom you’ve never met and whose cultures you’ve never visited!). It means that you need to navigate new, complex systems that span the globe and change daily. 

Once you’ve done all of that, you can examine your tools, your practices and your approach to ensure that you are helping The Cheap Revolution to succeed.

To succeed at what? 

The Cheap Revolution is ultimately about empowering individuals all over the planet to co-create and invent. In order to do that, they need better tools and better ways of working together. Business partners and virtual team members need to understand how their “meaning” overlaps. Together, we can create a future effectively, profitably and harmoniously. The Cheap Revolution is, ultimately, about bringing our planet together. It is a Revolution that is meant to unlock the very nature of who we are into a business reality (and much more) and change the very nature of the global village we work, play, create, live, cry, laugh, raise our children, retire and die in.  Its already happening. The question is, will we use the forces already in play to create our future or let these emerging forces to mindlessly, heartlessly and soullessly direct us to some unknown future?

Does it sound overly ambitious?

Most revolutions are. Some revolutions never succeed, but many do. Even the failed attempts leave indelible marks on the human condition.

Lets make the marks we leave be the very best we have to offer.

Comments

[Skip Shuda]

Greg, Lu -

THANK YOU! I really appreciate you both jumping in and helping to craft this topic.

1) I'm gonna try to keep the chapters short. I've got a short attention span as a reader - and I think small, short topics are better for the blog anyway. Some will be longer, I'm sure.

2) The Cheap Revolution is NOT defined in this chapter and should be. I'll make sure the hardcopy does. :-)

In the meantime, you can read heavily about it in postings by Rich Karlgaard through Forbes. http://members.forbes.com/forbes/2005/1017/039.html
(sorry - my post responder isn't allowing links! maybe I'll fix later... maybe not.)

I actually provide a really technical definition in my "Different Kinds of Cheap" section of the book (and I think in my post of the same name).

All that said... Lu is right. Its about open source, software as a service, web-based operating platforms, voip, offshoring, global freelancers and even user generated content (Web 2.0).

But wait... there is more! Each one of those phenomena, which are tools, components, technologies, processes, etc. has AN INTERIOR!

What does that mean?!

The INTERIOR means stuff like the cultures that create open source software, the customers seeking software as a service and the meaning that an entrepreneur makes. The entrepreneur makes meaning in his or her world when then create a new way for people to communicate... or a new way to protect information ... or a new way to collaborate with someone on the other side of the planet.

We spend most of our time listing features, measuring response time and counting dollars.

The Cheap Revolution is a call to continue to embrace all that while seeking to understand who built it and why, to make sure that the response time is complemented by responsiveness (like human support) and that dollars are moving around the system fairly.

Hope that helps connect it a bit.

- Skip

[Lucinda]

i'm a bit confused, so i think that greg is right and you need some more definition. i thought i knew what the cheap revolution was, but it's not really clear to me that my understanding (open source, saas, ec3, web as a platform, offshoring,...) matches your assumptions.
also, the line between guy's stuff/meaning and the cheap revolution needs to be laid out for me - i don't get the connection.
lastly, isn't this sort of short for a chapter?
all that said, great to see this happening!

[Gregory Brown]

Hey skip,

Looks interesting so far, but here are a few comments:

= If this is going to be the first chapter, it seems like you're assuming the reader knows what the Cheap Revolution is. If that's intentional, you're good to go. Otherwise, you might want the first paragraph to introduce the term.

= You talk about the Cheap Revolution ultimately being a vehicle of synergy, which I can dig, but it's difficult to tell from this first chapter anything about the "how" it is achieved or at least what the scope of the book will be.

This seems like it'd make a great back cover text on a printed book, but might benefit from having a little more detail as the first chapter or beginning of one.

Exciting to see you get this out there though!

-greg

[Skip Shuda]

I just want to make two quick acknowledgements in this opening chapter. First, my friend Shoshana Loeb, who first suggested the term "The Cheap Revolution" to me. I've found it used in describing some of Clayton Christenson's work on disruptive technologies... but it was Shoshi who pointed me to the idea.

The other shout out is Sunil Jagani. When I described the idea of this book to Sunil, he instantly got it - but said, "You know Skip - I like it, but I like to think of it as the Empowerment Revolution. Now everyone can start a business!" I think you'll find a lot of that kind of thinking in this book.

Thanks to both of you friends!

Skip