An opportunity emerges
During the course of writing the last two chapters, an e-business
opportunity did emerge. It was totally unexpected, arriving out of the
blue from an area of activity that had never entered my mind before.
A post from one of the readers in the virtual cafe mentioned
the anomaly that there were no Web sites providing a definitive reference
to all the various treatments that were available for treating cancer.
It wasn't the thought that this might be an opportunity to create such
a site that interested me: it was the surprise that it hadn't been done
already.
About a third of people in the developed world are afflicted
with cancer at some time in their lives. It is the second most commonest
cause of death. Wasn't it odd, with so much money poured into all kinds
of different e-business ventures, that somebody hadn't come up with a
site that could provide millions of anxious patients with the kind of
information they so desperately need in order to alleviate their condition?
It is just such anomalies that are often the start of a
successful business venture and I put my mind to discovering the reasons
why such Web sites weren't in existence. I could then try to come up with
a possible solution.
Realising that many people must have had the idea to help
cancer patients find suitable treatments, it could be reliably assumed
that a solution could not be found through any conventional approach.
So, calling upon the strategy used by Sherlock Holmes, I looked for a
solution in the realm of the unconventional.
Such an unconventional strategy I had in mind already, through
my work in writing the book "Magical A-Life Avatars". In this
work, I'd taken the view that the Internet was an environment best investigated
from the client side. In essence, this means that instead of thinking
about creating Web sites that broadcast out to audiences, you think in
terms of people using a personal application to help them use the Internet
for their own particular individual purposes.
In the context of cancer treatment, this would involve forgetting
about any idea of creating a Web site to provide information, but, to
create a situation where patients could be given the power to get the
information they need for themselves. The next three chapters describes
the essence of this approach.
When reading this part of the book, don't take too much
notice of the mechanics of the solution. Just think about how the solution
is simply the creation of an efficient means for people to make the right
contacts via the Internet.