Title: The Cluetrain Manifesto

           Chapter 6: EZ ANSWERS

 

 

Amazon Link:  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738204315/thesearlsgroup

 

Quotation:

 

“If love is the answer, cold you please rephrase the question?”

 

LEARNING EXPECTATIONS:

§                     To know which question should be asked

§                     To know the answers to certain questions about the internet

§                     To find clarity regarding the previous topics

§                     To gain more knowledge about the Web

 

REVIEW:

 

At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, new power sources replaced much human grunt work. Producers immediately saw that thus was good thing. Moreover, they saw that repeatable processes and interchangeable parts were an even better thing.

By the time the twentieth century rolled around, industry hit upon an even more potent multiplier: interchangeable workers. The assembly line turned workers into machines. Through this stroke of genius, craft skill was effectively hosed, and workers were told to shut up and do what they were told.

 

Mass production led to mass marketing, which led to mass media. Broadcast applied the fundamental mass production brainstorm to marketing communications.

 

Slowly, some companies began to realize that workers knew more than they’d been letting on—mostly because no one had asked them for about a hundred years. This led to the reemergence of the craft in the workplace, and a concomitant revaluing of speech—a fancy way of saying “lead, follow, or get out of the way”. Ideas, talk, and conversation were now encouraged among workers because they helped to deliver what organizations so desperately needed: a clue.

 

While speech was actively elicited from workers because it carried suddenly invaluable knowledge, it was not yet sought in any significant way from customers—a concept still perceived by many corporations as more dangerous than godless communism and universal healthcare combined. However, to market fractionation, consumers had already become far less interchangeable.

 

Then along came the internet and all hell broke loose. By its nature, Internet technology encourages open distributed speech. The human voice is the primary attractor, both to the medium and within it. Markets and workers are once again crafting their own conversations, and these conversations are also about craft—things we do that we actually care about.

 

Business is being transformed, but not by technology. The Web is simply liberating an atavistic human desire, the longing for connection through talk.

 

The Web is inherent and intrinsically free. Businesses will perceive this fact as either a blessing or a curse depending on how much they value freedom, a quality of mind and heart not typically underscored in the average corporate mission statement.

 

Ironically, we ask questions about the future of the Web because we think there’s a present direction that can be traced into the future. But in fact, the questions we ask aren’t going to predict the future. They will create the future.

 

Our job now is not to answer questions. It is to listen past the questions based on fear and to hear the questions of the heart. Why? Because the proper answer to a heartfelt question is a conversation and conversations make the world.

 

The Web got built by people who chose to build it. The lesson is: don’t wait for someone to show you how. Learn from your spontaneous mistakes, not from safe prescriptions and cautiously analyzed procedures. Don’t try to keep people from going wrong by repeating the mantra of how to get it right. Getting it right isn’t enough any more. There’s no invention in it. There’s no voice.

 

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED:

§                     Markets are therefore coming into a new ascendancy. And increasingly, we value only two qualities: 1. the engagement and passion genuine craft. 2. Conversations among recognizably human voices.

§                     Questions were not asked to know the future of Internet. Rather, questions will create the future of Internet technology.

§                     The Cluetrain Hit-One-Outta-the-Park Twelve-Step Program for Internet Business Success

1.                   relax

2.                   have a sense of humor

3.                   find your voice and use it

4.                   tell the truth

5.                   don’t panic

6.                   enjoy yourself

7.                   be brave

8.                   be curious

9.                   play more

10.               dream always

11.               listen up

12.               rap on

§                     The proper answer to a heartfelt question is a conversation.

§                     Learn from your experience.