Kimberly N. West - Blog, Blog, Blog...

MC Hammer Reinvents Himself As A What?!?

It's rare that I post twice in a month much less twice in one day.  But this was too good to pass up.

I was on the phone with my buddy Brent Leary who is a well known blogger, Web 2.0 expert, radio and podcasting personality and all around good guy.  He also keeps me up to date with all that is going on in the Web 2.0 world.  He was looking for his column on Black Enterprise's web site when he started laughing.  The conversation went something like...

Kimberly: What's so doggoned funny?
Brent: MC Hammer is now the co-founder and chief strategy officer of a new web venture called dancejam.com
Kimberly: <silent for about 20 seconds and blinking rapidly>
Brent: Are you still there?
Kimberly: Uh, yeeeaaahhh?  forgive me but I don't think of MC Hammer when I think of Internet strategy
Brent: Me neither
Kimberly: Oh, OK, you got jokes now.  Stop playing Brent.
Brent: I'm serious, go to BE's web site, it's the most read story today. 

As he went on to read the rest of the article it felt like my brain was on fire and I couldn't stop laughing.  As I gathered my wits about me and picked my jaw up off the floor I ran to my computer to pull up the article.  There, sure enough, was an article entitled: MC Hammer's Next Act: Tech Entrepreneur.

The article went on to briefly describe Hammer's music career then went into detail about this web venture and Hammer's partners.  Apparently Hammer has had his own personal tutors in the ways of technology from Ron Conway to the staffs at Apple Computer and Silicon Graphics.  Even Salesforce.com guru and CEO Marc Benioff is quoted as saying that Hammer is the most entrepreneurial person he's ever met and admitted that he had consulted with Hammer for low cost marketing ideas when Salesforce.com was in it's infancy.

As Judge Judy would say, this just doesn't have the ring of truth to it.

Don't get me wrong, anyone can learn the Internet and Web 2.0 with some coaching and Hammer just might be an expert in geurilla marketing.  However I, and several technology colleagues all with technical certifications and one or more graduate degrees, just can't seem to wrap our brains around this venture.  One of them, a web analytics specialist and MBA, almost needed oxygen after he read the article.  All this consternation is further compunded by the fact that Hammer and entourage are looking to upstage YouTube and there were some pretty hefty comments in the article...

"The Web site, scheduled to debut in mid-January, will try to upstage YouTube and become the Internet's hub for sharing and watching dance videos."

"There is no high-tech lingo or business strategy that you can talk that is above my head," Hammer boasted during an interview. "I breathe this stuff."

"His success in grass roots marketing prompted Salesforce.com Inc. to call on Hammer for advice in its early days. The company wanted to raise awareness about its online software service without paying a lot for traditional advertising, said Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com's chief executive officer."

"We really learned a lot from Hammer. He is the most entrepreneurial individual I have ever met," said Benioff, whose San Francisco-based company is now worth $7 billion.

"Hammer recognized YouTube's potential before most people he did. Besides putting some of his own clips on the site, Hammer visited YouTube's offices in February 2006 when there were still just a handful of people running the site above a pizza parlor. (A clip of that visit is at http://www.youtube.com/blog?month2&year2006.)"

Could Hammer be an undercover techie?  Have we discounted his prowess as an Internet marketing strategist?   Are we being snobbish because we've been in the business for so long?  Have we all gone stark raving mad?  Conventional wisdom indicates that even Forrester Research analysts doubt that this venture will have any real impact on YouTube.  Only time will tell.

I wish Hammer all the luck and blessings in the world.  If he turns out to be a legitimate strategist and ends up with a successful venture, I apologize for the tone of this blog.  However, the jury seems to be against him and I still can't talk about it with a straight face.

At the end of our conversation, Brent and I both decided to blog on this topic.  To make sure we didn't duplicate any material we didn't read each other's entries until after we had written our own.  I am off to read Brent's entry for this evening and can guarantee that it will be a 'stone gas'.

Am I paranoid?

This morning I was walking into a client's office which happens to be a large transit company in a metropolitan city.  As I was about to walk through the automatic double doors a gentleman stopped me and asked if I worked for this transit company.  I replied yes.  He asked if I would take an large manila envelope inside for him and run it up to accounting.

Big

Red

Flag

In milliseconds my mind went through a series of thoughts:  1. Why can't you take it upstairs? 2. What's in the envelope?  3. Why are you asking me?  4. Security should be able to take care of that.  5. Where is your employee ID?  6. Could that be a bomb?  7. Could that be anthrax?  When I finally regained my composure I let this person know that I would not be able to help with his request and that he should seek assistance from the security guard at the front desk.  He said OK as he departed.  He never tried to speak to the security guard.

I was left wondering, would I have reacted with such almost rude suspicion before 9/11?  It didn't matter what race he was, or that he had on a nice suit or that he was rather polite.  All that mattered was that envelope, the contents and why he couldn't take it in himself.

Like many, 9/11 had a profound effect on me.  I lost friends, colleagues and memories when the towers came down.  In the mid 90s I worked across the street from the NY Stock Exchange.  For a little extra exercise I would take the subway to the Towers stop, drop of shoes to be repaired or clothes to be cleaned, grab a bagel with cream cheese and a cup of coffee (official NYC breakfast) from my favorite sidewalk guy and walk to work.  From 1998 until 2001 I flew to anywhere in the world that tickled my fancy, on a whim.  That has changed drastically.  On 9/11 my favorite Mexican restaurant was destroyed and one of my favorite places to shop was obliterated.  The place where my then boyfriend proposed to me is gone, international travel has slowed to a trickle and  I still can't bring myself to go down to lower Manhattan when I visit New York.

The experiences of that day have made us all more careful in our daily dealings.  However, I was never more concious of how 9/11/2001 effected me until, on May 10, 2007, this gentleman asked me to perform the simple act of taking an envelope into a building and I refused.  The entire interaction took less than 15 seconds and I had to ask myself...

Am I paranoid?

What The World Needs Now...

...Is not another Blog but here I am anyway.

Friends, family, business associates and colleagues have been asking me to start a blog for quite some time.  I've held off because I have a reputation for being highly opinionated, can't seem to hold my tongue and love facing issues head on.  Of course that usually makes for a pretty good blogger, so here goes.

My name is Kimberly N. West and I'm the CEO of an IT consulting firm in Atlanta, GA named SpyderWeb.  I have about 20 years in the industry and have worked with conglomerates such as Microsoft to small mom and pop shops.  I have also had a successful career as a management consultant so I'm a geek who can speak 'suit'.  If you want to know more you can read the bio.

The goal of this blog is to disseminate information on how small and medium businesses can use technology in a more efficient manner, be a catalyst for lively discussion, kick up a little dust and ocassionally ruffle a few feathers but not be vicious or offensive.  I hope to learn about and from people who own and/or run small/medium businesses, their technological and managerial issues and how they solve them.  It's a learning experience for all.  If I'm clearly out of line, call me on it and I promise to return the favor.  Most importantly let's make this a bi-directional flow of information.

My first real blog stems from blogs found on three sites: Brent Leary's blog entitled Web 2.0: The Old Boys Network of the 21st Century?, Pete Cashmore's blog entitled Web 2.0 Is Made Up of White People and Anil Dash's What It's Like At Web 2.0.  The subject matter made me see red and you can read why... Enter at your own risk.