Words of wisdom from a 10 year old (Part 3)

This month marked the 10-year anniversary for what I consider one of the most important manifestos on the Internet. My goal over the last several days was to entice you to read (again or for the first time) The Cluetrain Manifesto (free). You can read part one here and read part two here.

I’ll leave you with two things: 1). An awesome quote 2). A downloadable PDF version of The Clue Train Manifesto (I heard from many of your that you’d like this.).

Download the PDF version of the Clue Train Manifesto

The market started out as a place where people talked about what they cared about, in voices as individual as the craft goods on the table between them. As the distance between producer and consumer lengthened, so grew the gap between our business voice and our authentic voice. Marketing became a profession, an applied science, the engineering of desirable responses through the application of calibrated stimuli — including the occasional axe in the head.

Marketing isn’t going to go away. Nor should it. But it needs to evolve, rapidly and thoroughly, for markets have become networked and now know more than business, learn faster than business, are more honest than business, and are a hell of a lot more fun than business. The voices are back, and voice brings craft: work by unique individuals motivated by passion.

What’s happening to the market is precisely what should — and will — happen to marketing. Marketing needs to become a craft. Recall that craftworkers listen to the material they’re forming, shaping the pot to the feel of the clay, designing the house to fit with and even reveal the landscape. The stuff of marketing is the market itself. Marketing can’t become a craft until it can hear the new — the old — sound of its markets.
By listening, marketing will re-learn how to talk.

Download the PDF version of the Clue Train Manifesto

Happy Thursday!