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Title:
The Cluetrain Manifesto: The end of business as usual
Review:
If you are looking for another staid business book with thousands of dry words describing business school ideas for growing your business, this is not it. This is a book where you must read the words and pay attention to the side bars while casting aside preconceived notions of what a business book looks like and feels like.
The tour guides for The Cluetrain Manifesto are Rick Leune (co-founder of Mancala, Inc. and a former Web Architect for Sun), Christopher Locke (web consultant also known as rageboy), Doc Searles (senior editor at Linux Journal and publisher of Reality 2.0), and David Weinberger (editor and publisher of the Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization - JOHO). Each has a perspective on the business of doing business on the internet borne from working in the trenches and noting the strategic failures as well as the tactical victories.
They start with 95 theses. If your classical education is pinging in your ear it might be the remembrance of Martin Luther echoing in the background. This set of 95 theses also tackle a cultural attitude, but this one examines the business of marketing goods, services, and brands using the matrix of the internet, linked with the myriad of intranets that form in large and small companies. To give you an idea, here are a few of the theses:
- There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.
- Bombastic boasts -- "We are positioned to become the preeminent provider of XYZ" -- do not constitute a position.
- Today, the org chart is hyperlinked, not hierarchical. Respect for hands-on knowledge wins over respect for abstract authority.
From the theses they take off on a series of conversations, which is how the authors see the new marketing paradigm. Conversations between buyers and sellers replace prior notions of how marketing, public relations, and ultimately, customer support are accomplished, thus allowing companies to become more approachable and more human in their dealings with both their vendors and customers. Oh, their employees, too. They preach with the conviction of TV evangelists and the humor of the local comedy club.
If you think you know what your company looks like from the web and its surfers, pay particular attention to page 93. Here, laid bare, is the story of what happens in chat rooms and how no one is immune. What? You don't have someone trolling the chat rooms watching for references to your company or products? This story will give you a few reasons to seriously consider making it someone's assignment, especially if you sit on top of a publically traded company.
If you are an avid reader of business books, looking for the morsels that will help give you the leg up over your competition, this is a book that should not be missed.
If you hate business books with a passion because they never deal with the things you need to know, this is a book that should not be missed.
If you never read books, read this one anyway.
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Free Pint Reviewer:
P.C. McGrew is a certified Electronic Documents Pubilshing Professional. With her partner, Bill McDaniel, she speaks professionally and writes on topics including information delivery, emerging technology, and practical applications of emerging technologies. Their consulting company, McGrew + McDaniel Group, works as evangelists-for-hire in the emerging technologies sector.
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