As a mother of 5 myself, jenEAne, YES I get it....and I want it...BAD. My boss however is so ignorant he still thinks of instant messaging as a sort of PERSONAL PHONE CALL. HELP...and write the article...even woman with a cat at home can relate...I think?
angela

Denver, I'm so glad you're among us... What a treat. Yeh, my name has its spelling challenges. Blame my sister. She was 9 when I was born, and my parents had the creative idea of letting her spell my name. Pre-phonetics, she used one of the many spelling rules she lived by--or at least got through Catholic school observing--"The first vowel talks and the second vowel walks." Thus: JenEAne. Hey, every family has its issues.

Here's a question I don't know why I'm asking a bunch of guys, but here goes. I've been thinking lately of what the Internet means to me as a mother... especially in that it is merging work and home in ways no one ever anticipated... In an article I'm working on for a women's pub, I consider this:

"While it's not for everyone, teleworking offers women a way to merge work with home, and home with work, in an interesting--and often bizarre--way. With the advent of the Internet, physical distance and asphalt highways no longer separate work life and home life. Instead, within the networked landscape of the Internet, individuals, businesses, and customers are seamlessly connected. Technologies like Instant Messaging--which allows my clients to pop up urgent questions, and the occasional good joke, on my screen in real-time--erase distance. Here is there, and there is here, all at once. For many, this infringement of corporate life into the home is unsettling. To my family, and to me, it has been a blessing.

In a daily hyperlinked state of being, I jump between reading "I Spy," writing articles on e-business hubs, playing with our new "Bob the Builder" walkie-talkies, browsing the latest marketing theories on the Web, and teaching my daughter her numbers and letters. (She's quite a typist to boot!) It's clearly not the life of choice for everyone--but it can be especially appealing to new moms as they weave their way through the challenges and options motherhood sets at their doorstep."

So here's the question: Will other chicks get this? Will anyone care? And, do you guys know of any research on this Net-powered work/life convergence? In my mind these days, I don't really "work" anywhere. I see myself as a little node on this vast network--I'm not "at home" or "at work." I am just "on." I have a voice, therefore I am. Of course, I do my job and the paycheck comes. But more and more, that work-for-pay agreement has become just one of many outputs of my new hyperlinked existence.

And, if I am at the tip of a trend, I think it is a trend that will power the Gonzo model. Look at what's happened since I read the book and embraced its philosophies. You used to search up "jeneane sessum" on google and get one pathetic search result--my "unsubscribe" from the Acid Jazz list. Is that any kind of legacy to leave your kid? You know: "Jeez, she was a really hard worker, and she made lots of business people famous, but what did she ever DO...?" So, since Gonzo, I search my funky ole self up on google, and guess what--I've bumped onto a second page of search results. I'm "becoming" someone--a bonafide online voice. ... It's going to be this way. Especially as "terrorist" warnings urge us to go ahead live our lives, but expect that we may be obliterated on our way to work. I don't know. I'm outta here. Blog on, dear friends.

Andy; Not so much the death but rebirth, I think. As I say, to consider that traditional marketing is actually a synonym for conversation is sub-optimal at best. In that sense marketing is already dead.

lifeless. sterile, barren, brain-dead, the lights are off, nobody is home, and the dog's run away

I think the point that Chris makes is that we now have the means, the motive, and the opportunity to engage in actual conversations with real people. That's enough for a conviction in 28 states.

This may be the death of many marketERS - who just don't wake up before the 16 tonne weight falls on them - but it could be the rebirth of MarketING

Something that offers useful insight into not just the readily measurable statistics on the current state of the market of interest, but enables you to inform yourself about what your potential customers are thinking, what they want, what they're getting from your competitors and substitutes, why they value it, what's missing from it, what they hate about it, etc, etc,

by actually talking and listening with them directly



Jeneane: Has anyone ever told you your name just doesn't roll off the keyboard? Took me 3 goes to get it right.

"Getting it Right" is important. I'm into my empathy and compassion phase for the week now, so I'm wondering what it's like to have your phd in general psych, your MBA from Harvard, and your 16 years worth of ad agency whoring (sorry, career excellence), and be told by some gonzo nobody who posts to a website in Uzbekistan that you and your whole industry are just completely fucked up beyond repair.

Not even good enough for landfill.

Give toxic waste a bad name.

Might be faintly amusing to the more bohemian types, and let's face it, marketing is nothing if not bohemian.

I liked your gonzo mirror, but I most appreciated the examples you gave of clients that actually liked the output from your gonzo marketing think.

