CHAPTER 7: THE GONZO MODEL

Well, it came today. Yes, the real book. No more funky orange galley with the ink rubbing off the back. Chinese food stains in chapter 3 (reader's doing, not author's). No collector's item here.

The real Gonzo? Cool cover--bullet holes and all. Peak underneath and and see who's on the cover. Who dat guy? Gonzo indeed. Most importantly, this book SMELLS awesome. Text-book yummy. I'm ready. Here I go.

Page 187 - Hmm. I would have thought differently. It's interesting that the Global 1000 may be in the best position to take advantage of unfolding micromarkets, at least initially. I would have thought it would be the smaller, more nimble companies--the ones founded around net belief. But I see where this chapter is going now--why the big guys may have the advantage and the incentive:
-They have the most to lose as advertising delivers fewer and fewer results.
-They have the money to test the waters.
-They have lots of "us" working for them.

Although these three motives are tied closely together, the last reason may be fundamentally important. I'm living proof. I work for global PR/marketing firm that's part of an even bigger communications conglomerate. And there are lots of "me" working for "them." (I wish there were more.) What I'm doing on this blog, my meanderings in HTML, on forums, in the vast online archives of ideas past, present, and future--all of this going on in tandem with my "real world" job. And all of this is making me better at my real world job--not as predictable, but better.

I'm meeting folks I wouldn't know unless we happened to win their business one day. Great people. SMART people. With really good ideas about blogging, kids, what makes marketing work and not work, why some companies suck to work for--stuff like that. So as this (so far) loosely-knit group of really cool people takes shape among organizations (hell, we all work somewhere--this Internet's an expensive addiction) a very important cross-organizational culture begins to emerge. We understand each other. We know the secret handshake. It's powerful. It is already amazing me. I'm so glad I caught the train.

So let's go on and see what we're going to make of all this. ... More later.