The teasing is done and it’s time to get specific about the new company I’m now part of alongside founder Joseph Jaffe, veteran communicator Shel Holtz and podcasting pioneer CC Chapman.
The new company is called crayon and will be fully open for business this coming Thursday October 26 when we launch from Crayonville Island, our headquarters in Second Life that’s been under construction during the past few months.
So the first thing to tell you is that crayon is a both a real and a virtual company.
We’re real, in the sense that all of us involved are physical, real human beings based in real locations, on the US east and west coasts plus me here in Europe.
We start with an outstanding team in addition to the four of us – Gary Cohen, Aaron Greenberger, Chris Trela and Michael Denton. These names may not be familiar to you at the moment, but they soon will be.
We’re virtual, in the sense that our primary presence as a company is the three-dimensional online digital world of Second Life where we will conduct our business, our presentations, our brainstorms and our pitches.
And by the way, when we launch on Thursday, we will be the first company to be launched in Second Life.
The second thing to let you know is what crayon actually is.
We’re not an agency nor a consulting practice as is traditionally defined. What we are is whatever you want or need us to be.
I like to think of us as a true mash-up that combines the best in traditional and new thinking about marketing, advertising and PR.
We’re a solution provider. We’re an extension of your team. Consider us a new breed of partner – one that keeps everyone honest and on the right path. Our client is not the consumer: our client is the truth.
Our methodology pivots around conversation and transformation above communication. Our value proposition is designed to activate passions, enthusiasm, organic dialogue and no-strings-attached referrals and recommendations.
When Joseph approached me some three months ago to be part of this new venture, I could see immediately that here was a terrific opportunity to join forces with someone visionary who I’ve been paying attention to for a long time.
So I made my decision pretty quickly to join Joseph in creating something special that would enable us to work with marketers, advertisers and public relations professionals that will enable them to better understand the tremendous changes, challenges and opportunities in today’s complex world of fragmented attention, increasing consumer control and hardening attitudes towards traditional marketing and communication.
We think we have something compelling to offer that will enable every client to do what every business really wants – get to the future. First.
If you’d like to blog or podcast about crayon, I’d be thrilled if you would! Let me know if you need more information. Bookmark our website – www.crayonville.com – which will be live on Thursday.
And if you do want to know more about crayon before our launch, each of us is willing to talk to you at any time during the coming week. If you’d like to interview Joseph, or any one of the team, let me know directly or leave a comment here.
Looking forward to helping you get to your future first.
[Update Oct 23 @ 09:40] Joseph, Shel and CC have also posted about crayon. Theirs went up late last night my time.
I’ve been amazed by the reactions to our news plus the sheer volume of warmth coming our way from friends in the blogosphere. Thanks, everyone. You’ve set the expectation bar high indeed and we won’t let you down.
Hugh Fraser says
October 22, 2006 at 19:49Best of Luck with Crayon – Some great talent assembled here – and I’m sure you will do very well, and generally benefit everyone working in social media. I’l certainly be mentioning you over at Blog Relations shortly, to try help get the word out. Look forward to the Second Life launch.
Marie Alden says
October 22, 2006 at 20:03Well done!!! All the best to all of you with this great project. I’m pretty sure you will be a success.
Dave says
October 22, 2006 at 20:24Wow, amazing news. Saw a picture of you all in SL on one of the other guy’s blogs – amazingly realistic.
It will be interesting to see how the SL aspect of the business develops. Keep us all updated!
thatedeguy says
October 22, 2006 at 21:42Way to go and congrats. Aren’t you afraid of being confused with colorful wax drawing sticks?
Alex Manchester says
October 22, 2006 at 21:58Congratulations and best of luck on your new venture, Neville (and Co.). Now I understand a little more how you were describing it on Wednesday!
it will be interesting to see how it develops, especially – as others have said – in Second Life.
Marcel de Ruiter says
October 22, 2006 at 22:25Hi Neville,
I will be sure to visit Crayonville in SL on Thursday. Any news on the time?
By the way, here is my blogpost on Crayon: http://www.shapingthoughts.com/2006/10/22/crayon-what-are-these-guys-up-to (sorry, but in my blogging engine Textpattern I still have not found out this trackback feature)
Best regards,
Marcel de Ruiter
Giff Constable says
October 22, 2006 at 23:15“And by the way, when we launch on Thursday, we will be the first company to be launched in Second Life.”
