I know I’m on blog hiatus, but couldn’t resist this great little post from Seth Godin entitled “”we don’t compare ourselves to other airport restaurants“  Not much to say about it, as the post speaks for itself.  But I think the beauty of it is the last line “who or what are  you comparing yourself to?”  In our fast paced world where commodization is king and business models are being turned upside down, this is an incredibly provocative question to ask yourself.  Here at the Vann Group, we established a BHAG to be “the Bain Capital of the small business world” so we are indirectly comparing and measuring ourselves against Bain – a lofty model considering what they have accomplished.

So, let me know who/what you are comparing yourself to and why?

My last post, entitled “Discipine, or the lack thereof” was a self chastising about my inability to stay disciplined to updating this blog.  I promised to get better and hold myself to a strict schedule.  I, of course failed, as its been five weeks since my last post!  Rather than self delude myself any further, or lie to all of you who do read my posts, I am announcing that this blog is on hiatus until September.

There are several reasons for this – everything from summer vacation to a lack of focus/insight on interesting topics.  However, the primary reason is that I am extremely busy with several projects that will hopefully be winding down or transitioning to a different phase upon the end of this month.  Despite the lingering effects of the Great Recession, we at the Vann Group have been busier than ever this year working on lots of exciting opportunities.  Over the coming months, I will be sharings some of these with you as soon as I can.

One project that I am working on started out as a blog post, but has become a full blown White Paper.  The working title is “The Cloud, Crowd and the Demise of Professional Services as We Know it”.  Its a depressing but insightful look at what the future holds for traditional service providers and creatives.  For a quick understanding of the Cloud & Crowd, I suggest you check out this article entitled “Cloud Based Computing Spawns Cloud Based Marketing“that appeared in Friday’s Mass High Tech.  It is written by Richard Banfield of Fresh Tilled Soil and features a great new start up from Chris Merrill called Web-o-Matic.  It’s a great read and will be an excellent primer for the White Paper.

Until then, enjoy your summer and see you after Labor Day.