Title: The Cluetrain Manifesto
Authors: Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger
Summary: Not a light, easy read, but the philosophies are pertinent and valuable.
This book was written based on the phenomenon that started with the www.cluetrain.com website in April, 1999. The authors posted the manifesto comprised of 95 Theses – presumably a combined allusion to the Communist Manifesto and Martin Luther’s 95 Theses.
The Communist Manifesto, among other things, bemoaned the fact that the worker has been alienated from the results of his/her work, resulting in a lack of joy and satisfaction from a job well-done. Luther’s 95 Theses, demanded direct access to God (a Biblically sound request, I might add), without having to go through the “middle man.” The Cluetrain Manifesto begs companies to put the worker back in touch with the result of the work, as well as give the consumer direct access to people inside the company firewall.
The point? Our society used to have open markets – loud and noisy street fairs with vendors hawking their wares, villagers bargaining for price, and most importantly, everyone talking to everyone. Over time, things like the industrial revolution, the assembly line, and the advent of mass-marketing caused a huge divide between craftsman and customer. No one talked anymore, and if they did speak it was some amalgamation of “corporate speak” and glossy marketing lingo.
The advent of the internet suddenly freed everyone to speak in their own voice, but corporations have been (and still are) reluctant to jump on that bandwagon. In some ways, we have revived the boisterous open marketplace online – via forums, chat rooms, social media sites and so on. As consumers, we can get the straight skinny on the products or services we want to buy from people who have actually bought those things and posted about them. We like it, and signers of the manifesto are asking for more of it.
The book expounds on these concepts thoroughly, starting with the 95 theses and going on to talk about how they apply to companies and people today. This book was actually written in 2000, and you can tell that some of the information is dated. However, the core philosophies are quite valid, even today. Namely, that people yearn to hear “real” or “human” voice on the internet – drop the “corporate speak” and marketing lingo, and also drop the attitudes behind them. It was written in open, conversational style, but even so, I found it strangely hard to read – it was like reading a 190 page blog-post. 
Of course, I am used to either straight fiction or more technical books – this was neither: more of a philosophical treatise. Decent.
Favorite Quotes:
We know telephones are for talking with people, televisions are for watching programs, and highways are for driving. So what’s the web for? … We don’t know what the web is for, but we’ve adopted it faster than any technology since fire.
Try snipping paragraphs of text from press releases and a few pieces of printed person-to-person email. Shuffle the paper slips. Hand the pile to your office-mate, your spouse, or your next-door neighbor. Can they sort them? Of course they can, in short order…. Talk is cheap. The value of our [human] voices is beyond mere words.
That’s the awful truth about marketing. It broadcasts messages to people who don’t want to listen.
