What is (will be) Involvd.com? That’s the million dollar question (hopefully more) that I get asked most often at the moment.
It’s a difficult one to answer quickly as we’re aiming to be a very broad-based service. Maybe it’s easier to answer what we’re not:
- Not a social network though we will be highly social
- Not a community though many of the features will be designed to foster community interaction
- Not a project management application though will definitely be used as one
- Not a collaboration tool though you’ll find it harder not to collaborate if we do it right
How about the largest online purveyor of the finest productivity porn then?
Productivity porn (aka ‘productivity pr0n’ for those old-handers) are those little tips, tricks and techniques that one can use to maximise one’s productivity. Most often, it refers either to objects that we can use to help us like index cards, post-it notes and to-do lists or to organisational systems like ‘when to do your email’, ‘when to answer the phone’ and ‘how to structure your diary’.
Marc Andreessen of Netscape, Ning and most recently Skype fame wrote a cracking article on productivity porn here (now in archive).
I have since implemented his ’index card the night before system’ and can tell you it works extremely well (especially for those that work from home like I do). I would also love to be in a position one day to ‘not keep a schedule’ like he did in 2007 (from the book, A Perfect Mess). Not sure I’m quite there yet professionally.
As a descriptor for what Involvd.com will be I think it marries pretty well. Every part of the business model is 100% focussed on our primary aim of increasing the productivity of individuals and groups. The hypothesis being that if people are more productive then that will leave space in their time-poor lives to do extra stuff of greater personal and social value that they maybe feel they don’t have either the time, inspiration or inclination to do right now. Crying out for some productivity porn as you can see!
I also like the initial reaction I get when I use the term.
If I get asked more out of politeness than interest what it is my fantastic new product is going to do the ‘porn’ word never fails to inject immediate attention into the conversation.
Take, for example, my pitch to Startup Bootcamp last Friday. As I was last out of lots on stage with the audience a little jaded I felt I needed to inject a little pick-me-up into my short. I decided, therefore, to give my new product genre a little run-out. A lady on the front-row exclaimed, several others gasped and plenty drew sharp intakes of breath that almost demanded me to explain myself (OK maybe a little more dramatic than it actually was but it certainly got more than if I’d gone with my original intro).
That’s all the ammunition I need to know I did the right thing and judging by my conversations after the session I could tell the rest of my pitch had piggy-backed in on the attention. The video will be online soon so I promise to post it up here once I have access to it (thanks for a fantastic night Alex Farcet).
This raises an important personal question however. If this venture goes nowhere then I’m likely to hear nothing about this again. If it’s successful however, I run the chance of being known as the Productivity Porn King for the rest of my career … hmmmmmmm … that sounds like a lose-lose to me … ah well, publish!
