Announcing Altimeter Group
I'm very happy and proud to announce my new company, Altimeter Group. The goal of the company is to provide thought leadership on social and emerging technologies, And thanks to the support and well-wishes of many people, I'm off and running. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions I'm getting about Altimeter Group.
What services will you be providing?
My goal is to help leaders and their companies understand how to deal with and thrive with social and emerging technologies. This space is often murky, confusing, and downright frightening for companies. My goal is to provide clarity and understanding.
The unique way that I add value is understanding these new technologies and how people use them -- I'm an active user of these new technologies and also actively seek out new ways that technologies impact people..
But I've also always kept a foot in the business world, so am able to understand and interpret how companies are and will be impacted by the adoption of these new technologies. In the book Groundswell, Josh Bernoff and I took the confusing world of social technologies and boiled it down so that not only was it understandable, but also approachable and actionable for businesses.
My goal is to continue providing that kind of thought leadership and insight primarily through writing, public speaking, and consulting. I'll be writing here on my blog, The Altimeter, and if I'm lucky enough to find a publisher again, a book. Speaking at both conferences and private corporate events will bring those ideas to a broader audience. And I'll also provide direct consulting through Altimeter Group to a small number of clients who need to tap into my thought leadership via a retainer relationship.
What topics will you be covering?
My focus is on how people will adopt and use online, mobile, and device technologies. By understanding how these technologies impact people's behavior and attitudes, I can then anticipate and examine how companies are in turn impacted. This includes how the way companies market to consumers, or hire and manage their employees, will need to change. More specific examples of the topics I'm covering are also available, and will be updated regularly.
Why the name Altimeter?
An altimeter is an instrument used to tell you your altitude. Like an altimeter, I hope to be useful in giving a "reading", so to speak, on where emerging technologies are heading. I can do this at a high level, providing a view of the landscape and how it will develop. But more importantly, I can also come down from the stratosphere and provide a detailed view of how individuals and companies are being impacted.
Credit goes to Alexandra Watkins at naming agency Eat My Words for coming up with the name. I couldn't come up with a name on my own so I called in the experts. My key criteria - nothing with horrible Web 2.0 re-spellings like Flickr or del.icio.us. I got lucky that URLs like altimetergroup.com and thealtimeter were available, although altimeter.com is being used (and waaay out of my price range for purchasing, so forgetaboutit.)
Who is behind Altimeter Group?
It's just me providing the content, but I also have a virtual team helping me. This team includes my wonderful virtual assistant Denise Aday, speaker agent Mel Blake at Monitor Talent, and business agent Linda Ziffrin at Valley View Ventures who handles my direct consulting business. I won't rule out adding more people in the future, but for the immediate future, it's just me.
Why the title "thought leader"?
My goal is to provide thought leadership, with the impact of inspiring leaders at organizations to think about the world in a different way. That's a very different job than being an industry analyst who typically becomes an expert at a specific topic. There are excellent analysts who can help companies figure out which blogging software to use. But I want to help companies understand and question why they should have a blog in the first place, and to think about the strategic implications of starting one. So being a thought leader is a way to differentiate the work I do today from the work that I did in my former career as an analyst.
So that's my introduction to Altimeter Group - please let me know if you have any questions and I'm happy to elaborate in greater detail!
