The Cluetrain Manifesto

Jason KovacKnowledge Management Systems

October 9, 2008

Origins

Original website shared 95 collaboratively-penned theses (http://cluetrain.com).

See handout for “elevator rap.” “Cluetrain” purportedly comes from

comes from a Fortune 500 exec: “"The clue train stopped there four times a day for ten years and they never took delivery."

Jason's ridiculous oversimplification

The internet is helping reverse the bad habits that business developed during periods of mass production, via participatory involvement in markets.

Maybe forcing is a better word...

Internet Apocalypso (Locke)

Somewhere along the way, markets latched on to mass production, “characterised by alienation and mystery” (p. 10).

The arrival of the internet had a “radicalising effect,” which the Manifesto calls voice.

Internet Apocalypso “Just about all the concessions we make to work in

a well-run, non-disturbing, secure, predictably successful, managed environment have to do with giving up our voice” (p. 42).

“The internet is inherently seditious. It undermines

unthinking respect for centralized authority, whether that 'authority' is the neatly homogenized voice of broadcast advertising or the smarmy rhetoric of the corporate annual report” (p. 8).

Internet Apocalypso “But many businesses, especially large ones, still

refuse to acknowledge these radical shifts affecting internal workforces and external markets. They don't want to relinquish hierarchical control... it's what they know” (p. 18).

“The question is whether, as a company, you can afford to have more than an advertising-jingle persona. Can you put yourself out there... Can you deal with such honesty? Human beings are often magnificent in this regard, while companies, frankly, tend to suck” (p. 25).

The Longing (Weinberger)

“We don't know what the web is for, but we've adopted it faster than any technology since fire... it is the granting of a place in which we can be who we are (and even who we aren't, if that's the voice we've chosen)” (pp. 43-44).

The Longing “We may still have to behave properly in

committee meetings, but increasingly the real work of the company is getting done by quirky individuals who meet on the Web... [moving] ahead faster than the speed of management.”

“The memo is dead. Long live e-mail... Bland, safe relationships with customers are dead. Long live customer-support reps who are willing to get as pissed of at their own company as the angry customer is” (p. 44).

Talk is Cheap (Levine)

“Authenticity, honesty and personal voice underlie much of what's successful on the web” (p. 51).

“We seem to know, intuitively, when something spoken, written or recorded is sincere and honest—when it comes from another person's heart rather than being a synthesis of corporatespeak filtered by myriad iterations of editing, trimming and targeting” (p. 65).

Talk is Cheap

“Stories play a large part in the success of organizations. With stories, we teach, pass along knowledge of our craft to colleagues, and create a sense of shared mission” (p. 67).

“Companies can't stop customers from speaking up, and can't stop employees from talking to customers. Their only choice is to start encouraging employees to talk to customers—and empowering them to act on what they hear” (p. 71).

Markets are Conversations(Searls & Weinberger) “The first markets were filled with people, not

abstractions or statistical aggregates; they were the places where supply met demand with a firm handshake. Buyers and sellers looked each other in the eye, met and connected” (p. 74).

“In the 20th century, the rise of mass communications media enhanced industry's ability to address even larger markets... with larger markets came larger rewards, and larger rewards had to be protected. More bureaucracy, more hierarchy and more command and control meant the customer who looked you in the eye was promptly escorted out of the building by security” (p. 76).

Markets are Conversations

“We know that the real purpose of marketing is to insinuate the message into our consciousness, to put an axe in our heads without our noticing... Ironically, many of us spend our days wielding axes ourselves. In our private lives we defend ourselves from the marketing messages out to get us, our defences made stronger for having spent the day at work trying to drive axes into our customers' heads” (pp. 78-79).

Markets are Conversations

Networked markets are changing how messages are received: “finding themselves connected to one another in the market doesn't enable customers just to learn the truth behind product claims. The very sound of the Web conversation throws into stark relief the monotonous, lifeless, self-centered drone emanating from Marketing departments around the world” (p. 81).

Markets are Conversations Searls & Weinberger suggest that:

PR departments should focus on stories, not spin Embrace the power of word-of-web over

advertising Replace brochure-type content with opportunity

for dialogue Get away from TechnoLatin: "It's not language,

it's camouflage... speak real words. The new Web conversations are remarkably sensitive to the empty pomposity that has served marketing so well. Until now" (pp. 102-103)

Get over the fear of what the peons will say. Use them to your advantage in reaching out to customers.

The Hyperlinked Organization(Weinberger) “Some along the line, we confused going to work

with building a fort” (p.116), where we have everything we need within our walls, the outside is dangerous, the king rules, we each have a defined role, and the goal is to beat the enemy.

“The Web, in the form of a corporate intranet, puts everyone in touch with every piece of information and with everyone else inside the organization and beyond... Conversations subvert hierarchy. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy. Being a human being among others subverts hierarchy” (p. 121).

The Hyperlinked Organization “If someone wants to share some

information, they can turn their computer into a Web server. It's free, and it's getting easier every day. The intranet revolution is bottom-up... If a company doesn't recognize this, the top-down intranet it puts in can breed the type of cynicism that results in ugly bathroom graffiti and mysterious golfing cart accidents” (p.122).

The Hyperlinked Organization ...is hyperlinked. See “small pieces

loosely joined.” ...is decentralized. Making (humble) self-

reliance a virtue, if not a requirement. ...though “hyper time” is “seven times

that of normal time, control of that time is in our hands.

...is open. Very little in the way between you and information.

The Hyperlinked Organization ...has the potential to enrich data with

personality and meaning. ...uses a broken tool. ...blurs definitions of where one

organization ends and another begins.

E-Z Answers(Locke & Weinberger) As established markets broke up into a

“zillion micromarkets,” “new knowledge was desperately needed to fuel this expansion, and this is when companies discovered what workers had long suspected but never talked about except in the washroom: management didn't know its ass from a hole in the ground” (p. 160).

E-Z Answers

“Command and control is widely perceived as dysfunctional, but it's a hard-to-break habit. Many business leaders are well aware that bureaucratic hierarchy works against needed knowledge and communication, yet inertia is a powerful force” (p. 162).

E-Z Answers What can business do?

Figure out who knows what’s going on. Start listening. Understand resistance to the

“unmanageability” of the Web Embrace “unmanageability” of the Web Relax, have a sense of humour, find your

voice and use it, tell the truth, don't panic, enjoy yourself, be brave, be curious, play more, dream always, listen up, rap on (rap on?)...

Post-Apocalypso (Locke) “We don't believe what we're saying at work.

We know no one else believes it either. But we keep saying it because because because because the needle's stuck... Because who would we be if we didn't talk like that?” (p. 178)

“The point is what this latest technological wonder brings back into the world: the human story... And next time you wonder what you're allowed to say at work, online, downtown at the public library, just say whatever the hell you feel like saying. Anyone asks you, tell 'em it's OK. Tell 'em you read about it in a book” (p. 179).

Angst aside...

Have you seen changes in how businesses communicate with you since the advent of the Internet?

If you were in charge, what would be the low hanging fruit you'd go after? What would you change first?

What success or horror stories do you have about bosses empowering your voice (or... not)?