Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27609 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01
• Released on: 2001-01-09
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 190 pages

Amazon.com Reviews
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

From Publishers Weekly
Experienced technology users with a history of communicating over the Web, Levine (Sun Guide to Webstyle), Locke (who has worked for MCI and IBM and written for such publications as Forbes), Searls (a senior editor at Linux Journal) and Weinberger (a regular commentator on NPR) want nothing less than to change the way the world does business. Commerce, they argue, should not be about transactions, it should be about conversations, no matter what the medium. The artifice that frequently accompanies buying and selling should be replaced by a genuine attempt to satisfy the needs, wants and desires of the people on both sides of the equation. Despite their long digressions, the authors occasionally succeed in making solid, clever points that reveal fundamental flaws in the structure of traditional businesses. Consider this comment about business hierarchies: "First they assume--along with Ayn Rand and poorly socialized adolescents--that the fundamental unit of life is the individual. This despite the evidence of our senses that individuals only emerge from groups." So far so good. But their apparent assumption that everyone in upper management, along with anyone who does not embrace every aspect of their utopian ideal, is a dolt may not be the best way to raise an army in support of their cause. Similarly, ignoring examples of companies that are already doing business differently--the magazines Inc. and Fast Company are filled with examples every month--and glossing over the specifics on how to implement their business model undercuts their credibility. (Feb.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Beginning as 95 posted theses in March 1999, the Cluetrain Manifesto (http://www. cluetrain.com) quickly sparked a lively Internet conversation about the current nature of business. The idea came from a former veteran executive from a now-defunct Fortune 500 firm when he was describing his firm's plummet: "The clue train stopped here four times a day for ten years, and they never took delivery." Authors Levine (Sun Guide to Web Style), Doc Searls (president, The Searls Group), et al., present their view of how the Internet is changing the very way people discuss their business challenges and how it's making markets smarter and faster. As the authors say, business-as-usual is gone forever, and this new "clue train" acts as a wake-up call, offering answers that are often couched in anecdotes and war stories. The narrative rides the razor's edge between glib hype and substance, and though readers may find that it occasionally dips deep into the New Age genre, this is for the most part a weighty work that gets at the heart of the matter: the powerful impact the Internet has had and will continue to have on our fundamental concept of organizational structure, management style, and market success. Highly recommended for all academic and larger public libraries.
-Dale F. Farris, Groves, TX
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Wake-up Call
This book is a wake-up call for organizations that want to embrace the internet. It advocates an authentic approach toward communication, helping employees and customers find their "voice" so that we can all talk to each other in a more trustworthy manner.

Author, "Trust is Everything: Become the leader others will follow"

I love it!
This book is a bit dated, but remains more relevant than ever! Talks about the market shift from top-down consumer culture, to having market 'conversations.' You'll have to read the rest for yourself! I've recommended it to friends/coworkers, who all have thanked me as it is an eye-opener, if not the unheard cry they've been making all their life.

Still rocking after all these years!
Why review the Cluetrain after so much time has elapsed? Because we tend to get too caught up with the here and now and forget that we have only been on this journey a very short period of time. When we look back 10, 20, 30 years from now we (the collective we) will look back and point to the Cluetrain as marking a time when a major inflection point occurred. The Cluetrain did not cause the inflection point, it simply captured its essence.

Yeah, everyone now repeats the "markets are conversations" meme, but I suspect that few really understand what that means. Why? Because it is not a done deal. We are still trying to figure it out. It is early in Web years. We are still at the base of the mountain and nowhere near the summit. It pays to go back and revisit one of the earlier maps.