From Knowledge Merchants to JoDoers: How JoDo.biz came to be...
Dreaming whilst shaving of a network of knowledge merchants.
Back in 1992, I had an idea to create a company called Knowledge Merchants International. This company was to be a network of individuals buying and selling knowledge. I would own a 'gateway' that would levy a small charge on the knowledge transaction - a toll-booth on an information dual-carriageway (as opposed to the information superhighway that was yet to be built - email, mobile, SMS and Skype). As you may imagine, in the paper-based world of the early 90's it was difficult (ok, impossible!) to get the idea going, let alone funded. However, I had already printed the letterhead with the logo 'KMI'. In addition, I had also discovered that to have 'International' in the company name, you had to be international! “So”, I mused “what do I do business-wise, and what do I do with the ($750 worth of) letterhead?” I always wanted my company to have 'American Level Service Values' so the 'I' would be short for Inc. (an American limited company). I wanted to keep the 'K' for Knowledge (not King!) and the 'M' would stand for Merchandising rather than Merchants. Thus Knowledge & Merchandising Inc. Ltd. was born, and that company's first product was called King of Shaves Original Shaving oil - the shaving product, that became a global brand and challenger to Gillette (
www.shave.com).
2006: Web 2.0 and an individual discovers 'crowdsourcing'.
Fast forward 14 years. In June 2006, I was at my brother Doug's (Doug is a successful hedge-fund founder). He had a friend over - a senior executive at Dell Computer, and we were talking about business. I happened to also be reading The Times and chanced upon an article called 'crowdsourcing'.
Now, I suck up knowledge and words like no one else but I hadn't come across the term "crowdsourcing" before. If you haven't either here is the etymology courtesy of two chaps at Wired.com (or google 'crowdsourcing'):"Thus the term crowdsourcing (a term, for the record, coined jointly by Mark and myself that day, in a fit of back-and-forth wordplay). Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers (sic)."
I quickly realised that this means of solving a problem - or getting a job done - was only being used in a very limited way: for creating internet software applications and, I later found out, by large corporations like drug companies to solve major league problems. It wasn't about getting any Job Done or any question Answered.
This was exactly what Knowledge Merchants International was about! An 'Open Call' to a group of 'Knowledge Merchants' (now I call them JoDo'ers) to see if they (or someone they knew) could answer a question, any question at all! Now all I needed to create was that toll-booth for transactions and then to build the communities.
I've always enjoyed making up new languages, logo's and business models, and JoDo is no exception! I could have called it Knowmer.com - short for Knowledge Merchants - indeed, maybe this is a good name for it. But, as the design team at Kempt were keen for it to have a strong identitiy - I came up with JoDo.biz, JoDo being nothing more sophisticated than an abbreviation of 'Job Done' (it also happens to be a Japanese martial art which I quite liked!). The team at Kempt then came up with our logo, along with the phrase 'Light Work, Many Hands Make' which I thought was entirely descriptive of the site and so trademarked it. It has a certain Yoda-ness to it.
I hope you find Jodo useful, if you don't - it simply won't exist - if you do, spread the word!Enthuse, Exceed, but above all - Enjoy!
Will KingFounder, www.Jodo.biz
