Markets are Conversations

The main premise of The Cluetrain Manifesto, a marketing polemic (among other things) by Christopher Locke, Rich Levine, David Wienberger, and Doc Searls is that at their core, markets are conversations.  The authors contend that corporate culture in the postindustrial age has done all in its power to destroy the conversation.  Marketing/PR people represent the embodiment of the corporation sucking the lifeblood out of conversation and tirelessly working to keep everything monotone on a common theme or position.

The stuff of corporate speak is indeed lots of nonsense, and it’s refreshing to hear that reinforced by those who are on the inside of it.  The manifesto essentially discusses how this old model of corporate speak will not be able to survive in the Internet age.  Press releases, press conferences, flyers, one-pages, etc. don’t ever provide real information.  For that, people can go on the Internet and read review, talk to other customers, get hard data, etc.  

This point is well taken.  I see this a lot today between companies that have really embraced the conversational method of interaction with customers and those that are still clinging to the old world model.  Lee LeFever of Common Craft talks a lot about “lightweight” business models, and I think this applies quite nicely here--as it describe the difference between new and old marketing strategies. 

Lightweight marketing explains things in helpful ways, listen to people, and proactively engages.  Most importantly, the conversation always continues.  Lightweight companies not only allow customers to easily evaluate products and services, but also act on those suggestions.  It’s a type of democratic process that ultimately leads to be best product or service for everyone.  Companies are lightweight because they can respond and adapt with relative ease. 

Lots of old world mega corporations are doing everything they can to adapt to the lightweight model, but this is difficult for companies that have revenues higher than the GPD of many smaller nations.  Starbucks now seeks out the advise from customers in online forums, online communities, and old school reaching out and asking directly.  This has led to some nice improvement at Starbucks.  Other companies are using online communities in similar ways: to get valuable feedback and to engage with the customer.

How does this relate to campaigns?

Well, everyone is still figuring that out, but I think it’s safe to say that lightweight campaigns will be more successful from this point forward.  Campaigns that can quickly and genuinely react to the public will trump those that require top-down approval for every communication.  In short, deputize the right people and the right amount of people to speak for the campaign and let them go to task.  Furthermore, encourage the public to discuss the candidate and the issues, regardless of what they say.  Inevitably this leads to more trust and a better feeling about the campaign—that supposedly will help lead to success. 

I Want the Leads! The Glen Garry Leads!

It seems that online political advertising is here to stay.  That’s not really a revelation since, the Internet is increasingly the primary mode of media communication. Best Practices for Online Political Advertising  has some interesting articles about the subject.

What I’d like to focus on a bit is sales, because when we cut all of the fat off this thing, political advertising is just Sales 101.  Different political machines are trying to get you to buy their product, which, in this case is a politician.  And as any good salesman knows, good leads lead to more conversions. 

Lead generation seems to be big business now in the political sphere.  The more you can micro-target the right leads, the more success you will have getting votes.  But bartering and trading leads seems disingenuous.  If I put my name on a list it’s because I am interested in that product.  I really don’t want my information sold to someone else.  If we want to talk about best practices, political organization should stop selling/sharing information to each other.

In the Best Practices piece, Karen Jagoda quotes Nick Nyman, CEO of Dynamic Logic, “…Consumers, needing ways to deal with [the] advertising onslaught, have developed mental and technical firewalls to help filter it all. Keeping that context in mind, the challenge for online advertisers is to understand what techniques are likely to penetrate these fire-walls to engage consumers.”

I see this as a problem.  If I put a firewall up, I don’t want someone to slyly figure out how to penetrate it.  That’s exactly what gave the salesman of yesterday such a bad rap.  It’s why we have bad associations with car dealerships—and why Carmax has been so successful (no pushy salemen).

So what’s the solution?  If I’m a politician, how can I best the message out without buying leads and acting like a salesman?  Well, let’s look back to the commercial sector for some more clues.  Companies that are having incredible success are doing so because they have incredible products.  Apple has a cool music player.  Google has lots of information.  Carmax has inexpensive cars without pushy salesman.  Each of these companies also have great websites.  When you need the product, you go to the website; you have a good experience; you tell your friends.

The political solution is to be a great politician, get great SEO optimization and a killer website.  Those who want to find you will.  Those who don’t want to find you, don’t need to be bothered by you.  This might seem to fly in the face of traditional marketing, but if you stay in the press (hopefully in a good way) people will hear about you on their terms, which is what they want.  People don’t want to be force-fed political speak.  And there’s nothing more disingenuous that a smiling pol on an internet banner ad.

To Be Anonymous or To Not Be Anonymous

Dan Gilmore’s book We the Media focuses much attention on privacy and anonymity.  That’s what I want to look at today, because it has significant implications in the age of social computing.

As Gilmore points out, “Technology has given us a world in which almost anyone can publish a credible-looking webpage” (174).  I might extend this sentiment by proposing that technology increasingly allows us to have a credible-looking existence.  By that, I mean that social computing has taken individual branding to a new level.  Online tools are readily available to help create entire personas.   

And people, many people, have done just that.    

