In praise of "Out There" people
A consultancy called the Attention Company has just complete a fascinating survey of what it calls "Out There" people---think Mark Cuban and other promoters of radical transparency.
They define "Out There" people as those who are more likely to:
- Value fame as an “asset”
- Willing to share certain types of
sensitive information on the web- Believe it is appropriate to criticize their
organizations on the webThere’s more of these than you might think – 69% of the population agrees with at least one of these statements!
The presentation and survey results are well worth reading. Here's one sample:
Thanks to Jason Calacanis, another example of this phenomenon, for the pointer. He adds:
"Frankly, I couldn't run a business any other way. The only way to really get things done is to be out there. There is so much noise in the space, so little attention, that your best bet for building great products is being totally honest about what you're doing and letting folks help you."



Is 'Out There' not also based on the principles of 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins and co? I've tried to embrace most of this in an extended book-review.
Posted by: Karin | December 13, 2006 at 08:57 AM
In my professional life i have found these results are right on the money.
One day for my venture i will follow these advises...
Vishal
Posted by: Vishal | December 14, 2006 at 01:51 AM
Direct marketing guru, Jay Abraham, taught me to share my knowledge as much as possible. His theory is that people will assume you know even more than you're sharing. Tim Sanders (formerly of Yahoo) wrote a good book, "Love is the Killer App: how to win business and influence friends,". His core recommendation is to give knowledge to people you meet in business - try to help people with information - and you will differentiate yourself and build your personal brand. It works.
Posted by: Pat Coyle | December 14, 2006 at 02:20 AM
Funny how this "share information, help business partners, etc." line of thought show up in every Multi-level Marketing organization. :)
Honesty is the best lie they say - or watch my hands, I am cheating as the stage-magicians say :)
Nonetheless, I too believe that honesty and being open and transparent can help - unless half of your business partners and co-workers use it to stab you in the back.
To be honest and transparent, you have to be strong.
Posted by: Roland Hesz | December 14, 2006 at 05:22 AM
In terms of "sensitive information" I've found that for every piece of data you put out there you get at least five in return. When I started publishing our Google Adsense data at Weblogs, Inc. the information might have helped Nick Denton/Gawker Media/other blog competitors on some level, but I was helped 10x more by the private emails/IMs I got with techniques on how to improve them.
If you are a confident and capable competitor you don't mind putting your data out there because you know you can out-execute the competition. We didn't dominate Nick Denton's blogs because of some inside information--we crushed our #2 competitor because of execution.
You can do a million things in the locker room to prepare for the game, but at the end of the day this is like the NBA in that the players who play the hardest and smartest ON THE COURT win.
Posted by: Jason Calacanis | December 14, 2006 at 10:07 AM
Funny how this "share information, help business partners, etc." line of thought show up in every Multi-level Marketing organization. :)
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