I like to think that given ONLY the theoretical concepts that we're talking about they'd probably shudder with horror and politely ask you to leave - but! - faced with the reality of superior output, they just might let you hang around to make a difference, and might even spark up some interest in how you came to produce such material.

When you get ready to buck the system then you'd better be right. A few of my managers over the years have been persuaded that it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission, but the unspoken message was always clear: "Only when you're right!"

I've had loooooong experience with having to wait for time to prove me right during my working life, so I know what that's like. Like playing a round of golf, you have to endure great eons of disappointment and frustration to achieve that one shining glorious moment of complete beauty as the ball sails straight up the middle of the fairway, bounces once at the edge of the green and drops into the hole.

Much like sex, I suppose . . . . . . . .

Lighten up, yeahhh! Great fucking ideas, ideas about being fucking great, ideas that are fucking great, ideas about great fucking, whatever.

"not congruent to creative thinking" - nice phrase Jeneane. You know that the internet exists because the Department of Defence recognised that their centralised command and control heirarchy was their greatest weakness?

Talk about a totally unexpected and wholly unintended but very revealing piece of self awareness!!

Don't worry about it jen, the marketing industry usually follows the military by about two millennia. That's why they had amazon women with enormous breasts selling empire building to Roman legionaires while the admeisters have just got around to using them to sell cars to bohemians like me.

Don't get too depressed, your time will come.



Chris: Rock on, Tommy. Mark Knopfler could beat his guitar over my head and I wouldn't complain.

. . . much

Love Over Gold

Oh yeah... and I meant to stick this here too. It's sorta kinda maybe the plan for the next book. I guess I been listening to a lot of Dire Straits lately. Telegraph Road seemed to fit the ideas in a fairly uncanny way. And then there's that guitar...

Skateaway

I guess I should at least say hello, as Jeneane seems to be convinced by my silence that I've contracted anthrax. Well, no. But I hear the Kirkus review of Gonzo that just came out was almost that bad. Ah shit. What're ya gonna do?

What I'm doing at the moment is listening to Dire Straits' old album, Making Movies, which I bought specifically for the tune Skateaway. And to hear Knopfler play just about anything. Man.

...the music make her wanna be the story
and the story was whatever was the song what it was
rollergirl don't worry...

Speaking of voice, Marketplace Morning Edition responded to my prodding by putting mine online. Look for the October 25, 2001 RealAudio clip: Tess Vigeland Interviews Chris Locke About SPAM. So that's what I sound like. Tess is great to work with. I wish they'd air us just rapping before and after the actual taping. I turned on the radio this morning driving home, and there she is doing the news. I got back to the terminal and there was email from her about our segment for next week. Very strange.

Had lunch with this guy from the University of Denver B-school who has invited me to give a talk in Vail in early December. Two days in the lap of luxury -- and room service too! Winning through worst practices. You know.

Hey, I got nothin here tonight. Like I said, just sayin hello. Blog on...

How did we get so uptight?

I'm so glad you guys have joined this little gathering. I'm really enjoying being a blogeur, but thought I should pipe up so you'd know I was still alive.

I was lounging around google tonight, looking for an intellectual high. I found something Chris (yes, it's the third-person for you, now) wrote in Jan of 1996, or in Net-years, the bronze age. It cast a fascinating light--at least for me--on what has happened within the communications business over the last half-decade. Here's what I read in Chris's inaugural editorial for the Net Editors section of internetMCI.

"Interestingly, one sector of the economy most attuned to this change is the advertising industry itself. Last summer I visited the offices of Chiat Day, one of the major ad agencies in New York. The first thing I encountered there was a mural painted across the reception lobby wall that read, in foot-high letters: Advertising is Dead. At the same time, Ogilvy & Mather was publishing -- directly on the World Wide Web -- its six principles of advertising on the net:

1) Intrusive e-mail not welcome.
2) Internet consumer data not for resale without the express permission of the user.
3) Advertising allowed only in designated newsgroups and list servers.
4) Promotions and direct selling are allowed, but only under full disclosure.
5) Consumer research is allowed with the consumer's full consent.
6) Internet communications software must never hide concealed functions.

And of course Messner Vettere was hard at work for its client, MCI, on creating a web version of Grammercy Press, a virtual world illustrating the changes business organizations are likely to experience as they come fully online.

Another stereotype bites the dust. Somehow, these are not the same agencies that brought us the endless news of washday miracles and drop-dead models lounging across the hoods of Detroit's latest. What exactly is going on here?"

