A Grand Business Experiment

Rob over at Business Pundit has started an impressive project: to create a company using only blogging, podcasting and other tools of the internet. The idea is similar to Open Source software, but to applied to the whole business plan:

Yes, you heard correctly. Business bloggers and readers will test their cumulative business knowledge by collectively starting and running a business - out in the open.

Can we do it? I don't know. It seems crazy, and counterintuitive to everything that we think about business, but that is why I want to do it.

This project intersects with some concepts I have been thinking about on the "virtual corporation". I think macroeconomic developments in the U.S. economy coupled with demographic shifts and changing American work habits will force huge changes to how companies do business over the next 20 years. The networked PC has created a seismic shift in retailing, and the next phase will be to change how "work" is accomplished.

I see the project as a case study more than anything. If it becomes profitable, great, but I think its real value is as a lab experiment on new ways to do business. The web site for the project is here, and I'll update its progress here from time to time.