A man is judged by his associates, and Wes is important (in the VIP sense of the word) because he knows all these people who are more famous than him. These people associate with him because he is the bridge between them and other powerful people, a connection that may or may not have otherwise happened. It’s never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket (as a pure networker), so I agree that his position is somewhat intangible, but he’s not exactly irrelevant or impotent either.

thanks x

Of course, he’s probably just a supertalented guy who was always too ghetto for the rich kids and too rich for the ghetto kids, and so the respect afforded him due to his preeminence will always be unseemly, and the unseemliness of it all is what threw me. But whenever I see him interacting with people my gut screams “hustler! hustler!” There are better examples, but it’s playoff season, and the Celtics are relevant for the first time since the early 90s.

Might not be a bad idea to file all this under the “The NBA: Where Unwarranted Philosophical Speculation Happens” file.

A better example of Wes’ market role would be the technology ‘Evangelist’.

Microsoft, Adobe, IBM and all the equivalent big IT players have evangelist programs – because what they do is arcane. They provide services of immense value, but most of their clients can’t understand how to gain access to that value.

An evangelist’s job is (in 99% of cases) to get to know a bunch of people, and be able to put them in touch with each other. They know enough about the arcane voodoo of whatever product it is they’re hired to evangelize that they can talk intelligently about it, and follow a conversation through from a third party, but they don’t solve anyone’s problems directly. They understand someone’s problem and then they find them someone who can help. Sure they shill and talk about how great whoever they’re working for is – but that’s not why they get paid – they aren’t there to sell anything – they’re being paid to be a go between for people trying to establish networks.

Ideally, somebody who’s doing that sort of work doesn’t want to be known to the general public. They want to keep their relationships limited to the solutions and problems they connect. All a good evangelist needs is the technical nous to be able to joint the dots and an ‘in’ to the the people he needs to connect.

Wes sounds like a douchebag – but in the IT industry at least – his skill set is incredibly valuable to pretty much everyone. It just seems like he’s lucky enough to have something of a monopoly on a very lucrative niche.

Watch him jump over the Aston Martin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yURa9T0-Rjk

“I got this. I got this. I will be there. You trust your boy? (hits Turiaf) You trust your boy?!”

All that is calculation. But he’s enthusiastic, he SELLS it, he has energy, confidence, and his followers know, beneath everything, how intense, dedicated, talented and possibly insane he is. To me, a hustler is someone who reinvents himself in a very deep way but reveals nothing of the anguish that comes with it. The more he’s suffered, the more he has to act (and more than just act, really BELIEVE) like he’s never suffered. That’s Kobe. Also, I don’t see anyone keeping him from winning the title this year. It’s as good as his.

Real businessmen blah blah. We all know what real businessmen can and should do. The point is Wes solved a problem for Barbosa. He was pitching to a 20 year old from Brazil that had never talked to his fav ball player or his fav musician. He now has. When Lebron, the golden egg for the nba, was on the market, it didn’t matter if what Wes did was real or not. He got him.

Wes creates value through his relationships, his rolodex. It’s his playing card and he plays it better than anyone else in his position. Wes’ “problem” is he hasn’t done anything tangible with it. When he dies, his rolodex won’t leave a mark.

Also, my life is awesome

You know what real businessmen do when they try to sign clients? They show them how they will make them money. Or how they will solve a problem.

Importance = Importance. That’s it. You’re in for a shitty life if you think otherwise.

He’s a non-professional scout with the ability to build multiple relationshpis without pissing anyone off, can name-drop on a massive scale and exploits the in-betweens that the flawed system leaves open. I see him as a precursor to Ryan, who can work the spaces, but create actual content and build tangible things.

Gladwell’s networkers theory has been pretty much proven to be half or all wrong. I forget where I saw the article, but Ryan and Tucker would know.

From your mouth…

“So how do you figure out how important you are? Take the average importance of the names in your email inbox and phone log, shave a little off and that’s your answer.”

And in my head, importance = value.

Unfortunately for Wes, (though I’m not sure if he wants more) he hasn’t used it to build anything tangible.

happy wednesday x