There are countless examples of folks who have made their voice known online and attracted hundreds, if not thousands of “followers.”   It’s amazing how this has empowered so many who previously had no outlet.   This has been both a good and a bad thing, although I think the general trend is toward the good.

As more and more people make their voice known, credibility becomes increasingly important, and as Gilmore suggests, credibility and anonymity are closely connected: “Credibility…comes from a willingness to stand behind [your] arguments when a compelling reason to stay anonymous is absent” (181).

Media discussion boards are good examples of online credibility.  Take a peek at a Washington Post comment section after an article.  You will see hundreds of angry, thoughtless diatribes about everything related or not related to the article.  Of course mixed in, you’ll find thoughtful and serious posts; but these get crowded out under the din of the obnoxious, intentionally disruptive, anonymous poster—or the “troll”.  I’d suggest that this is largely a function of the fact that the Post allows anyone to comment and comment anonymously. 

On the other hand, the Wall Street Journal requires you to provide your real name and email address.  To comment you must be a paying subscriber.  The quality of these posts is generally more thoughtful, with the angry diatribe posts, few and far between.  It seems that when people are forced to identify themselves in some way, the trollness subsides.  Trollism is of the same family as mob behavior. 

I’m not trying to suggest that we eliminate anonymity on the web anymore than we would in the real world.  But that’s just the thing.  If you had an entire conversation with someone and then learned that he had simply been playing an obnoxious devil’s advocate the whole time, it would be odd and uncomfortable.  At the same time, most people don’t want to announce to world who they are when they’re at the grocery store.

Gilmore basically is basically suggesting that like everything else that’s new, the norms are now being established.  As those norms solidify, one’s ability to be anonymous should be preserved, unless that person wants to “go public.”  At the same time, if you really want to establish credibility, you need to lift the anonymous veil sooner rather than later.

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

It’s interesting that a book about, among other things, the radically changing nature and “amateurization” of consumer media was published by Penguin and has three pages of blurbs at the beginning of the book from major, established media organizations.  In addition, the cover has a quote from the Boston Globe (which I think is now bankrupt) and the back cover quotes from the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the New York Observer. 

This suggests one of two things. 

One: Skirky’s book really is on the front edge of a wave that the most of society hasn’t fully caught yet; Penguin realizes that but still has to appeal to older patterns.

OR

Two: the role of the managed, professional class isn’t really going anywhere, despite Shirky’s observations.  

Of course, it’s probably a combination of both these options. 

And that’s one of the more refreshing parts of Shirky’s book: he looks at both sides.  He appreciates that new media trends are just now unfolding and beginning to be understood. He also recognizes that people now have an outlet for the human desire to create groups and organize in ways that allow for the greatest depth and breadth of expression. 

By that, I mean I can now find people to share with and learn from about ideas and experiences that are critical to me.  This, in turn, allows the body of knowledge for everyone to expand exponentially.  If I get Lyme disease, I will be able to find groups of people that have had it, recovered from it, and have loads of information that I would find useful.  In the old method of management and communications, if I got Lyme disease, I would have to seek out support groups or other “communities of practice” that had been created top-down by various professional organization or medical institutions.  No longer.  Now, I can find these communities of practice organically emerging based on the needs of the group.  If I have been experiencing arthritis as a result of Lyme disease, then surely I will be able to find groups discussing and sharing on just that subject.

However, I use a medical example here to demonstrate some of the limitations of these new methods of decentralized communication.  As Shirky says, “It used to be hard to get people to assemble and easy for existing group to fall apart.  Now assembling latent groups is simple, and the groups, once assemble, can be quite robust in the face of indifference or even direct opposition from larger society” (p.210).   This can obviously be a problem if the information the group is providing is either plain wrong or is leading to destructive behavior.  I have seen this with forums discussing the benefits of using massive doses of antibiotics to combat Lyme-like symptoms, despite evidence to the contrary.  Shirky gives the example of pro-anorexia groups on discussion forums of YM.

As a result, I thought Shirky could have put more energy in his book to the idea that indiscriminate blogging, posting, and web publishing does have a dark side.  In a medical situation it could have unpleasant consequences—masses of people determining the best course of action, as opposed to doctors or researchers with evidence based research. 

We see this pronounced in political blogs, the vast majority of which are people who watch/read the news and provide ad-hoc analysis, simply based on their perspective—as opposed to an investigator who diligently researches what is actually in a bill or the voting pattern of a particular elected official.  Hopefully, we will find an economic model in the near future that allows for hard-core investigative research AND for the collaborative power of the blog.  (State of Play touched on this).

One of the weaknesses of Here Comes Everybody was a general lack of real data.  Most of the book read sort of like a thoughtful blog.  Skirky made keen observations about the changing nature of communications, but he didn’t provide real data to back it up; rather, he provided interesting antidotal examples of new media in action.

Despite this, his book is timely and useful, largely because the pros of new media far outweigh the cons.  The outlets for human expression have exploded, and that is a good thing.  The difficult part will be figuring out how to balance this communications “revolution” with institutional knowledge and practices that have proven quite robust so far.  Perhaps his next book.