I have written a cycle of 3 posts for Alex Hillman’s Cluetrain a Day : dangerouslyawesome.com. All three posts are available at the link, I would love for you to visit and leave a comment!

Thesis #18: 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.

Changes and Opportunities

The internet has developed as an agent of change unparalleled in human history. The near-instant communication it provides to people all over the world is a more important change than even the Industrial Revolution. The internet is tearing down walls faster and faster every day:

* Citizen Journalism is reporting news faster and more honestly than the legacy organizations
* Consumer advocacy groups are creating online communities to discuss products and services
* E-mail communications can transmit a single message to millions in moments
* Amateur videographers are creating entertainment that reaches niche markets – or tens of thousands
* People are connecting in like-minded groups to pursue social agendas, commercial concerns, and education.

Alex Hillman, writing at Dangerously Awesome is running a series of posts on the Cluetrain Manifesto and the implications for those 95 Theses in today’s marketspace.

I just found this series, luckily not too far down the line, and I am very excited about it! I have been thinking along these lines for a while now, and am itching to participate. I first picked up a copy of the Cluetrain Manifesto in a used bookstore when I began to start blogging seriously. It changed everything for me.

First published online in 1999, in book form in 2000, this revolutionary text set the stage for what the internet could (and to a large degree has) become. I urge you to go read the entire series of posts (Social Graces for Business and Technology in 2009), and keep an eye on this space where I will be excerpting and commenting on some of the posts.

This is what Hillman has to say about Thesis #6 Cluetrain a Day

Thesis #6: The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

This is the first of many eerily predictive theses of the 1999 version of The Cluetrain Manifesto. In 1999, personal publishing wasn’t as we know it today. Sure, you could put your message online fairly easily, but that’s about as far as had hit “mainstream”. In 2009, we take comments and reviews for granted. Every single node of data on the web seems to have a comment field or a 5-star rating on it.

Feedback, as we know it, has become a ‘roided out monster that Doc, Rick, Chris, and David could have never imagined.

What’s important to realize, though, it that the dialog never changed, it just also moved online. The tools just keep getting better. Feedback became easier. Data begot metadata.

The internet of 1999 (which I barely remember, admittedly) was still very read-only, which is one of the many distinctive differences between that swell in industry growth and the one we’re immersed in now. When the internet was only really able to offer publishing capabilities, the real values it provided beyond mass media were a) low barrier to entry and b) reach. Ultimately, a read-only workflow designed to collect and then flip eyeballs into a commercial product turned into an awful business model.

It has been said time and again, but I will repeat it here:

The Internet is not TV with a “buy now” button.

Get that into your head. Wrap your heart around it. The internet is a tool for gathering data, and providing a platform for meaningful conversations. Where does this meaning come from? It comes from the ability for people to talk to each other openly, honestly, and across physical barriers. Barriers that made this kind of conversation impossible just a generation ago.

Valeria Maltoni quotes Viktor Frankl:

“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life — daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.” [Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning]

And it is not just meaning, Doc Searls talks about relevance:

What matters most is relevance, especially if what you want to do is constructive. I don’t know how to bring relevance to the fore, but I think we need to try. To its credit Google Blogsearch defaults to sort by relevance (they also sort by date, the current default at Technorati), but it misses many of the results that Technorati catches, which is why I tend to use Technorati more. Also, I’m not sure what Google means by “relevance” is actually what’s most useful for the reader’s purposes.

We still need that.

And Seth Godin wrote a book about it – Everyone is an Expert that you can download via that link.

As a recent contributor to the Age of Conversation 2 “Why Don’t They Get It?”, I was very excited to receive my very own copy in the mail from lulu.com (You can order a copy of Age of Conversation 2 here, all proceeds go the the children’s charity Variety)

While reading through the essays, I decided that I needed some more information and background. What inspired these ideas? Where do the authors think these ideas will lead?

I have e-mailed the authors of these essays, and asked them about their points of view. This is the first in a series of posts that will be going “behind-the-scenes” and deepening our understanding of the Age of Conversation that we live in today.

Reg Adkins – who writes at Elemental Truths – was kind enough to answer some questions for me, and elaborate on the theme of his essay, “The Truth Revealed”

1. How did you come up with the image of the water glass metaphor for the impact of conversation?

Two factors lead me to the water glass image. One is a limitation in my thought process in that I often can only conceptualize a concept if I am able to build a visual image in my mind. The second has to do with my view of communication itself. To me communication has always been a fluid phenomenon. Messages are shaped not only by the source, or the one who is attempting to share the message, but by the vessel or the intended receptor of the message as well. As I often view the intended receptor of the message as a vessel, it was no great leap to follow the natural end of the thought to the water glass image.

2. You use the expression “trail markers”, is there a map? What about starting and ending points?

My reference to trail markers is another attempt on my part to bring a concept to a visual construct to enhance my understanding. The trail markers I write about are those unique blends and fundamental need for control, affection and inclusion that make up my own personal temperament. The map for those markers are rather like driving by braille, as you wander off the path onto the shoulder you will invariably cross the warning ridges that send a vibration through your vehicle that let you know you are venturing off course.

The starting point is where ever you happen to be when you realize life is a journey. The end point is that point of perfect harmony when you are able to find a way to meet your needs for control, affection and inclusion without infringing upon the rights of others to seek to meet their own needs.

3. To continue the hiking metaphor, “Leave no trace” hiking/camping is very popular but shouldn’t a conversation leave a mark? Some graffiti or “Kilroy was here”?

Perhaps my statement of leaving no trace of your passing was over stated. We leave and impact merely by being. Even our passive observation of the communication of others has an impact on the message that is communicated. Perhaps rather than leave no trace, my message should have been leave no obstruction in the path of others who travel the same way.

Thanks Reg, for your insights and elaboration. I do like the idea of the trail markers as a metaphor for the use of Social Media in conversation and communication.

Please visit Reg’s blog at Elemental Truths, and order your copy of The Age of Conversation 2 to support the charity.

There is even more conversation at My 2 Cents:

Corentin Monot says we’re living on a “marketing hinge” when so much of the traditional thinking and techniques and tools are being challenged. The ongoing talk about all the changes has been overdone, he writes, so many have become cynical about any new theory that comes along.

What say you?

Take a few minutes, close the door, and read this post: A Sunday stroll around innovation and customers and voices

A day earlier, catching up on my tweets, I came across this one from Michael Krigsman, quoting the CEO of SAP. “It’s arrogant to dictate to customers. Better to ask them and respond to what they need.” Now that’s not rocket science or even unusual per se. What makes it worth remarking on is who’s doing the saying and where he’s doing it. SAP are the post-industrial (but still pre-information) society equivalent of Ford and “any colour you like so long as it’s black”. Why do I say that? Because SAP has come from a background pof manufacturing processes, not service processes, and the information needs are therefore expressed in the words of a past paradigm. Nevertheless, even SAP is talking about asking customers what they need.

Conversations with customers have to be dialogues, not monologues, as the Cluetrain guys reminded us. And this requires us to do some shifting. What do I mean? Take this for example:

I enjoy travelling, and I’ve been blessed to be in an occupation where travelling is part of the job. Whenever I travel, I spend time observing people, and many things delight me, many things serve to educate me, and some things never fail to amuse me. An example: where an English-speaking person is under the misapprehension that the person he is speaking to will suddenly understand everything just because he speaks English slowly and loudly to that person.

For a conversation to flourish, two things are necessary. A common language and a context in which to place the conversation.