I don't know about you guys, but I found this r-e-a-l-l-y depressing. The reason? We've been backsliding for five years. In the early days of Net acceptance but before nirvana, we were obviously onto something. We understood this was all an amazing new experiment--we didn't pretend to have all the answers, have the Internet "solved."

Look how much more real we we were... Check out the voice used by the agencies Chris mentions above. They were "onto" something, without being into themselves. They were energized by possibilities, not exhausted by reality.

In 2001 we are officially afraid to be wrong. To admit we don't know. To accept that the Net is not ours to own, capture, and grab the mindshare thereof.

So instead, too many of us spew spin like a bad carnival ride, hiding from the truth rather than having the boldness to say to customers, "We don't have all the answers. But let's get to know each other and we can come up with some great fucking ideas."

Today is the day of positioning. Plugging square pegs in round holes until they fit--or else! We have become consumed with the need to "define," "own," and "solve."

This trend is not congruent with creative thinking. In fact, it kills creative thinking.

Can you see a top ad or PR agency today stating that advertising is dead--or more timely, brand marketing? No. We pretend that we've got it together, like a bunch of money addicts that need a good 12-step Greed Anonymous program. Is it panic? Terror? Resession-denial? Paranoia over the maturation of the Internet and business's inability to categorize and segment it? (Message from management: If they're paying us all this money, we'd better know about this Net thing by now!)

I guess it's all these things. But tonight I have a new mantra: "Lighten up." No more killing innovation by looking so desparately for answers. It may do us all well to go back and look at the stuff we were doing before what are now the good old days. Maybe we can unearth some worst practices and toss a little risk into the equation... and some reward too. Gonzo style.

Rock on Denver.

Very soon I hope to be reading a book called "The death of market research" Any offers?

Most market research is designed to avoid the human voice - slice up the experience and put it into boxes to dole out to nervous executives who don't really understand what is going on.

They take the information and feed it into the Sausage Machine and lo and behold! Out pops a new marketing campaign.

It is not that the idea behind market research in itself is bad. Of course, we all want to know what motivates people. It is just that most of it seems to measure responses and sidestep the nasty fact that it is PERSON that is giving the responses.

Of course as a member of the medja I don't have to deal with these canvassers so often:

"Would you like to answer a few questions on Lim-O glue, sir?"

"Sorry, I am a Journalist, you're not allowed to speak to me."

It's true. I am on the list of 'not applicables'. What is all that about? "Please don't speak to someone who might disturb the normal distribution curve?"

It isn't because I'm gifted. The same goes for all marketing/communications people. Can't give an opinion.

Andy A

Hi team, me again.

Just testing the new blogBuddy and looking at my post. Funny how you start out to say something reasoned and measured, strong yet subtle, and end up with a crazed rant like that.

It occurs to me that listening is not the same as market research, and that speaking to someone, conversationally, is not the same as advertising. An obvious but necessary truth.

Surprise, I hear you mutter, the dimwit gets it. But this is really the crux of the matter, isn't it? Doesn't classical marketing actually consider market research to be a synonym for listening and advertising to be a synonym for speaking? Rather than as inadequate substitutes for these essential elements of human interaction?

Doesn't this major league misconception explain the massive disconnect between marketers and their markets that Chris is on about? Isn't this the source of the cognitive dissonance that arises when one observes marketers trying so hard to be nice, but just absolutely pissing you off?

Have you ever sat in an executive meeting and heard "Where's the market research?" and wondered to yourself if anyone, ever, just did something because it made sense? Just because they'd listened, cogitated, questioned, listened and cogitated some more, and then just did what came naturally from that?

Aren't the people (and companies) that do this the ones that stand out? Like Apple in their early days, or with their blueberry notebooks, or like the people that make and sell Viagra. Hey - they KNOW what we want! Because they're horny PEOPLE, too.

Like GonzoMan, the new species in interactive marketing: he says what he means, he means what he says, he tells it like it is, and he puts his own money where his mouth is. He speaks to you like a human being, treats you like an autonomous intelligent individual, like you have something to say worth listening to, and you have something listening that is worth speaking to.

Aaaah, the novelty value alone is priceless.

P.S. Chris, I bought your feckin book today from Amazon, I hope it's as good as I say it is . . . . . .

Hi Jeneane, thanks for the re-invite, sorry for the long pause. Hi, team.

Having just read through most of the thread to this point, I've been struck by the Kotler ideas about consciousness levels. Although I have some reservations about the idea of "levels" as he uses them, I can only agree that some people do it better than others (no matter what "it" we're talking about).

