95 Theses
- Markets are conversations.
- Markets consist of human
beings, not demographic sectors.
- Conversations among human
beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.
- Whether delivering
information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous
asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.
- People recognize each other
as such from the sound of this voice.
- The Internet is enabling
conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the
era of mass media.
- Hyperlinks subvert
hierarchy.
- In both internetworked
markets and among intranetworked employees, people are speaking
to each other in a powerful new way.
- These networked
conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and
knowledge exchange to emerge.
- As a result, markets are
getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a
networked market changes people fundamentally.
- People in networked markets
have figured out that they get far better information and support from
one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about
adding value to commoditized products.
- 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.
- What's happening to markets
is also happening among employees. A metaphysical construct called
"The Company" is the only thing standing between the two.
- Corporations do not speak
in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their
intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.
- In just a few more years,
the current homogenized "voice" of business—the sound of
mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial
as the language of the 18th century French court.
- Already, companies that
speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer
speaking to anyone.
- Companies that assume
online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on
television are kidding themselves.
- Companies that don't
realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting
smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their
best opportunity.
- Companies can now
communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be
their last chance.
- Companies need to realize their
markets are often laughing. At them.
- Companies need to lighten
up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of
humor.
- Getting a sense of humor
does not mean putting some jokes on the corporate web site. Rather, it
requires big values, a little humility, straight talk, and a genuine
point of view.
- Companies attempting to
"position" themselves need to take a position.
Optimally, it should relate to something their market actually cares
about.
- Bombastic boasts—"We
are positioned to become the preeminent provider of XYZ"—do not
constitute a position.
- Companies need to come down
from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to
create relationships.
- Public Relations does not
relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.
- By speaking in language
that is distant, uninviting, arrogant, they build walls to keep markets
at bay.
- Most marketing programs are
based on the fear that the market might see what's really going on
inside the company.
- Elvis said it best:
"We can't go on together with suspicious minds."
- Brand loyalty is the
corporate version of going steady, but the breakup is inevitable—and
coming fast. Because they are networked, smart markets are able to
renegotiate relationships with blinding speed.
- Networked markets can
change suppliers overnight. Networked knowledge workers can change
employers over lunch. Your own "downsizing initiatives" taught
us to ask the question: "Loyalty? What's that?"
- Smart markets will find
suppliers who speak their own language.
- Learning to speak with a
human voice is not a parlor trick. It can't be "picked up" at
some tony conference.
- To speak with a human
voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities.
- But first, they must belong
to a community.
- Companies must ask
themselves where their corporate cultures end.
- If their cultures end
before the community begins, they will have no market.
- Human communities are based
on discourse—on human speech about human concerns.
- The community of discourse is
the market.
- Companies that do not
belong to a community of discourse will die.
- Companies make a religion
of security, but this is largely a red herring. Most are protecting less
against competitors than against their own market and workforce.
- As with networked markets,
people are also talking to each other directly inside the
company—and not just about rules and regulations, boardroom directives,
bottom lines.
- Such conversations are
taking place today on corporate intranets. But only when the conditions
are right.
- Companies typically install
intranets top-down to distribute HR policies and other corporate
information that workers are doing their best to ignore.
- Intranets naturally tend to
route around boredom. The best are built bottom-up by engaged
individuals cooperating to construct something far more valuable: an
intranetworked corporate conversation.
- A healthy intranet organizes
workers in many meanings of the word. Its effect is more radical than
the agenda of any union.
- While this scares companies
witless, they also depend heavily on open intranets to generate and
share critical knowledge. They need to resist the urge to
"improve" or control these networked conversations.
- When corporate intranets
are not constrained by fear and legalistic rules, the type of
conversation they encourage sounds remarkably like the conversation of
the networked marketplace.
- Org charts worked in an
older economy where plans could be fully understood from atop steep
management pyramids and detailed work orders could be handed down from
on high.
- Today, the org chart is
hyperlinked, not hierarchical. Respect for hands-on knowledge wins over
respect for abstract authority.
- Command-and-control
management styles both derive from and reinforce bureaucracy, power tripping
and an overall culture of paranoia.
- Paranoia kills
conversation. That's its point. But lack of open conversation kills
companies.
- There are two conversations
going on. One inside the company. One with the market.
- In most cases, neither
conversation is going very well. Almost invariably, the cause of failure
can be traced to obsolete notions of command and control.