Neville, Neville… what on earth are you talking about? Not only are their countless of entrepreneurial ventures created in Second Life creating and selling virtual products, but there already are a slew of consulting companies that act as advisors to brands, corporate, non-profit and educational efforts in Second Life. That list includes The Electric Sheep Company (which I am a part of), Rivers Run Red (the true “first” RL advisory company to set up in SL), Millions of Us, Infinite Vision Media, Aimee Weber Studios and many more.
I am sure you guys are differentiating yourselves in interesting ways, and we may be quite complementary. I am a big fan of your team, and expect great things from you. I very much welcome your presence. But in the wake of CC’s response to my blog post talking about these overblown “first” claims (http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/giff/?p=116) I find this very odd indeed.
neville says
October 22, 2006 at 23:52Everyone, thanks very much indeed for your support and warm words. We plan to live up to your expectations!
Giff, I’m always leery about claims of being first at anything. Inevitably open to challenge, as you have, even if you’re sure of your facts.
However, our research indicates that crayon will be the first company to launch in Second Life. The operative word is ‘launch.’ There are indeed loads of companies who have opened virtual offices in SL. None of them has actually launched their businesses there.
It’s a crucial difference.
Shel Holtz says
October 23, 2006 at 00:19The other crucial difference is that we’re a company outside of SL in addition to inside. An in-world company launching in-world is one thing, a company that will do business outside of SL — business that has no relationship to SL at all — is quite another! Perhaps we should have said “non-in-world company.”
Giff Constable says
October 23, 2006 at 01:23Neville, I will say that both Electric Sheep and Millions of Us did launch in Second Life, but I’m gonna stop there cause I’m really not here to spoil your fun. Starting a company is fun! So I really don’t want to split hairs on this stuff — it’s silly. It is definitely true that while Electric Sheep works with other virtual world technologies outside of Second Life (like MTV’s Virtual Laguna Beach project), you are right that we are primarily focused on virtual worlds and not general marketing, branding, or PR work. I actually really like working hand in hand with marketing, branding, and PR companies because we complement each other well.
Congratulations again on the launch fellows. Exciting days ahead and I’m looking forward to the unveiling of the crayon island!
Michael Buckbee says
October 23, 2006 at 01:49Neville,
I’m all for you and your team launching in SecondLife, but I think you side-stepped the first part of Giff’s question.
“How can you in any way, shape or form claim to be the first company to launch in SecondLife when there are literally thousands of companies selling virtual goods and real services within SecondLife?”
Like I said, I think it’s a great idea for your team to be involved, but your claim that you’re the first seems like an insult to the literally thousands of users who’ve broken the trail for you and the dozens of pioneering companies already doing real virtual work within SecondLife.
Michael Seaton says
October 23, 2006 at 02:18Neville,
You are the remaining 25% of Crayon that I have yet to meet in person. All the best with your new venture and I look forward to seeing what you guys do as a team.
Max Kalehoff says
October 23, 2006 at 03:52Congrats guys! Rip it up!
Dominic Jones says
October 23, 2006 at 04:07Congratulations. Seems interesting and timely for a launch of this type of company. Web 2.0 logo, SL launch and a bit of controversy to start things off.
This line stuck out for me:
“Consider us a new breed of partner – one that keeps everyone honest and on the right path. Our client is not the consumer: our client is the truth.”
I smiled when I read the comments. First to launch.
Truth is so nuanced.
Andrea Weckerle says
October 23, 2006 at 04:08Great news… and love the name!
Giff Constable says
October 23, 2006 at 04:29Well it wasn’t my intention to cause a controversy — actually it was the techcrunch post that threw me off, not what Neville wrote here.
Terry Fallis says
October 23, 2006 at 04:54Hey Neville. We’re all thrilled for you and Shel (and JJ and CC for that matter). We’ll be following your success as you once again blaze a new trail. Here’s hoping we can work together. And best of all, FIR is continuing! All the best…
Robin Capper says
October 23, 2006 at 07:41Good luck with the new venture. Haven’t commented for a long time but still listening :)
http://rcd.typepad.com/rcd/2006/10/crayon_virtuall.html
Stephen Davies says
October 23, 2006 at 09:04Congrats to all involved. May you have the best of success.
james says
October 23, 2006 at 10:36Hey nev.
nice surprise. i have got an assignment for you. The people of the world would like to hire you to find out “the truth” on their political leaders and political parties and resource allocation, and whether we should fire most of them, and collectively redesign the whole system. We would like to offer you payment via a peer payment system, let’s say, $1.00 per citizen. i know it’s a big assignment so perhaps you could wait until you grow a little and expand or redesign your code to enable this to be possible.
james
Stephen Davies says
October 23, 2006 at 10:43I’ve just had a terrible thought. What if Crayon really takes off, Shel and Neville are inundated with work and can no longer continue with For Immediate Release.
