Cluetrain Manifesto

In class on Thursday we began talking about the 95 theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto. A trend is starting to head in the way of online markets. The manifesto tries to help point out the flaws of corporate companies and how online markets are faster and better.

I really agreed with some of the theses that the manifesto mentioned. First, I really liked these two. 21). Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor. 22). 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. I agree with these two theses completely because I do not know how many times companies are so overly professional that it just makes you mad at them. We are all real people and all of us to a certain extent have to speak in a conversation to where we know that the company feels bad for the problem/problems its consumers are experiencing. Sometimes when they are overly professional in tone it tends to make consumers feel like they are worthless. Like these two theses stated getting a sense of humor does NOT mean posting jokes on the companies web site, just be a little more humble.

I also really liked theses 52). Paranoia kills conversation. That's its point. But lack of open conversation kills companies. I think that conversation is the number one thing that keeps a company going. Let's remember back to a lot of PR cases that we have talked about in the past. First, there was the Exxon Valdez case. The CEO waited for an entire week to make a response on the huge oil spill and without this conversation to the public the company took a tremendous hit and loss. Just think of how different things would have been if they would have responded and took action quicker. Let's also look at the Ipod battery case. A man's Ipod starting dying after just a few minutes when he had only had his Ipod for a year. He called Apple and they told him that it would be more to replace the battery than it would be to buy a whole new Ipod. The man was outraged and a backlash went out against Apple. Through this form of conversation Apple dramatically dropped the price of getting a new battery. If Apple would not have responded quickly to this problem it could have changed the outcome of the company today.

One theses that I did NOT like was 26). Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets. I personally think that public relations has a lot to do with the public. Look at all these cases that I have talked about in this blog. If PR did not relate to the public all these companies would have had some serious problems. People that are in charge of PR are the ones that have to continue to tend to the public. If there is a problem they are the ones who have to make it better, and they have to get people to understand the point that the company is trying to make. I think that all that PR does is relate to the public. This relationship may not be like most but it is some form of bond.

I really liked this list of 95 theses. Once again this is something else to show how powerful the Internet is becoming. I think that online markets are unique and are going to change a lot about how business is conducted. It will be interesting to see these changes over the years.