I just wanted people to know that some of us are re-thinking the web copy that will explain how a revenue making arm of Edgeryders will present itself to the world. As a corporate communications guy, I am especially hands on at this stage of the game and pay close attention to the rhetoric that brands use to sell ideas. I have noticed that up until now, the concept of the “hacker” has risen to prominence as a way to describe how the philosophies and principles of the Edgreyders community would naturally inform a revenue-making arm and entity. In light of the fact that we are considering moving this entity to its own web domain and importing fresh new sets of conceptual language to the web copy, I am offering a word cloud of various concepts that build upon conceptual foundations of what this is going to be. It’s a quick way to visualize and define the contours of what we think we represent, and it might stimulate further ideas that will help move along our strategy and positioning in the market. Some of these words you will see re-used and integrated into our content marketing, about us, and service propositions. It could also help us narrow down to a domain name (in the case that we are not interested in pursuing the subdoman option.
Thanks for this [saidhamideh]. I am an absolute non-expert when it comes to corporate communication, so I will not make any comment on any one of the terms in your word cloud. However, I will suggest you keep in mind that all language encodes a relationship between supplier and client. Unless I am seriously mistaken, Edgeryders LBG has no choice but being a boutique consulting posse, competing on (extreme) differentiation: and one element of that differentiation might be “we are going to be rigorous and honest to the point of brutality. We don’t drown you in jargon; indeed, if you don’t use words in a precise, rigorous sense (like saying exponential growth when you simply mean fast growth), we’ll probably wince”.
It is a nerdy attitude, but it does encode the deepest respect for the client, whom we see as our intellectual equal and from whom we expect as much intellectual rigor as we do from ourselves. I like this way of differentiating, because it tends to attract clients that think in the same way; and a smart client is a great blessing, as it leads you to do relevant, cutting-edge work.
So something borrowed, something blue, something old…
…something new. I think this is all up for testing. My intuition is that it may be a good idea to ensure terms and concepts we use are intelligible to the intended audience, i.e. spoken in a language that enables them to place what we are and what makes us different with respect to what they are surrounded by. Without seeming like dealing with us would be the equivalent of getting on a ride to an entirely different cognitice and conceptual universe where they risk being lost. People are risk averse, and biased against both change and creativity. Without bridging and some mirroring, fforts to explain what it is we do and how might take much more work and effort and ultimately fail.
My intention was simply to import a universe of associated keywords that end up serving at the very least as connective tissue, at the very most, launching pads down very interesting avenues of academic thought. I have the literature on hand and it is available to anyone interested. A lot of it shows that academics were in a way predicting Edgeryders
For example the “bring on the hackers button” has essentially been thoroughly explicated in the “chaordic enterprise”.
But you call this jargon as if to imply the emptiness behind it? Just wait, Alberto. Or even, better check it out ahead of me (I enclosed a link). The keyword cloud was just a way to let people know that there are many many ways of talking about the ideas we’re attempting to describe.
No, Said, that’s not what I meant at all. We all use jargon as shorthand. Doing so does not imply emptiness. A lot of the stuff in your word cloud I use every day – respectfully, I hope, as a result of spending several years trying to educate myself in complexity thinking. I am simply trying to contribute to your communication effort – and I am very grateful you are making it, as per the very start of my other comment –by giving you (and anyone interested) some data as to how we could imagine choosing our own jargon so as to convey what we want to convey to the people we hope to engage. I attempt this by making an educated guess as to what kind of client Edgeryders seems to be attracting (based on my own experience of the past months); and by sharing how I and others have tried to get these people to think “hey, this crowd is interesting, let’s do something”. You can use this stuff or not: “who does the work calls the shots” applies here as anywhere else. Mine is an offer, you are welcome to ignore it if it does not help you.
I did read the paper you linked (not all, admittedly: enough to figure out where the word comes from). I am reasonably familiar with the concept, though I never saw the word in complexity science context – the people that explored the interface between chaos and order in the final quarter of the 20th century tend to speak more of “self-organization” (Kaufman, Bak) or “edge of chaos” (Langdon). “Chaordic” seems to come from more from a business context – the word was apparently minted by the CEO of Visa in the very paper you linked. “Self-organizing” and “chaordic” are more or less synonyms, but they have different connotations: using the former tells the reader “we are the kind of people that do hard science, or at least are curious about it”; using the latter conveys “we are interested in unorthodox forms of business organizations”. I think there is no way not to convey some meaning by connotation: and I suggested we use connotation to imply rigor and even nerdiness. This is all theater, of course: we are who we are, a mix of rigor and sloppiness just like all humans, individuals and in communities. But, as you say, we need to communicate, and I am finding rigor and nerdiness to be… marketable. Is it clearer now?
we’re an “unruly”, “chaordic” organization. it’s even evident in our correspondences where we misunderstand each other. LOL. I think what you will see me attempting is a hodge podge of styles to accompany different efforts that have different objectives and potential audiences in mind. that said, I hope to spend just as much time clarifying the service scope in easy to understand, non-jargony language. if we can be clear on what we offer, then our clients should hopefully respond on that basis. so I do agree with you!
Here’s a HBR article I cam across that might be relevant towards packaging Edgeryders offer and w.r.t key terms, hashtags etc Harvard - manager magazin
