Econsult Corporation, Ft. Lots of Really Cool Senior Advisors

This was one of my "lazy links" earlier this week, but I wanted to loop back on the story: Econsult Corporation Announces Addition of Senior Advisors to Firm. So far, it's been picked up by almost 200 news sites online, which may be more of an indication of space being free and not much else going on in the news than of this being so prodigiously newsworthy.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting angle, and I say that not just because I work at Econsult. Affilating, however loosely or tightly you may choose to define it, seems like the sort of win-win thing that makes you wonder why it doesn't happen more often. Let me rephrase, since in fact it does happen all the time - Daniel Pink's notion of "free agent nation" is at least a decade old - but some industries seem slow to the party.

But why wouldn't you figure out as many affiliations as are profitable for you to form? As our article suggests, we are incredibly glad and fortunate to be able to say that we have so many studs on as Senior Advisors. And, every one of them is as happy to be associated with us.

But it's more than just affiliation; it's also the actual work. No one knows everyone or everything, and having these Senior Advisors on has been a boon to our efforts to expand our networks, go after new gigs in new realms, and learn a bunch of useful things along the way.

It's not hard to think of examples in the sports and entertainment worlds - freely mix with others different from you, pollinate new concepts, and end up better off for it - so why wouldn't it similarly work in the knowledge economy? I'm glad my firm has been open to these sorts of associations and mash-ups, as I think I can say that, all around, we're all better for it.