- As policy, these notions
are poisonous. As tools, they are broken. Command and control are met
with hostility by intranetworked knowledge workers and generate distrust
in internetworked markets.
- These two conversations
want to talk to each other. They are speaking the same language.
They recognize each other's voices.
- Smart companies will get
out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner.
- If willingness to get out
of the way is taken as a measure of IQ, then very few companies have yet
wised up.
- However subliminally at the
moment, millions of people now online perceive companies as little more
than quaint legal fictions that are actively preventing these
conversations from intersecting.
- This is suicidal. Markets want
to talk to companies.
- Sadly, the part of the
company a networked market wants to talk to is usually hidden behind a
smokescreen of hucksterism, of language that rings false—and often is.
- Markets do not want to talk
to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations
going on behind the corporate firewall.
- De-cloaking, getting
personal: We are those markets. We want to talk to you.
- We want access to your
corporate information, to your plans and strategies, your best thinking,
your genuine knowledge. We will not settle for the 4-color brochure, for
web sites chock-a-block with eye candy but lacking any substance.
- We're also the workers who make
your companies go. We want to talk to customers directly in our own
voices, not in platitudes written into a script.
- As markets, as workers,
both of us are sick to death of getting our information by remote
control. Why do we need faceless annual reports and third-hand market
research studies to introduce us to each other?
- As markets, as workers, we
wonder why you're not listening. You seem to be speaking a different
language.
- The inflated self-important
jargon you sling around—in the press, at your conferences—what's that
got to do with us?
- Maybe you're impressing
your investors. Maybe you're impressing Wall Street. You're not
impressing us.
- If you don't impress us,
your investors are going to take a bath. Don't they understand this? If
they did, they wouldn't let you talk that way.
- Your tired notions of
"the market" make our eyes glaze over. We don't recognize
ourselves in your projections—perhaps because we know we're already
elsewhere.
- We like this new
marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it.
- You're invited, but it's
our world. Take your shoes off at the door. If you want to barter with
us, get down off that camel!
- We are immune to
advertising. Just forget it.
- If you want us to talk to
you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change.
- We've got some ideas for
you too: some new tools we need, some better service. Stuff we'd be
willing to pay for. Got a minute?
- You're too busy "doing
business" to answer our email? Oh gosh, sorry, gee, we'll come back
later. Maybe.
- You want us to pay? We want
you to pay attention.
- We want you to drop your
trip, come out of your neurotic self-involvement, join the party.
- Don't worry, you can still
make money. That is, as long as it's not the only thing on your mind.
- Have you noticed that, in
itself, money is kind of one-dimensional and boring? What else can we
talk about?
- Your product broke. Why?
We'd like to ask the guy who made it. Your corporate strategy makes no
sense. We'd like to have a chat with your CEO. What do you mean she's
not in?
- We want you to take 50
million of us as seriously as you take one reporter from The Wall
Street Journal.
- We know some people from
your company. They're pretty cool online. Do you have any more like that
you're hiding? Can they come out and play?
- When we have questions we
turn to each other for answers. If you didn't have such a tight rein on
"your people" maybe they'd be among the people we'd turn to.
- When we're not busy being
your "target market," many of us are your people. We'd
rather be talking to friends online than watching the clock. That would
get your name around better than your entire million dollar web site.
But you tell us speaking to the market is Marketing's job.
- We'd like it if you got
what's going on here. That'd be real nice. But it would be a big mistake
to think we're holding our breath.
- We have better things to do
than worry about whether you'll change in time to get our business.
Business is only a part of our lives. It seems to be all of yours. Think
about it: who needs whom?
- We have real power and we
know it. If you don't quite see the light, some other outfit will come
along that's more attentive, more interesting, more fun to play with.
- Even at its worst, our
newfound conversation is more interesting than most trade shows, more
entertaining than any TV sitcom, and certainly more true-to-life than
the corporate web sites we've been seeing.
- Our allegiance is to
ourselves—our friends, our new allies and acquaintances, even our
sparring partners. Companies that have no part in this world, also have
no future.
- Companies are spending
billions of dollars on Y2K. Why can't they hear this market timebomb
ticking? The stakes are even higher.
- We're both inside companies
and outside them. The boundaries that separate our conversations look
like the Berlin Wall today, but
they're really just an annoyance. We know they're coming down. We're
going to work from both sides to take them down.
- To traditional
corporations, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing.
But we are organizing faster than they are. We have better tools, more
new ideas, no rules to slow us down.
- We are waking up and
linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.
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