Cluetrain Manifesto
Friday, March 2nd, 2007
The Cluetrain Manifesto was created in 1999 by
Chris Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger as a statement of in your face ideas about doing business on the internet.
I re-read this recently and a lot of it is still right on the money. In particular, I was thinking that this section is very applicable to companies trying to use new media to drive down their ideas in a hierarchical manner. Bad idea…
42. 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.
43. Such conversations are taking place today on corporate intranets. But only when the conditions are right.
44. Companies typically install intranets top-down to distribute HR policies and other corporate information that workers are doing their best to ignore.
45. Intranets naturally tend to route around boredom. The best are built bottom-up by engaged individuals cooperating to construct something far more valuable: an intranetworked corporate conversation.
46. A healthy intranet organizes workers in many meanings of the word. Its effect is more radical than the agenda of any union.
47. 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.
48. When corporate intranets are not constrained by fear and legalistic rules, the type of conversation they encourage sounds remarkably like the conversation of the networked marketplace.
If you are interested using the internet and new media to help your business, spend the time and read the book. It is available for download FREE!