Jeffrey McManus

Link: Business Development 2.0.

We have witnessed some interesting things happening in and around open apis, rss, search, crawling, embed code, widgets and mashups that suggests there’s a new way to do business development.

Now that I’ve gone back to starting my own new businesses, I’ve had more business networking breakfasts in the last month than I’ve had for the last three years, it seems. But there’s definitely something to the notion of using integration technologies such as RSS and web services serving a business development function.

There are a couple of levels of business development — there’s the notion of making your stuff work with my stuff (as a way to leverage synergies moving forward[1]) and then there’s the notion of getting creative and thinking outside of the box, putting your business together with my business in a new and unexpected ways to help us win together. When I write a Yahoo! Maps mashup and figure out a way to make money on it, that’s the first kind of business development. When you see eBay offers on 7-Up bottle caps, that’s the second kind of business development.

So, openness is definitely not a replacement for talented networkers who can make deals happen for your business, but in today’s technology landscape, it’s a pretty vital piece of the puzzle.

[1] Sorry. I don’t actually talk like this. This phrase is my little business development inside joke.

Related posts:

1. iPod Touch: Development Environment for the iPhone
2. What is a Platform Business?
3. Business 2.0 on Way New Platforms