Become a Free Rider
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From: Jeff Reagan
Date: 1/18/2004
Subject: MBA "final" project proposal
Hello George: I think I'm into a business model that is compelling enough to motivate completion within one semester. I've been mulling over implications of connectivity in relation to business modeling opportunities. One idea was well enough received by my mom that it deserves a closer look. She sent me a book loaded with similar thinking, called Smart Mobs the Next Social Revolution, by Howard Rheingold.
These are the salient points of my vision: remote living separates shoppers from the necessary (and favorable) shopping experience. The homeless desire a cushy-job---ideally, spot work. Shopping for another would suffice. That doesn't seem much like work. Street people want to take just enough responsibility to obtain 24 ice-beers and 20 cigarettes ($20). And then they'll need a 24-36 hour vacation. Changing this pattern is not our concern. Hopefully, increased socioeconomic status will run its course for the positive. Federal subsidy of intra-state postage, although temporary, will in-effect arm us with penetration pricing unknown to outside thinkers. Bush communities offer us a perfect test-bed. Diversification away from price sensitivity, and adaptation for scaling will be our next objectives. We'll cater indigenous human-needs when joint goals exist. Alaskan isolation may extend our lead over outside concerns, for more early-mover advantage. Maybe we'll even register a voting-pool. Maybe we'll form a pro-human-wildlife lobby. Maybe we won't, but someone should.
Upscale clients may want clean "extras," of like-build; for modeling the latest fashions, via video cell phone. Some might even use the service from locally because it's depersonalized. When the client grows one size larger, dispatches will come from our next-sized-up pool. Optimally, worker debit-cards would reflect resulting cash-availability, coincident to the printing of corresponding mailing labels. The sound of a beer opening shall emanate from somewhere, so illiterate workers can tally incremental gains in purchasing power. Clients will enjoy almost total anonymity and plain-brown-wrapper access. Employees count beers until beer-thirty. Then they turn into pumpkins.
I see stage-one being run from a seat on the bus. Encryption will protect our data-stream inside a VPN. A strategic alliance with People-Mover will solidify procedures in this area. A lead-person will issue picking tickets, handle purchasing, and will affix postage at the register. Hopefully merchandise will go directly into a postal-tote the size of a dumpster, then to be whisked away, just in time. I'm still working on details in the areas of order-taking, compensation, and mailing. Stage-two would be to trust well enough to issue personal cell-phones. These will be our third generation leaders. We will aim to streamline order taking, procurement, and mailing in hopes, of elimination of central offices and administrative personnel. Our eventual challenge will hopefully lie in boiling it down to just servers and phones.