the cluetrain manifesto

Online Markets...

Networked markets are beginning to self-organize faster than the companies that have traditionally served them. Thanks to the web, markets are becoming better informed, smarter, and more demanding of qualities missing from most business organizations.

...People of Earth

The sky is open to the stars. Clouds roll over us night and day. Oceans rise and fall. Whatever you may have heard, this is our world, our place to be. Whatever you've been told, our flags fly free. Our heart goes on forever. People of Earth, remember.

markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies

Highlighted by jwieczorek

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.

Highlighted by jwieczorek

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.

Highlighted by jwieczorek

Companies can now communicate with their markets directly.

Highlighted by jwieczorek

Corporate firewalls have kept smart employees in and smart markets out. It's going to cause real pain to tear those walls down. But the result will be a new kind of conversation. And it will be the most exciting conversation business has ever engaged in.

Highlighted by joxearanzabal

"The clue train stopped there four times a day for ten years and they never took delivery." â€” Veteran of a firm now free-falling out of the Fortune 500

Highlighted by daviddmuir

Networked markets are beginning to self-organize faster than the companies that have traditionally served them. Thanks to the web, markets are becoming better informed, smarter, and more demanding of qualities missing from most business organizations.

Highlighted by davidjennings

Markets are conversations.

Highlighted by rcwpearson

Markets are conversations.

Highlighted by rcwpearson

Markets are conversations.

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When we created Cluetrain.com in April, 1999, it kicked up some dust. A few thousand people signed their endorsement of the ideas. Lots of email, lots of press coverage. This is the site as it existed then. The conversations continue elsewhere. Please read and enjoy. But don't tap on the glass as it just annoys the animals.

Highlighted by jahmount

Markets are conversations.

Highlighted by rcwpearson

Cluetrain.com

Highlighted by hansjuergen

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

Highlighted by rudygodoy

But learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about "listening to customers."

Highlighted by rudygodoy

They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf.

Highlighted by rudygodoy

Markets are conversations.

Highlighted by driessen

Markets are conversations.

Highlighted by rcwpearson

Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.

Highlighted by rcwpearson

Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

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Markets are conversations.

Highlighted by aparrales

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.

Highlighted by driessen

Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.

Highlighted by aparrales

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

Highlighted by aparrales

Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.

Highlighted by aparrales

These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.

Highlighted by aparrales

As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.

Highlighted by aparrales

People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors.

Highlighted by aparrales

Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone.

Highlighted by driessen

The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products.

Highlighted by aparrales

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.

Highlighted by driessen

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.

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humility

Highlighted by driessen

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.

Highlighted by driessen

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.

Highlighted by aparrales

Companies can now communicate with their markets directly.

Highlighted by aparrales

Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what's really going on inside the company.

Highlighted by driessen

Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.

Highlighted by aparrales

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?"

Highlighted by driessen

To speak with a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities.

But first, they must belong to a community.

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The community of discourse is the market.

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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.

Highlighted by driessen

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?"

Highlighted by aparrales

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.

Highlighted by driessen

To speak with a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities.

Highlighted by aparrales

But first, they must belong to a community.

Highlighted by aparrales

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.

Highlighted by driessen

Human communities are based on discourse—on human speech about human concerns.

Highlighted by aparrales

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.

Highlighted by driessen

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.

Highlighted by driessen

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.

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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.

Highlighted by driessen

As markets, as workers, we wonder why you're not listening. You seem to be speaking a different language.

Highlighted by driessen

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.

Highlighted by driessen

We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it.

Highlighted by driessen

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.

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You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention.

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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.

Highlighted by driessen

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.

Highlighted by driessen

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.

Highlighted by driessen

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.

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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.

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on 2006-08-24 by toxmeister

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Online Markets...

Networked markets are beginning to self-organize faster than the companies that have traditionally served them. Thanks to the web, markets are becoming better informed, smarter, and more demanding of qualities missing from most business organizations.

...People of Earth

The sky is open to the stars. Clouds roll over us night and day. Oceans rise and fall. Whatever you may have heard, this is our world, our place to be. Whatever you've been told, our flags fly free. Our heart goes on forever. People of Earth, remember.

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