Checking against the rules

Throughout this trilogy of books on e-business, I've consistently criticised the concept of a business plan. To my mind, the idea that you can plan or predict what is going to happen in a complex and dynamic environment is ludicrous.

This view point has been met with fierce resistance, even hostility and scorn. "How can you run a business without a business plan?" everyone would ask. Perhaps this section will explain. It is not about planning or prediction, it is about having knowledge and experience of natural, self organising systems. Its not about regulation and control: its about keeping to the rules.

Let's go through each rule in turn. This process replaces the concept of a business plan used in more conventional, Industrial Age businesses.

1) The business should take advantage of a system's natural tendency to self organise.

The main lesson learned from the failures in the dotcom bubble was that the Internet is a dynamic complex environment that is impossible to predict, control or regulate. However, as the successes of such phenomena as Internet discussion forums, news groups, Napster and the open source movement have proved, the Internet is self organising.

The ability to capitalise upon this natural tendency for a complex system to self organise was seen as the most important consideration when choosing a business. By using the virtual cafe software, bots and a stigmergic people space, a system for matching patients to suitable cancer treatment trials would be self organising.

The driving force behind this tendency to self organise is that all participants can benefit and it will be in everyone's best interest to take part.

2) The business should not rely upon an ability to determine future profitability.

By choosing to use a self organising system, all running costs, development and expansion must be financed out of actual rather than anticipated income because the future is unpredictable. In this situation, the concepts of determining future profitability and aiming for predetermined sales targets are not even applicable.

Note: Income is expected to come from drug company contributions and a variety of other kinds of funding (see below), but, these will manifest only as a direct response to the operation of the system: not through persuasive sales techniques. This is the principle of stigmergy.

3) The business must be capable of starting with a small amount of capital and be able to generate enough of an immediate revenue stream to make further progress.

Using founder assets, most of the necessary software is already prototyped. The system does not require elaborate hardware or server side organisation, so start up costs will be relatively small. Low overheads equates with low burn rate. This removes the necessity of having to have a large amount of capital to finance the business during the start up period.

Being modular in nature, the system can begin operating with just a single trial or a small niche area in cancer research. It doesn't need to attract the whole spectrum of cancer patients and treatment trials to be viable, especially in the early stages of growth.

4) The business must be able to provide value right from the start.

From the moment it begins, a people space can provide benefit to the participants: simply though the value of being put in contact with each other. This benefit may be small at first, but, the nature of stigmergic growth is such that benefits rapidly escalate as participation increases.

There is an exponential at work here. It is like the telephone network. If only one person has a telephone it is a completely useless device. As soon as a second person has a telephone it acquires value. This value increases exponentially as more and more people acquire telephones and can join the network of connectedness.

5) The business must be such as to be able to solve immediate and real problems.

The business would help drug companies find clinics. It would help clinics find drug companies who will be conducting the trials. It would help clinics find trial patients. It would help patients find trials. It would allow patients with similar conditions to communicate and share knowledge of various types of treatment and trials. These are real and immediate problems that a stigmergic people space can solve.

6) The business must be chosen such that it makes full and appropriate use of the founders' assets.

In an earlier chapter, mention was made of Bill Gates's own explanation as to why his company had achieved success. He told a UK television audience that his company had created and explored a computer environment and in so doing had developed many useful techniques and tools. He'd simply used that learned knowledge, and the tools that had been developed, as the basis for his business.

In this instance, I'd explored the environment of humans linking to each through computers, while writing Lingo Sorcery and Magical A-Life Avatars. I gained many valuable insights and developed some useful techniques and tools (i. e., the virtual cafe; bots and digital agents; using databases to create formatted space; etc.). It is on the basis of this knowledge and those tools that this cancer treatment trial business is being formed.

7) There must be enough suitable contacts, direct or indirect, available to cover all aspects of the chosen business situation.

During the writing of my books, I'd used the virtual cafe as the basis for developing relationships with a variety of different people in all kinds of business environments and from many different countries. Together they provide strategic links into most of the areas of knowledge and specialisation that will be needed for this cancer treatment trial project.

Most of these contacts consist of people who have many valuable contacts of their own. This represents a dynamic, human information network that reaches far and wide, particularly into the world of information technology.

8) All employees must be revenue producing and fully covered by a stable and reliable income.

With a business based upon a low overhead system, which is self running, self organising and self evolving, very few employees would be needed. Further need for employees would come only as a result of organic growth and would be financed through increases in the revenue stream.

By having a system that can grow from a small base, there is no need for any large investment funding or support from a Venture Capital company. This removes the necessity for an expensive, high profile, top management structure.

Investors need to have confidence that their investments will be used wisely. They can be convinced (rightly or wrongly) only if there is a strong and provably successful management team running the business. They'll need details of how their money is to be spent and they'll need to be assured, by the presence of provably successful executives, that targets will be met.

Such management and executives do not come cheaply. They will be used to having secretaries and assistants, they will want to create management hierarchies. They will need to be rewarded with high salaries, bonuses, perks and stock options. A self organising business doesn't need all this, but, fortunately it also doesn't need investors or Venture Capital companies.