On A-Lists and Linking to New Bloggers and The Intention Economy

Some time ago I was doing my usual wander around the blogosphere, and was passing through Scobleizer via Gapingvoid, when I saw this quote by Scoble, on some of the recent Techmeme noise:

• Are you worried about the elitism of A-List jerks like me?
• Then freaking link to new bloggers that we haven’t heard about yet!

Couldn’t agree more. It is up to us, the Z-Listers like you and me, to make sure that people who need to be heard and read get heard and read. And this is not to demean A-Listers, it’s not their fault. We made them what they are. I know many people I would consider to be part of that elite community, many who have advised me, challenged me, supported me, criticised me. And guess what? I’ve found many new people to connect to, to read, to talk with, as a result of the advice given to me by that elite.

Being an A-Lister isn’t a crime. Preventing others — from having the opportunity to become one — could, in some people’s eyes, be a crime. I can’t accept that. Every one of us is a participant in that process, it is up to us to keep the blogosphere open to all. And I think it is open to all.

• I like stumbling around, ever since I came across StumbleUpon, it takes me places I wouldn’t have found any other way.
• I like taking a look at the blogrolls of people I read, they take me places I wouldn’t have found any other way.
• I like checking technorati to see who’s linking to me, I get to places I wouldn’t have found any other way.

And when I find someone/someplace I like, I watch for a little while (just to see if they’re active) and then link to them.

Which is what I’m going to do with something I found today.

Some time ago, I’d written a post about the power of Beta. And today, I found someone I hadn’t heard of linking to the post. That someone was the Workstream 3 Draft for Connecting Bristol’s entry to the Digital Challenge.

Now whoever’s behind the Workstream 3 Draft, they’re actually thinking of submitting their blog as the entry. I quote from the blog:

• I’m going to try and make the most of the other posts here, and links to referenced projects, articles, etc. Wouldn’t it be cool if our submission was this blog, with a front post that summarised everything and then linked to all the supporting posts, comments, etc?
  

Now that would be cool.

I have always wanted blogs to be the “buy side” of the procurement process, a reasonable extension of the Intention Economy. I could see many benefits. You tell people what you’re looking for. Others come back to you with recommendations. You could recommend yourself or your product/service, but you have to do so in public. And therefore you’re vulnerable. [An aside. It was that vulnerability that really hit me when David Mackenzie introduced Hallam Foe to a small group of bloggers. No place to hide].

But until I saw the Workstream 3 Draft, I’d never considered using blogs on the “sell side” of the process. Shows how dumb I can be.

I love seeing this juxtaposition of virtual and real communities, using virtual as well as real tools to get real things done. Real learning by doing.

So if any of you want to help them, learn from them or just observe, here’s your chance.