The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End Of Business As Usual

How would you classify a book that begins with the salutation, "People of Earth..."? While the captains of industry might dismiss it as mere science fiction, The Cluetrain Manifesto is definitely of this day and age. Aiming squarely at the solar plexus of corporate America, authors Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger show how the Internet is turning business upside down. They proclaim that, thanks to conversations taking place on Web sites and message boards, and in e-mail and chat rooms, employees and customers alike have found voices that undermine the traditional command-and-control hierarchy that organizes most corporate marketing groups. "Markets are conversations," the authors write, and those conversations are "getting smarter faster than most companies." In their view, the lowly customer service rep wields far more power and influence in today's marketplace than the well-oiled front office PR machine.

The Cluetrain Manifesto began as a Web site (www.cluetrain.com) in 1999 when the authors, who have worked variously at IBM, Sun Microsystems, the Linux Journal, and NPR, posted 95 theses that pronounced what they felt was the new reality of the networked marketplace. For example, thesis no. 2: "Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors"; thesis no. 20: "Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them"; thesis no. 62: "Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall"; thesis no. 74: "We are immune to advertising. Just forget it." The book enlarges on these themes through seven essays filled with dozens of stories and observations about how business gets done in America and how the Internet will change it all. While Cluetrain will strike many as loud and over the top, the message itself remains quite relevant and unique. This book is for anyone interested in the Internet and e-commerce, and is especially important for those businesses struggling to navigate the topography of the wired marketplace. All aboard! --Harry C. Edwards

Christopher Locke clocke@panix.com
Unlike any other business book you've ever read.
Does the cluetrain manifesto tell business where to get off -- or how to get on? A bit of both, actually. The book unpacks the ideas telegraphically presented in our "95 Theses" that appeared on the web in the Spring of 1999. A mere 17 days after the site went live, cluetrain was the focus of an above-the-fold story on the front page of The Wall Street Journal's Marketplace section. Tom Petzinger wrote there: "The Manifesto is the pretentious, strident and absolutely brilliant creation of four marketing gurus who have renounced marketing-as-usual."

We don't think of ourselves as gurus, just as four guys who've thought a whole lot about business and the Internet. By the way, the pretentiousness was my contribution. Much of the brilliance came from my co-conspirators (and co-authors): David Weinberger, Rick Levine and Doc Searls.

The premise of the book is that markets are conversations. However, the industrial revolution, and everything that followed in its wake right up until today, has represented a 200-year-long interruption of this dialogue. We explain how the Internet brings it back -- with a vengeance -- both in the online marketplace and inside wired corporations.

The book as a whole is subtitled: "the end of business as usual." Is it? Read the book to find out. And please: don't reveal the exciting conclusion!

We had a lot of fun writing this. We hope you'll have fun reading it. If you gain penetrating new insights into the dynamics of e-commerce, we'll be very pleased. If it makes you blow coffee out your nose, even better!