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What We Learned In The New Economy: Converge Those Actionables, Dude!
By: Ryan Underwood
Did you speak New Economy? The vocabulary now seems strangely quaint, if not outright asinine. Here's a helpful glossary for those who have conveniently forgotten.

- Actionables
- Then, parts of a business plan a person could take action on
- Now, offenses for which your former employees, customers, and shareholders can take you to court.
- Angels
- Then, early individual investors in a startup
- Now, the supernatural beings you pray to each night in hopes of staving off total financial ruin.
- B2B
- Then, business-to-business
- Now, back-to-basics.
- B2C
- Then, business-to-consumer
- Now, back-to-court.
- Build it and they will come
- Then, the notion that if you built an Internet presence, paying customers would soon flock
- Now, a line from the Kevin Costner hit movie Field of Dreams.
- Bunny suits
- Then, the protective R&D gear worn by lab rats in "clean rooms," where the latest technology was being invented
- Now, the costume some former dotcom executives have to wear for their $8-an-hour Easter party gigs.
- Convergence
- Then, the coming together of various forms of media and technology
- Now, cable operators' lock on anything that can travel over coaxial cable.
- Due diligence
- Then, the thorough investigation by a VC firm of a startup
- Now, the work done by Eliot Spitzer's staff before presenting yet another case to the SEC.
- Eating your own dog food
- Then, Netscape's term for using its own software
- Now, saving on groceries.
- ERP
- Then, enterprise resource planning
- Now, early retirement package.
- Exit strategy
- Then, a plan for getting out of a startup at a profit.
- Now, a plan for busting out of the slammer.
- Finger
- Then, a method used to find someone on the Web
- Now, ratting your boss out to the authorities.
- First-mover advantage
- Then, being first to market
- Now, being the lone survivor.
- IPO
- Then, initial public offering
- Now, illegal profiteering orgy.
- Network effect
- Then, the magnifying effect of Web communications
- Now, spam.
- P2P
- Then, peer-to-peer
- Now, paycheck-to-paycheck.
- Personalization
- Then, tailoring online offerings to individual clicking habits
- Now, a thin excuse to strip people of privacy rights.
- Spin-off
- Then, the lucrative separation of a promising business from its corporate parent
- Now, a way to dump a dog, usually by selling it for a fraction of what was spent on it.
- Value-added
- Then, the notion of adding critical value to an existing product or service
- Now, getting a supersized order of fries and a drink at McDonald's for only a buck more.
- Webify
- Then, to get your existing business ready to operate on the World Wide Web
- Now, having Phil from IT slap up a Web site.
From Issue 80 | March 2004
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