I often work with telecommunications operators, who are somewhat (in)famous for saying things like, "well, we invested in 3 million lines worth of broadband internet access for residential customers but so far we've only got 37,000 lines." They often have a complaint attached to these statements about the incompetence of their marketing people. I don't work in marketing officially, but I've successfully marketed myself for 20 years now.

This sort of thing bothers me, and I think is relevant here, because it seems to me to be a huge marketing failure.

Firstly, it is a failure to LISTEN. If there aren't 3 million people out there waiting to snap up your product, at your price, with the characteristics that make it uniquely yours, then you haven't been listening!

You've probably been listening to analysts, pundits, commentators, and experts, but you haven't heard your (potential) customers. If you had, you'd have offered them something you already knew they wanted badly enough to pay you for it, wouldn't you?

Secondly, it is a failure to LISTEN. Hang on, I said that already, didn't I? Seemed worth repeating. Are you listening?

Thirdly, it must surely be a failure to understand. In spite of institutional deafness, there are people out there screaming for service, begging to be allowed to hand over their hard-earned in return for what you have. Not only are you not listening, but when the noise finally intrudes to the point where it cannot be ignored, you don't understand what is being said. As an example, when I use my broadband internet connection at home I am not buying SPEED, that is just what is required to give me what I really want, which is my TIME. What I am purchasing is my time.

If you don't understand WHAT your customers value and WHY, then you have two huge problems. Finding out the WHAT may help you temporarily, but unless you know WHY you will always be vulnerable to substitution, never understanding why your customers are leaving you for someone else. You will never be able to anticipate.

Fourthly, even assuming you may have actually listened a little and understood a bit, if you're still struggling in the market then your market probably hasn't heard from you the things that would tell us that you have listened, that you have learnt, and that as a result, you've concocted something that we actually want.

It is at this point that the concept of a VOICE becomes interesting. Many potential customers would have read the complaint, which in itself implied that it is the customers who are too stupid to realise what great guys you all are. What else would they have made of it? What else did they hear in your voice? You don't know, do you? You have no idea. Not only that, but it hasn't even occurred to you to wonder, has it? Let alone ask . . . . .

Here's a clue: When you talk about your business in terms of "lines" - then you've missed the boat. It isn't the lines that pay you, it isn't the lines that want ADSL, it isn't the lines that generate traffic, it isn't the lines that have these sorts of conversations - conversations that you might learn something from if you took the time to listen.

You have 37,000 customers - that's 37,000 PEOPLE - who somehow or other managed to fight their way through all the obstacles you put in their path to become your paying customers. You can have them be your unpaid (indeed, they pay you) but most valuable and highly productive marketing weapon, or you can piss them off.

Which one seems more likely?

Finally, it astounds me that an apparently educated and experienced business person would talk about take-up of a service without even mentioning the price and considering what the elasticity of demand might be. In isolation from these considerations, the current take-up is meaningless. Discussing it in such simplistic terms only implies that you're a simpleton.

On a bit of a tangent, I've often heard the pundits talk about how profitable or otherwise web-sites are. Anyone here ever had a website pay them money? Ever had a website buy anything from you? You get the point, I'm sure. Preaching to the converted, no doubt.

Brings me back to the air travel saga. I wonder what goes through the mind of someone who organises a marketing campaign like that, spending all the money that that implies, and then resources the mechanism for actually realising income from it, on the implicit assumption that the campaign will fail to generate any significant traffic!

It makes me think that Frank Zappa had the right of it, when he said, "People, we is not wrapped tight!"

Kotler might call it "consciousness level zero".

At what price risk?

I've been none too keen about getting on a plane lately. Then tonight came--the amazing one-day fleamarket on airfares. $31 one way to all of your favorite east coast and mid-west destinations out of Atlanta--from Toledo to Fort Myers.

I'm reading this thinking, Hey, for that price I'll fly. Okay? I can do it. Go home to Rochester, through Buffalo of course, and see the family and friends. For less than $70 roundtrip, I'll get on a plane. Yah, I need to see my Aunt. And my brother. Let's do it...

And then I see it. A dream vacation at a fan-fucking-tastic deal. "Grand Bahama Island, Bahamas." I'm saying, HUH? $62 round trip to the Bahamas? Terrorism be damned--toss me in a window seat and give me a stiff one. Sunshine here I come. Buffalo? Who said Buffalo? Family? What family?

