Hey there!

For as long as I can remember, I have had a strange relationship with work.

I hate seeing useful intelligence go to waste.

Back when I ran PowerIdeas, an old issue was never really "old."

Once we had created it, I would ask:

What else can this become?

Past issues could be reorganised around a subject.

Those collections could become courses.

Courses could lead to certificates.

The virtual certificate might be free...

but if you wanted the physical one with our company seal, that was N25,000.

We could package a year's issues together.

Create special editions.

Turn the audio into MP3 collections.

The original sale had already happened.

But the intelligence was still working.

I didn't have sophisticated language for what I was doing then.

I just hated the idea that something valuable should produce value once...

and then sit there doing nothing.

Years later, when I ran the Highly Paid Experts workshops, I did the same thing.

Sessions were recorded.

Before long, we had a library.

That library could do some of the teaching...

while I concentrated on the part that required me:

diagnosis, judgment and customisation.

Again...

the session ended.

the asset remained.

And this year I've become much more deliberate about it.

I'm increasingly thinking in terms of what I call:

PACKAGED INTELLIGENCE.

Not simply intellectual property.

I mean taking valuable distinctions, judgment, methods, decision logic and capability...

and packaging them so they can continue helping somebody think, decide or act without requiring me to personally recreate the intelligence every time.

I've started deliberately installing this around clients' DSS.

A distinction becomes a diagnostic.

A diagnostic becomes a protocol.

A protocol becomes a tool.

A tool becomes software.

Software can teach.

Coach.

Diagnose.

Help implement.

And eventually...

it can be licensed to somebody else who can use it to produce results in their own practice.

That's a very different economic game.

And AI has accelerated it beyond anything I could have imagined five years ago.

We started experimenting with Custom GPTs because they gave us a convenient way to test whether pieces of my thinking could be made interactive.

But the really valuable thing wasn't the GPT.

It was the intelligence we learned how to extract and structure.

Today we're increasingly putting that intelligence into web based WayTools and Virtual Emissaries that can actually do pieces of the teaching, coaching and implementation work.

Build once.

Improve continuously.

Deploy repeatedly.

License where appropriate.

Train a Tribemaster to use it.

And suddenly something that once existed only inside my head can create value in places I am not.

#pausingfordramaticeffect

#sipscoffee

I've seen the same thing with something much simpler.

Prompts.

I call some of this Prompt Magic.

People drastically underestimate what a carefully designed sequence of prompts can contain.

A prompt can carry your values.

Your distinctions.

Your questions.

Your decision criteria.

Your methodology.

Your accumulated judgment.

I've built libraries of prompts that help transfer capabilities and insights to other people.

I sell them.

Recently, I created a series around music styles for my music work.

The income those little pieces of packaged intelligence have generated has been...interesting. 😄

Which brings me back to the Dangote Refinery IPO and Distinction #5:

REVENUE IS NOT ENTERPRISE VALUE.

The petrol produces revenue.

But once the petrol has been sold, it's gone.

The refinery remains.

And tomorrow...

the refinery can produce again.

That distinction has changed the question I increasingly ask after doing valuable work.

Not simply:

"How much did this make?"

But:

"What exists now that didn't exist before I did the work?"

What did we learn?

What did we codify?

What did we build?

What can now be reused?

What can someone else use?

What can be licensed?

What can continue producing value after the invoice has been paid?

Because the smartest work should not necessarily get paid only once.

The client may pay you for solving today's problem.

But if you capture the intelligence that solved the problem...

that intelligence may improve tomorrow's engagement.

Become a diagnostic.

Become a WayTool.

Become training.

Become software.

Become a licence.

Become part of an entirely new enterprise.

Which means one piece of work can potentially create several different kinds of value:

Client value.

Learning value.

IP value.

Leverage value.

Commercial value.

Licensing value.

That is very different from simply "repurposing content."

This is about capturing and packaging intelligence NOT expertise.

And I think this is where the future becomes particularly interesting for people whose primary asset is what they know.

Until recently, converting the intelligence in one person's head into interactive technology required serious infrastructure.

That barrier is collapsing.

Which means the question increasingly isn't:

"Can I afford to build the technology?"

It is:

"What intelligence have I accumulated that deserves to become technology?"

That is the question I'm now asking almost obsessively inside IST Ltd.

Because I'm beginning to realise that the accumulated wisdom from every business I've ever built...

every client I've worked with...

every mistake I've made...

every distinction I've discovered...

doesn't have to disappear when I'm done using it.

It can be captured.

Packaged.

Installed.

Improved.

Licensed.

And multiplied.

So perhaps the real lesson from

Distinction #5 is this:

Revenue tells you what yesterday's work earned. Assets determine how much of yesterday's work can keep producing tomorrow.

Don't get me wrong o...

The money matters.

But after the money has been made...

what remains?

That's the question.

That's it for today.

Be dangerously useful.

Get out of your own way.

- CTM

P.S. Would you like me to work with you to turn your wisdom into an app you can license, certify people to use, or simply leverage to increase your fees?

Let me know.