There's a New Conversation

Ten years ago, four authors came together to start a new conversation about marketing.  The result was a book called The Cluetrain Manifesto and with it, Chris Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger nailed 95 Theses on the door of the Internet and challenged us all to wake up to a transformation underway in how companies and people engage in markets.  Looking back over the past ten years we have learned a lot about what happens when mass markets adopt collaborative online communities and it is time to revisit this vital document that played an important role in starting a new conversation about what it means to be a marketer.  What have we learned?  What was right and wrong?  What was left out that we should have been thinking about?  What should we be thinking about for the next ten years?

 

• Doc Searls, co-author of "The Cluetrain Manifesto" and fellow at Harvard's Berkman Institute
• Peter Hirshberg, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Technorati and Chairman and Partner at The Conversation Group
• Ted Shelton, partner at The Conversation Group
• Josh Bernoff, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
• Thor Muller, CEO of Get Satisfaction
• Jake McKee, Principal at Ant's Eye View, and past Global Community Relations Specialist for the LEGO Company

Register for our February 13th event in NYC at http://conversation.eventsbot.com/

Comments

[Paul Chaney]

I have such admiration for these four men. That book revolutionized my thinking about marketing and set me on a course to do my small part to disrupt traditional thinking about the subject.

Back in the early days of my blogging tenure (2004) I did a series of posts about the future of blogging, interviewing a number of the leading pundits of the day.

I sent that question to each of the Cluetrain authors, three of whom were gracious enough to respond with thoughtful replies. (Doc even came back with an unsolicited 2nd response.) Their responses were as equally insightful as the contents of the Cluetrain and i was excited to be able to publish them to my blog.

Every time I have an opportunity to speak to a gathering about blogs and social media (what I refer to as conversational media), I make mention of the Cluetrain and quote the book's mantra, "Markets are conversations."

In so many ways, that book has become my marketing bible. Thanks Doc, Dave, Rick, and Chris for writing such a timely tome. It influenced the thinking of so many, including me. I can honestly say it changed my life.