Off I go to airtran.com to book my vacation deal of a lifetime. Hmmm What do you know. First few attempts are bringing all the fares up at their normal $700-ish and climbing prices. What's up with this? That's no good. I click the sale link again, get to the reservation link--was careful not to book on those dreaded fridays and sundays when the fare didn't apply--and still, the same high fares.

I'm Stumped. Well, let me go back to the homepage and try that again. Huh? Ught oh. Things are getting worse. The server's down. Or not responding. Odd messages come up - Sorry, our server is not responding. If you'd like to make a reservation, click "here". Okay. I'll click "here". ERROR.

Well, heck, no wonder--at that rate, everyone in Atlanta is online booking their flight to Toledo. Surely, though, no one spotted that Grand Bahama's deal. I'm just going to have to call them. I'll pay the $36 one way and do it over the phone. Throw caution to the wind.

So, for the next two hours, I press redial after redial after redial. Busy. No-go. Argh. I'll just keep trying.

With portable phone in one hand and DSL-powered laptop in the other, I look up the resort where we will stay... maybe forever. The only all inclusive resort on the Island--Club Viva Fortuna. What a hot name--I am SO packed. Even has a kid's club. Look at that fucking BEACH!

I try with no luck to find out through the site what it costs to stay at my paradise, but can't, and having no idea what resorts on the Grand Bahama Island cost, I call my new Bahamian friends at Club Viva Fortuna. They sound so happy there. I can see Vivienda's face now. She tells me there's lots of availability in December. Call back in the morning for reservations. How much? I was afraid to ask. $75 per adult per night. All inclusive. Drinks round the clock. Beach galore. Eat, drink, forget about "The Evil Ones." All for $150 a night. Kids stay free. I had found my paradise! Nothing standing between me and Vivienda but a bottle of sunscreen and airtran.com.

Just to be sure I'm spending my $75/night wisely, I sneek over to google and search up some reviews on the place. Aside from the occasional ants in the room and geckos in the closets--which upset a few of the guests--it sounds like heaven. Everyone said their children had a blast. The occasional "rude waitstaff," sure. Isn't there always? I'm not swayed from my new favorite vacation spot.

In fact, I'm more determined than ever. This is IT. Get back on the phone to airtran and do my redial dance. For another hour. Damn! What is UP!? Play with the home page. Trying to get in on a gimme. Nothing.

Meantime, my brother in law calls. Yeh, man--you can get from Boston to the ATL for $74 round trip--come on down! We jump over to delta.com (running the same special under a different marketing promo cover and WITHOUT my favorite Club Viva Fortuna destination) and click-click through all the steps, no time flat, we even get to pick his seat online. Bada-boom - James, we'll see you in January. Thank you for choosing delta.com. A thing of beauty. Why don't they fly to my Club Viva Fortuna? Why? What do they have against Grand Bahama?

Now I'm back over to airtran.com, trying to click my way in the back door, through some secret someplace no one else knows about. Come on baby.... contact us... no... help... no... back round the front door again and into the 36-city special..... and..... error.

If you have a lousy sale, shouldn't you be ready for people to TAKE YOU UP ON IT???

Then a lightbulb goes off. No. you don't think. no. couldn't be....

A few bucks more, but yes. Travelocity.com was working just fine. No errors. Same price plus a couple of bucks more because they have a web site that works. Take me through the process, Kenneth. So we set out. When do you want to depart - heck, any day--let's say November 13.

Sorry, no availability for that date. (then why was it BLUE when I went to book it? Blue is good. Grey is bad). Oh well, at least they have plenty of other dates. You can travel between now and February 13th. Something must be left.

But as I click my way through every week from November to February, one by one, availability magically disappears, blue turns to grey, and Club Viva Fortuna is again but a dream away.

Vivenda!! Why?!?!

I try to call airtran a few last times, just so I can hear a stupid call center shmuck tell me the terrible truth. That I am never going to get to Club Viva Fortuna. But the line's still busy. You tell me those phones aren't sitting on the desks while the whole lousy bunch of them tip-tap their fingers on their special keyboards, sneaking in that secret airtran.com backdoor and booking their own trips to Club Viva Fortuna.

Conspiracy.

Bastards.

So I'm back over to delta.com. Where it all began. And with the same flawless navigation, I click my way through to the $74 round trip vacation (including taxes and all those other crappy fees) that looked so good before I ever learned about Club Viva Fortuna. And the ants. And the geckos.

Flying into Buffalo in February... what could go wrong?

-----

So I need to read the book. okay.

Personally, I am a firm believer in leaving the poor employees alone, but beating the management with a big stick - regularly and hard.

