Next internet era....maybe | Into The Mountain

Next era internet…maybe

By Fiona Boyd |

I was interested to read a report from Brian Clark from Copyblogger yesterday who has a new business interest called Teaching Sells. Now I don’t know Brian, have missed the blogging universe bandwagon and consider myself old-fashioned enough to check things out independently and talk about them only if something piques my interest.

Brian Clark’s report, is called “Forget Everything You Know About Making Money Online…And Start Making Some”. To get it you do need to sign up for priority notification for a new course Brian is selling, but hey, everyone needs an economic model and I was interested to find out Brian’s thoughts.

If you’re reading this you probably know that my partner, David Eedle and I did actually make really good money online from a niche content business for the arts worker market, called Arts Hub. But unlike lots of the processes and systems that are making the rounds as I write, this was a bona fide real business, with real ongoing processes and real people and as it grew, real staff. So, I get quite upset when I read posts that say you can make money without doing any real work, just by following someone else’s system. My gut tells me that by the time someone is willing to tell you how it works, it’s no longer working for them. They’re just using their results to sell the sizzle of a process that is now spent and has no real value for anyone.

We wrote a book about the actual work involved with starting up and growing Arts Hub to profitability and then selling it. It’s worth a read if you want some real nuts and bolts of what entrepreneurs go through to create a robust, viable online content business – and no there are no gimmicks, we give you insights, but you’re the boss, it’s your gig to apply the knowledge shared in the way you think is most relevant to you. Enough said about our stuff.

To Brian’s stuff – he’s saying a lot of what David and I talk about in our book. Closed systems and processes burn themselves out, they are of limited value and only to the first movers – universal systems are the same organic ones that business has always been about. Find an idea or product, match it up with customers, sell, distribute, make money. Full stop – sure there are lots of tricks, but that is your sequence.

Next era of knowledge transfer on the way?

Brian’s report seems to be saying that the next generation of online content is about to move into the area of knowledge sharing, and that you can say goodbye to free. Future customers will pay for the knowledge and skills-based content that skillful content creators and packagers put together. As a former high school teacher, I’m quite excited about that notion as I’ve long thought the systems for education and knowledge delivery are owned by the wrong people. That’s what’s made me a big fan of the likes of Tony Robbins and Robert Kiyosaki – these are independent people who’ve developed really specific knowledge in certain areas, and for a fee you can buy some of that knowhow from them by way of a book, audiotape, seminar etc.

If Brian is right and the next revolution online is an education revolution, then that puts Robbins and Kiyosaki way ahead of their time. No, these guys were not part of the government-funded education and university system as we know it, they were not even able to use online to start their businesses. They did it the hard way, in the offline world, building up respect for their knowhow and concepts one customer, one seminar group at a time. They were/are people with knowledge, really detailed knowledge, who found the processes to deliver that knowledge, for a fee, to as many people who were interested in it as possible.

So, in our time, what is possible? I’m starting to warm to Brian Clark and the ideas behind ‘Teaching Sells’, it does make sense that the next move online might be towards knowledge and knowhow propagation and that the same old issues with content still apply. That is, where do you get the stuff that has already been curated and roadtested so that you’re not wading through the irrelevant and the cranky. Arts Hub did that – we both created unique content and aggregated available stories, always under the watchful eye of the Editor. Poorly written or litigious content never made it to air – our Editor did her job ruthlessly, which means she did it well. The content was invariably always good and that’s why our members paid Arts Hub an annual fee to be part of this world.

I’m interested to find out what you think – are you willing to pay for knowledge-based content from a source you trust? What areas would interest you the most?

So, I’m going to keep an eye on Brian Clark and ‘Teaching Sells’ –maybe he’s right, maybe the next wave of online content evolution is about to hit the shore and it’s time to think about what I might know, that you don’t, that you might want to pay me to find out more about. And vice versa.

Image: Flickr eflon

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