Cluetrain Manifesto

It’s been more than a decade since The Cluetrain Manifesto by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger rocked the Web and climbed to the best-seller list.  It’s effects continue to percolate across our culture and commerce.  Hey business, “it’s not your relationship to manage!”  Just as you finally come to grips with Customer Relationship Management (CRM), the customers themselves have turned the tables… and now they’re managing you.

Let’s see if some of the Cluetrain “predictive theses” have come true…

1. Markets are conversations: Human interactions drive business activities.
2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors: Individuals are self-interested with personal agendas, regardless of whether they’re in the same customer segment or micro-segment.
3. 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.  This reflects the prevalence of review sites when customers provide better, honest reviews for all to see.
4. Companies that speak in the language of “pitch” are no longer speaking to anyone: The “pitch” is the marketing collateral aimed at pushing a product/service.  It’s in the vantage point of the company… not the customer.
5. Transparency is the new norm: Most corporate marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what’s really going on in the company.  Companies mask a problem by the way they “spin” it.
6. Markets don’t want to talk to flacks and hucksters: They want to participate in real conversations going on behind the corporate wall whether in person or online.
7. Markets want access to corporate information: Your plans, strategies, your best thinking and your genuine knowledge.  They will not settle for four-color brochures or web sites filled with Flash but no substance.  They are immune to your brochure because they know it just pushes product… not value.
8. We’ve got great ideas for you, if you’ll only listen: Some new tools we need, some better service strategies.  Stuff we’d be willing to pay a premium for… gotta minute?
9. How about taking 50 million of us as seriously as you take 1 Wall Street Journal reporter? Yes, traditional media is and will continue to be important, but there is something to be said for the “wisdom of the crowd who cares” and its purchasing power.

Does this look like 2010?