I am not dying, I am a consultant

My friend Hugh Macleod lives in Alpine Texas. He is a cartoonist and inspiration. Being in Alpine has given him enough isolation to turn the inspiration into work. One of his new shticks is business cards for selected influencers, pushing the social object angle. I made the list! I made the list! So now what?

What’s a social object? Something that draws people into the conversation, which draws them into the service, which draws them into the web that any good businessperson spins.

I say business cards is a new shtick. But of course its not. Hugh is famous as GapingVoid, “cartoons on the back of business cards”. He used to doodle on the back of his cards from a NY advertising agency, as a nice little conversation starter to go with a martini or four.

“You like my cartoons? Great – lets talk about ’em once you get your tongue out of my mouth.”

Hugh is a renaissance man. A great writer (I think he is more interesting than his mentor Seth Godin), he has sold wine, Saville Row Tailoring, but most of all himself. See- the business card above is supposed to be for me-but I am writing about Hugh. Watch out for his next book – Evil Plans.

The card Hugh made for me speaks my language. After all, Everything is Dead. But the conversation that the card really kicks off in my mind is the one that RedMonk began when we launched the company back in 2002: Things To Do in the Analyst Business When You Are Dead.

We believe that industry analysts need to get out of the Cathedral and into the Bazaar. Its time to clean up the business. We can only do that in collaboration with others. We should be more transparent about who is paying the bills too. We’re going to keep open sourcing content. We’re going to keep talking to practitioners and treating them like peers.

I am not dying, I am a consultant. Being alive is being open.

Coincidentally I got tagged on Twitter this morning by another of Hugh’s fans, Tyler Hurst, asking what’s my favourite Gaping Void cartoon. Well the answer is pretty obvious- the one he did for me!