The basic point is that most executives aren't capable of writing a shopping list, let alone anything else. This is not to be nasty to them - I have a grave difficulty with Excel spreadsheets and calculators, but I leave all that to them. Would that they could do the same with communications.

My best practice so far has been to stick to them like a nasty smell and nag them endlessly, while at the same time intercepting any dubious messages and helpfully rewriting them before they miss their targets. All done with a smile on my face and a red pen gripped tightly in my fist. or should that be with a red face and a smile gripped tightly in my fist...

But to get back on track, I haven't read the book, only the first two free chapters. I am going to be working from home for the next three months so I am ordering - honest Chris.

But aside from this bright spot, you are right in that key messaging documents are generally nasty beasts devoid of voice and any other redeaming qualities. I think they can be an important weapon in our arsenel of change though. You see, it's almost like the game where you whisper a phrase into someone's ear, and then they whisper into the next one, and by the time it gets to the last person it's a whole different phrase? Well, if everyone working on this type of stuff starts doing it gonzo style, weaving in the koolaid where we can, I think we can fix it, Bob.

From cluetrain: "The good news is that almost all of us already know how to talk like real people. It’s just a matter of pulling that fat axe from our skulls."

Mine's almost out. And that has to ripple out to the businesses I think for, write for... doesn't it?

Oooooh. This is going to be fun! First, Angela hello! You can order a copy of this wonderful book by clicking on the book title, up there, to your left, top of screen. You should read Gonzo--it is an amazing business book. Have you read Cluetrain? Go to www.rageboy.com and read the stuff that has us all gabbing.

Andrew--hello to you too. I know. I know. Really. Maybe I'm just telling myself that it is helping because I have to write these petty little client deliverables to get a paycheck. But I don't think so. Last week I had to edit some articles from a, shall we say, important blue-chip client---maybe the bluest chip of them all if you get my drift. I didn't just correct the stupid stuff. I could have done that, billed a couple hours, and sent it back.

Instead I took what is in my business kind of a risk (hey, it's a boring life, but it's mine.) I tore them apart and gave them a whole new voice--post-gonzo-reading is different than what I would have sent them back before. I did more than make them make sense. I took out the corporate speak. I took out about 20 references to the client and turned these things around into something that would at least talk to customers at their level. They weren't pedantic corporate hoopla anymore. That's what I meant about the Gonzo mirror.

I'm not pretending this will change the world, but you know what, both of the client contacts emailed me back--they loved what I did. Sometimes it's not that companies don't want to get rid of the bullshit, it's that they've been standing in it so long they don't know there's fresh grass right next to them.

Bob the Builder - yes he can!

Gonzo-Thang..WHAT?

Thank you kindly for the invitation to write amongst your blogginess...Do tell Gentle reader, shall I obtain a copy of "Gonzo...." ? Do I need to be an informed participant or will my random rants, raves and observations suffice? As a matter of fact, I am interested in the GONZO marketing strategy. WHERE? huh? I mean, is it a Barnes and Noble thing? Please remember I am stuck out here in the Swamps of Joisey.

And what about Dick Cheney warning us to becareful (I like the word compounded...BECAREFUL should be a word...I'll write the decendents of Daniel Webster. Did you know they live in Monclair NJ.?) What up with that? Okay gasoline prices have dropped, so you know they did something..and now something is gonna happen.

Has anyone actually laid eyes on Dick Cheney? He remindes me of the wizard in the wizard of Oz...behind the curtain telling the scare crow, the cowardly lion and the tin man what to do....if it wasnt 5 am I might even make analogies...alas...I need java for that activity.

ciao for now...Angela

Jeneane,

Thanks for the invite. Right, let's get into it...

You mentioned how you have been using gonzo-like influences as a mirror to hold up against key messages. To my mind key messages are the worst offenders against human voices. I despair of the tripe written by 26-year-old McKinsey consultants who are trying to force-feed their messages into unwilling workers, stakeholders... whatever.

It is a generally unrecognised fact that people in a change situation (let's face it, that's most of us now) don't want a Why they want a How and When. Concrete facts not corporate bullshit. I dream of the day when corporations talk to their employees like grown ups. Tell them they've been fired because the products aren't selling rather than talk about "prevailing economic conditions".

it is interesting that some companies are trying to get with it by talking to their customers in an adult tone of voice, but don't extend that same respect to their internal audience.

Bob the Builder - can he fix it?

After that last post, I'm officially sick of hearing myself talk.

