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'.

Web 2.0 Is Made Of White People Fallout

<sigh> Where do I begin? 

I’ll start by stating that I am an African-American female with over 20 years in the IT industry and have attended various IT industry and/or trade shows all around the world for at least 15 of those 20 years.  I echo Brent Leary’s sentiment, “this isn’t a new phenomenon”. To those of you for whom lack of diversity in our industry is an epiphany I ask, “where the hell have you been?”  Minority inclusion is not complete without the participation of the country’s two largest minority groups.  You can usually count the number of African-American and Hispanic-American (which are the two largest minority groups in the US) delegates/attendees at major industry events on one hand, and speakers are close to non-existent.  Going one step further, I’m usually the only ‘woman of color’ in the bunch and occasionally the only woman (more on that in another blog).  One would know or realize these discrepancies if one were aware of the entire IT community rather than myopically or ignorantly focusing on their little corner of the world. So yes, Web 2.0 (and every other majority owned and/or operated enterprise, institution, think tank, etc.) is made up of white men.  DUH. 

Anil Dash said that he believes that the people who organize Web 2.0 genuinely want their event to be inclusive.  That may be true.  However, I submit that they, and countless other companies that organize events of this type, never even consider whether or not their events will be well attended by minorities.  It’s just not part of their thought process.  The assumption is if the event has compelling and relevant content, is held in a ‘cosmopolitan area’ (Anil, we need to talk), and has decent speakers, everyone will attend.  Newsflash: just because you build it does not mean we will come.

Pete Cashmore stated that Anil’s post on the Web 2.0 conference put into words something a lot of us have been thinking. I know that we have discussed these issues in the minority community for years but who is this ‘us’ you refer to?  Now, some of my closest friends and associates are white males in and out of the IT industry and they’ve never heard this dialog from anyone outside the minority community. 

Pete also asked how do we tackle the lack of diversity in the Web 2.0 world?  Let’s take it a step further.  How do we tackle the lack of diversity in the world of IT, events included, in general?  Here is something to ponder; learn from other industries.  Every mature industry in this country has had to deal with issues of diversity.  IT at this level is relatively young compared to manufacturing, consumer products, agriculture, etc.  The consumer product industry is a prime example.  They found out the hard way that minorities in this country will not purchase a product if they don’t see someone that looks like them on the packaging, in marketing material or in the media.  This gave rise to hundreds of marketing conferences and events geared towards teaching companies how to reach individual minority markets.  Studies have shown that when minorities are properly engaged, revenue and profits go up.  IT could use a similar model. 

And to those of you in the majority community who have been thinking about this issue, stop thinking and start acting if you truly want a more inclusive community.  Have lunch with or befriend a minority IT professional. Find out what they think, what’s really going on and how we can become a more inclusive community.  These are issues and questions that cannot be resolved or answered by white men; they can only be answered by the population you seek to engage.

As an aside, business associates and colleagues have been after me to start a Blog but I’ve been rather reticent. This was just the catalyst I needed – Thanks Pete!