Then what are we going to do?
:-)
Justin says
October 23, 2006 at 11:16Congratulations. I look forward to hearing more about the business in the coming weeks.
Eric Eggertson says
October 23, 2006 at 14:52Nevon joins Crayon. Symetry in all thing!
Good luck with the new venture, Neville.
Scott M. says
October 23, 2006 at 15:37We launched The Plank Assembly over a month ago now. Good job on grabbing the PR, though. Maybe we should hire you to do our PR since “What we are is whatever you want or need us to be.”
Michael Buckbee says
October 23, 2006 at 15:57Just out of curiousity, I did a couple searches on Google and Yahoo! for “SecondLife” and “Launch Party” and some derivations of that and found that if that was the extent of your research that you’d probably feel pretty confident in your claim to being first.
Other than wandering around and asking people: “Hey, has anyone ever launched a business in SecondLife before?” I have no good answers on how someone could find out these sorts of things.
I know when I first started with SecondLife I kept trying to Google for help with the built in scripting language to absolutely no effect and it wasn’t until someone sent me the link to the internal (non-googleable) Scripting Wiki that I was able to make any headway.
Dan York says
October 23, 2006 at 16:06Neville,
Congrats to you and the rest of the team! Very exciting to see.
Dan
Scott M. says
October 23, 2006 at 16:16“I have no good answers on how someone could find out these sorts of things.”
By talking to Glenn Fisher who is the Director of Developer Programs at Linden Lab. As a company doing business in Second Life signing up for the Developer Program and keeping in touch with Linden Lab is a no-brainer. This isn’t a matter of not being able to find out, Michael, it’s PR.
Stuart Bruce says
October 23, 2006 at 16:25Neville et al, congrats on the new venture. I look forward to hearing more about it.
Stephen – if lack of time means FIR gets a bit shorter then I’ll be even happier as I’ll at last be able to listen to all of them ;)
Ron Blechner says
October 23, 2006 at 18:35Hi there, Neville.
>> Our methodology pivots around conversation and transformation above communication.
I’m so happy to hear this! I would love to speak with you and welcome you to the rich, growing developer community in Second Life! Since you folks are so interested in conversation and communication, I’d like to take this chance to open up dialog.
Because this is such a new, budding industry, there are some efforts a number of us have undertaken to help promote and grow this industry, create standards, and share information valuable to all companies.
We have a site, http://sldevelopers.com/ – with a forums dedicated to providing a medium for developers to interact. We also have a Focus Group I’d like to invite you to consider taking part in, that aims to provide valuable feedback about what practices work and don’t work with metaverse development. Some info here: http://sldevelopers.com/forums/thread/794.aspx
Best of luck with your launch!
David Tebbutt says
October 23, 2006 at 19:23I’ll have some of what you’re smoking Neville.
Hope all goes well.
Kami Huyse says
October 23, 2006 at 19:45Neville; At last, it comes out. I had a suspicion it was something like this ;-) Can we have the next Second Thursday in Second Life at Crayon?
Sebastian Keil says
October 23, 2006 at 20:53Congrats again!
jauani says
October 24, 2006 at 00:18it took me a while to figure out this was not about crayola crayons. oh! well…
Drew Stein says
October 24, 2006 at 00:21As someone who has had the pleasure of knowing Joe Jaffe on and off over the last 2 years through both the Soflow network and my Digerati group, let me welcome you! Joe, come on in, the water’s fine. Of course, as CEO of a Metaverse development company doing ALL our work bringing RL brands into SL, and living entirely by the motto “don’t sell me, play with me,” I also have to take issue (as others have here) with the notion that Crayon represents some kind of a “first.” That said, let’s touch base and talk about ways we might collaborate. I highly value what you bring to the table and look forward to seeing if there are ways IVM and Crayon can work together to inititate conversations between our clients’ brands and their core constituencies.
You can reach me @ [email protected]
David Topping says
October 24, 2006 at 01:04Hmmm…. Don’t know what second life is, don’t much care. I do wish you every success, you’re still the single most effective corporate communicator I’ve met or even heard of. Hope to work with you again.
All the best.
D
Paull Young says
October 24, 2006 at 01:13Neville,
I’m a bit late to the party here – but congratulations!