And so I've opened the blog up to the team of folks who said they wanted to party down with Gonzo way back when I started this thing, during the Clinton administration. Anyway, Invites are out. If you didn't get one, that just means I don't like you. Only kidding. If you want to join in the fun, just telepathically transmit me your wishes, send me a sign, drop me an email, or send me $20. (okay, keep your damned money.) Let's start some conversations, or at least some parallel monologues.

Hope to hear from you...

I don't want to work
I want to bang on the drum all day
I don't want to play
I just want to bang on the drum all day.
-Todd




-jeneane

Farting around in the NOTES chapter, I decided to read the "Ideavirus" article (ala fast company), which you seem none to pleased with, as it falls short of Gonzo in its commercial wrinkle.

With the 'manifesto' references and emphasis on 'conversation,' Godin sounds like someone who's been eating his cluetrain wheaties: "What marketers are now on the lookout for -- and we're all marketers now -- is something that taps into the invisible currents that run between and among consumers. Instead of talking to -- or at -- consumers, we have to help consumers talk to one another."

Forgetting charges of plagerism from the thoughtcontagion.com guy, and all of the subsequent posts about the article on the Fast Company site, and looking at the article on its own merrit, I still think it falls short of being a 'manifesto'. At its crux, the article says this: A good idea can go a long way. Um. Okay. And?

But then I hyperlink my little brain back to Gonzo, where Rageboy, getting kind of worked up, says this: "Are marketers really naive enough to believe that the same brain-numbing key messages their advertising and PR departments have been peddling all along are suddenly going to go viral?"

Ouch. I'm licking my wounds.

Okay, done. No, not the same messages we've been peddling. Those won't do. But isn't it still possible for those of us "in the business" of crafting key messages to make those messages resonate? Isn't it a baby step that we are beginning to create messages with genuine voice? messages that employees can understand, customers can relate to--and even maybe, if we're ever so lucky, want to talk about among themselves? Please tell me it is. Because otherwise I'm not sure what I'm going to be when I grow up.

But as I hyperlink again to Chapter 6 of Cluetrain, this nugget:

"And increasingly, we value only two qualities:
1.The engagement and passion-for-quality of genuine craft.
2.Conversations among recognizably human voices.

More and more, as I wander around inside of Gonzo, EGR, JOHO, TDCRC, Doc Searls' blog, and other places of voice, I go back to my own craft (okay, so they pay me for it), and I'm weaving these ideas into what I do for clients... into the messages I create for them. (And that's a big part of my job.) For me, Gonzo is a mirror I hold up to expose flaws in my work. And I rethink, re-do, re-think, actually talk to people in these companies, look at what customers are saying. And so, these messages are maturing into something more (I hope) than mind-numbing. Can it change the fact that every fricking company wants to be the 'leading, first, only and best' and other meaningless adjectives that no one believes? No. But at the least, I can contain that stuff within the company boilerplate. And if I contain the mind-numbing same-ol-same-ol in the boilerplate, then maybe I keep it from going viral in the most infectious sense of the word.

Key messages are not boilerplates. In messages, we can weave in some feelings, some voice, rather than generic corporate-speak. At least we can do that much. At the least. But it's something. Come on, give me a reson to get up tomorrow. My sweet child (my reason) has me playing with her new Bob the Builder walkie-talkies now--and I'm not thinking clearly. Gotta run. later.

The book has 4 1/2 stars on Amazon now, so we're not crazy. That's good to know. Let me work some more on the NOTES chapter today. That's my goal.

As I set off to find the reference to Philip Kotler's "Marketing Management: The Millenium Edition," I came across another Kotler article, from the 1972 BI (before Internet), that struck a certain fancy in me. The article describes what Kotler describes "Three different levels of consciousness can be distinguished regarding the boundaries of marketing." And it foreshadows where we are today, which is somewhere between consciousness three and the stratosphere.

I'm sure marketing types have already read this Kotler article--and for all I know it could be referenced in Gonzo in one of the notes I didn't initially comprehend. (I think you have to read Gonzo 3 times before you can actually absorb it all).

At any rate, here are the three levels Kotler outlines as he describes them.

At the crux of consciousness level one, is the payment. Transaction is the ultimate goal and reward. Kotler describes consciousness level one this way: "Consciousness one is the conception that marketing is essentially a business subject. It maintains that marketing is concerned with sellers, buyers, and "economic" products and services. ... The core concept defining marketing consciousness one is that of market transactions. A market transaction involves the transfer of ownership or use of an economic good or service from one party to another in return for a payment of some kind."

