Yesterday I spent a few hours on the business proposition for Project ART. Whilst I was thinking it through I recalled all the business plans and Private Placement Memorandums I’ve read over the years — either in an official professional capacity as a banker as well as out of personal interest. What I keep returning to is that you can tell quite a lot about the business plan simply from how someone orders their contents page.

Here’s mine:

It may look easy-peasy, but it also reveals how systematic or structured the author writing the BP is. I’ve read BPs which open with pages upon pages of information about technical specifications of a system, but almost no information on the size of the potential market being targeted, the segmentation of customers who will use the platform or any material on marketing execution.

With Project Art, I wanted to make sure there’s a statement of principle along with the commitment of practice:

The other key area to really pin-down early on is, “Who are your competitors?” You have to be able to do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) on them as much as on your own business proposition. Only then can you more accurately know where and how you’re differentiated, so that you can find your unique value metrics and market position and play to your own strengths.

So…….I’ve been trying to trace my knol’s path of activity and, apparently, as well as being shared by Kingsley Idehen and Eric Logan on friendfeed, it’s made an appearance on SocialMedian and somehow turned up on Businessweek’s new Business Exchange beta:

WOW, the link to my knol article on ‘The Global Brain and the Semantic Web’ is on Businessweek!

It gets better. The link is sandwiched between an article in which Tim Berners-Lee notes Web 3.0 is a “legacy” and a piece posted on Planet Geospatial which is about “automated intelligence creation”. This is fantastic because I agree with TBL’s views and I disagree with automated intelligence creation, so somehow my article is the twain between the two opposing views of what lies ahead for us on the Web!

LOL.

Before anyone thinks it’s all gone to my head, please don’t worry. I was first published in ‘Risk’ when I was responsible for the Risk Awards survey, fresh out of university (http://www.risk.net/). The Risk Awards are like the Oscars of the financial sector, btw; Euromoney is like the BAFTAs and The Banker ones are like the Cannes — or something like that.

My analysis on the financial sector has been published and syndicated across a global bank, on Reuters, on Bloomberg, on Thomson Financial and on Multex.

Ergo, a link on Businessweek is lovely, but not about to make me think I’m the next Rupert Murdoch, Edward Murrow or TBL!

For me, it’s just interesting to see how the knol is being shared and where it’s positioned as an online contribution. Obviously, it won’t be mainstream until Oprah talks about ‘The Global Brain’ or it appears as a skit on ‘The Simpsons’ or it makes 1 million views on YouTube.

That’s not what I’m actually interested in. I’m simply glad it’s being noticed by people who work in the Semantic Web sector as much as by those on Google Knol who tend to be from the academic / medical professions, and that readers — regardless of whether they’re techs or medics — consider it of value (and, hopefully, helpful) to share.