The annoucement of your upcoming launch made me bite the bullet and finally join Second Life, I’m hoping I’ll be able to attend on Thursday.
Best wishes.
jeneane says
October 24, 2006 at 01:39“What we are is whatever you want or need us to be.”
I need you to be one who can get a Blogger/Google Support person on the case to fix my five-year-old, 4000-plus post blog, which I’ve been unable to publish to for going on five days due to the beta-blogger-mashup blogspot-plus-killer migration that’s going on, I guess.
THAT is who I need you to be. Then I can chime in on this development in the world of PR and Social Marketing.
Thank you.
Dennis Howlett says
October 24, 2006 at 05:50“What we are is whatever you want or need us to be.” – Ok – brain surgeons this week, bridge designers next and i’ll have fries to go with that my burger order.
And then:
“Our client is not the consumer: our client is the truth.”
Wow – I believe, I believe, I believe you’s trying to kid me.
As David says: pass whatever dope you’re smoking over here.
Sorry Neville – absolutely don’t get it. But then marketing’s never been something I’d pretend to understand so well.
Tabita says
October 24, 2006 at 08:34Congratulations Neville – I wish you all the best with your new venture, it sounds exciting! Might meet you in second life at the launch party…
neville says
October 24, 2006 at 10:01Thanks, everyone. Quite a few questions in here which I hope to address in a separate post soon. Giff, that will include some comment about this whole ‘first’ thing. Eric Rice had a good commentary about that.
Re FIR, Stephen and Stuart, we’ve actually been pretty good at keeping show length to an hour or so. Until yesterday’s edition :)
David T, good to hear from you. Thanks for your warm words even if you don’t know what SL is.
Just believe, Dennis!
Tabita, thanks, and good luck to you with your new venture.
RV says
October 24, 2006 at 17:21“Our methodology pivots around conversation and transformation above communication. Our value proposition is designed to activate passions, enthusiasm, organic dialogue and no-strings-attached referrals and recommendations.”
hmmm .looks like another BS compliant startup ….
neville says
October 24, 2006 at 19:12Thanks, RV. I assume ‘BS compliant’ means ‘Best Strategy.’ In which case, I appreciate your warm words.
Phil Gomes says
October 25, 2006 at 03:50This is awesome! Mucho congrats!
Clarence Jones says
October 25, 2006 at 04:51Belated but sincere congratulations to All Crayonites…er, crayonians…,er,crayolas, opps flapdoodle with a side order of lawsuit on that last one.
I’m happy for y’all, and wish you the best.
Love & Peace, Clarence
Armand Winthorp says
October 25, 2006 at 17:30Congrats! I’m looking forward to this.
Lets hope that the grid stays open long enough for more than 24 consecutive hours so you can do what you do!
Serge says
October 25, 2006 at 18:57A bit late, but nevertheless many congrats. Sounds like an excellent topic for a presentation at a symposium, btw. Mmmm… isn’t that a coincidence: we are actually organising one in March 2007 in Ghent. And am I right in presuming you could be convinced in coming over? I’m sure by then you’ll have lots of sotries to tell already :-) . Good luck with Crayon!
Simon Wakeman says
October 25, 2006 at 22:00Hi Neville,
As I just blogged on my site, many congratulations on the exciting adventure that is Crayon.
I’ll be watching with interest, and hope we can all continue to learn from you and the team as we have so far with your respective blogs and podcasts.
Your contribution so far to social media and the development of new PR/marketing cannot be underestimated.
All the best,
sw
Philippe Borremans says
October 29, 2006 at 23:39Hi Neville,
Congratulations and all the best with the new venture.
Speak/meet you soon at one of the conferences.
neville says
October 30, 2006 at 08:26Thanks, everyone. I know I speak on behalf of everyone at crayon in saying that your word of support mean a lot to us. Greatly appreciated.
enrique g cubillo says
November 16, 2006 at 23:20Congratulations on your new endeavor and approach. In the mean time I was curious if there might be interested parties in the marketing advertising space willing to listen to a marketing plan that entails pitching advertisers on social change? In other words brand association with MOTHERS LOVE. i.e. advertiser generates a public policy that brings a smile to a MOTHER by way of education modalities their children follow, love and gobble up with big smiles on their faces. One last thing, the policy lasts the duration of the child’s life.
Those who are curious will need to give me face time in NYC. Face time is the only way to pitch this one I am afraid.
Thanks and good luck
Enrique G. Cubillo
212 243 9601
Advocate for social change via marketing and advertising
Money Moves Markets & Minds, Move Wisely & Nicely