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	Phil's Blogservations Saturday, April 19, 2008 Posted by philgomes 12:24 AM Cass Asks: Cluetrain 10 Years On I'm convinced — convinced — that something's wrong with Technorati's indexing. I only just this week saw this post from John Cass, asking me and others to comment on The Cluetrain Manifesto. Unlike some folks who chide me for not making their every utterance my highest priority, I'm sure a true gentleman like John will find it in his heart to forgive me for taking a few weeks to get to this, the lovely chap that he is. Besides which... I'll see him next week at NewComm Forum anyway. John asks: 1) What does the cluetrain manifesto mean to you? How has the book and theses influenced or not influenced you? To be honest, I typically prefer not to read business, marketing, or related books, almost as a matter of policy. (Cluetrain was a rare exception.) If you want to be successful, you gotta be a good fisherman and go where the fishermen ain't. These days, though, the Cluetrain hole has a helluva lot of lines in it. You occasionally find a couple folks from the pro-circuit, sure. And you'll bump into few more folks who have learned to read the river over time, keep to the Dept. of Fish & Game's in-possession limits, and are polite to their fellow fishermen. Mostly, though, you find yourself standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the shoreline with looky-loos who can't bait their own hooks and showed up with their coolers, Fisher-Price rods, Abercrombie & Fitch, radios, faddish bait in garishly fluorescent packages and, of course, little spring-mounted bells alligator-clipped to the ends of their rods. "Shhhhh...It's the secret Cluetrain fishin' hole!" "But there are six dozen people here, for chrissakes! Some secret!" "But it is the secret Cluetrain fishin' hole! Hell... Just ask anybody!" But I digress... I read Cluetrain, though, sure. Fortunately, I was able to do so by choice. It wasn't like in the mid-'90s when I had a gun to my head to read (and, dammit, like) Geoffrey Moore's Crossing The Chasm. So, alas, these many years later, none but the Cluetrain's main precepts have remained lodged in that stomach-for-information between my ears, though I will bounce over to the Web site every so often. There are some great, thoughtful, and interesting ideas therein, for sure, but I'd have to admit that the reasons for the tome's sustained deification — even among those who I am convinced never actually read the thing — continue to elude me. That said, few books in its space are so notable for being, at once, provocative, iconic, widely referenced, and indicative of a unique moment in time. 2) Which companies have best implemented the cluetrain manifesto in your opinion and how were they effective? As I told someone recently: Dell in 2005 looked at social media the way that Americans looked at the Sputnik launch in 1957. Now in 2008, Dell is like America 12 years after that launch — waving at everyone else from the surface of the moon. Amazing market-as-conversation metamorphosis. (And proving, just in case you were wondering, that the tech-years-versus-real-world-years ratio is about 4:1.) 3) In thesis 57, the cluetrain manifesto states, "smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner." In light of that thesis, is encouraging employees to use social media and blogging a good idea? Is it really effective, when an employee is encouraged but not directed? I remember having a strong reaction to this one when I first read it. Frankly, years later, I still can't see an executive going on-stage at a Morgan Stanley investors' conference and saying "In the next three quarters, we are going to do the smart thing, get out of the way, and help the inevitable to happen sooner." (Reads like a page from DEC's "GQ-Bob"-era business plan, circa 1995.) Let's just say I would hate to be at the next board meeting. That said, I do believe that it's good — even advisable — for companies to encourage their employees to engage in social media, provided there are narrowly drawn policies in place that codify what the organization deems acceptable behavior. Such policies are, really, about protecting the employee just as much as a corporation, if not more so. Looking what happened to Joyce Park and Mark Jen, for example, I see fault on the sides of the company and the employee. 4) How can a company encourage employees to use social media, and empower them to answer customer questions and learn from customers? I default to a quote that continue to find inspirational: "I don't have the advertising budget to get our message to, for instance, Java developers working on handset applications for the medical industry. But one of our developers, just by taking time to write a blog, can do a great job getting our message out to a fanatic readership." - Jonathan Schwartz, Sun Microsystems, FORTUNE, 2004 That, and pretty much any other social media implementation that you can spider-graph out of that core idea, is justification right there. 5) Do all employees want to talk with customers? If not what percentage want to internetwork and converse? The answer to the first question is a "no" just in terms of the way it's phrased. As to what exact percentage? I'm sure it varies widely by company, market, day of the week. Besides... It's Friday night and I'm not quite disposed to to look it up right now. As I've said before: When the many of the Cluetrain's most breathlessly vocal adherents find themselves wondering why more employees at more companies haven't joined in the conversation online, they really need only look in the mirror. The following attitude has made me successful in media/analyst relations, client service, and my current role: Approach the task as an educator would, not a salesman. All that many of the loudest voices know — as well as those who often seek to curry their favor — is that it's just easier to get more links, friends, attention, and subscribers when you play the you-don't-get-it card. Self-righteous indignation, pointed at minutiae, is the empty-calorie snack that only meagerly sustains a personal brand. With that, I now leave it to the masses to take various parts of this post out of context in order to try and generate linkbait or help sell their books. You're welcome. Technorati Tags: cluetrain, pr, public relations, john cass | HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil's demented imagination. Hell, to be perfectly honest, even Phil disagrees with what he thinks sometimes. This site has virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Clicking on a link doesn't automatically send a 1/2-cent donation to UNICEF. You can't buy, sell, auction, swap, find a date, win friends, influence people, cross the chasm, or decode the human genome using this site. You won't get free email. You won't win a free video game console. This site will not end world hunger, foster peace in the Middle East, help you smell better, teach you how to swing dance, or move the global economy from petroleum to hydrogen fuels. You'll learn a lot about this site's master, though, which amounts to a haphazard collection of strange and useless facts that pretty much won't help you at all.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This is the blog of Phil Gomes, SVP with Edelman Digital and senior advisor to the Society for New Communications Research. This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. Phil currently resides in Chicago, IL. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes.com View my page on PROpenMic SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. 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