This level, when Kotler defined it in 1972, was, he determined, the most widely held view in the mind of marketing pratitioners and the public. I would argue that today, with the emergence of emarketplaces and the push of marketing into b-to-b online commerce, many businesses are still in this consciousness level one when it comes to the Internet. They miss the forrest for the trees. They go with gusto after aggregation, adoption, transaction, and lose sight of what might power their business beyond the transaction. Click here, add to your cart. Order? or Continue shopping. As it was in the offline world of 1972, the masses today--according to yours truly--remain lodged in this rather dull and limited consciousness of marketing's promise and worth.

So then, what's consciousness level two about?

Kotler: "Consciousness two marketers do not see payment as a necessary condition to define the domain of marketing phenomena. Marketing analysis and planning are relevant in all organizations producing products and services for an intended consuming group, whether or not payment is required. For example, a price can be charged for museum attendance, safe driving lessons, birth control information, and education. The fact that many of these services are offered 'free' should not detract from their character as products. A product is something that has value to someone. Whether a charge is made for its consumption is an incidental rather than essential feature defining value. In fact, most of these social goods are 'priced,' although often not in the normal fashion. Police services are paid for by taxes, and religious services are paid for by donations."

Okay, so for consciousness level two, I'm in a bit of a quandry. I dig the part about organizations not defining marketing value in terms of payment. Times, techniques, and tactics are way too complex today to pigeon-hole value into terms of payment. To do this--or to even try to track it--puts organizations in the unenviable position of spending more time defining and measuring value than DELIVERING it. So, let's just say the organization does a symbolic internal handshake--"okay marketing, go ahead and get us some payback through some gonzo-type methods... we won't measure your success solely on sales... we'll see what kind of reverberations start to ripple back our way instead." Well, if that's the deal, I'm down with that. Let's go to it.

But, I suspect Kotler--even though he's discussing it 30 years ago, is getting at something different. He further defines it this way: "Marketing consciousness two states that marketing is relevant in all situations where one can identify an organization, a client group, and products broadly defined."

But the skinny is this--you don't want to get stuck in consciousness level two because you have to continue to do boring and time-consuming things that keep you from talking with and getting to know people that may one day be your customers--or have a brother-in-law that may be a customer one day... you know. Kotler says that organizations in level 2 "must study the size and composition of their market and consumer wants, attitudes, and habits. They must design their products to appeal to their target markets. They must develop distribution and communication programs that facilitate "purchase" and satisfaction. They must develop customer feedback systems to ascertain market satisfaction and needs." Well, as for the mainstream way of doing these things--demographics, phsychographics, brand surveys--then yuck.

At any rate, I think number 2 is not for me, free birth control pills or not.

So let's look at Consciousness Level 3:

Read this with your Net lenses on--not your 1972 lenses, and see if we're getting closer to where we need to be: "The emergence of a marketing consciousness three is barely visible. Consciousness three marketers do not see why marketing technology should be confined only to an organization's transactions with its client group. An organization--or more properly its management--may engage in marketing activity not only with its customers but also with all other publics in its environment. A management group has to market to the organization's supporters, suppliers, employees, government the general public, agents, and other key publics. Marketing consciousness three states that marketing applies to an organization's attempts to relate to all of its publics, not just its consuming public. Marketing can be used in multiple institutional contexts to effect transactions with multiple targets."

Okay, so if you get past the transaction (the underlying goal of affecting transactions at every turn), you replace "transact" and "market" with "interact" and "communication/conversation,' it gets a little bit closer to Gonzo, but not quite there. (For reasons I'll discuss next.)

"The emergence of a marketing consciousness three is barely visible. Consciousness three marketers do not see why [communication] should be confined only to an organization's [interactions] with its client group. An organization--or more properly its management--[should talk] not only with its customers but also with all other publics in its environment. A management group has to [communicate] the organization's supporters, suppliers, employees, government the general public, agents, and other key publics. Marketing consciousness three states that [communication] applies to an organization's attempts to relate to all of its publics, not just its consuming public. Marketing can be used in multiple institutional contexts to effect [interactions] with multiple targets."

The primary reason consciousness level 3 falls short of gonzo is this--check out the emphasis on 'management' doing all of the talking. No no no. Shy of the boat here. In the water. Throw a lifeline. Even though level 3 brings in important notions that expand the communications of the business beyond its walls, it still reeks of a top-down (not bottom-up) style. This won't get us anywhere, because Kotler has management doing all the talking to management's "targets."

What is gonzo-like is Kotler's expanded notion of transaction in consciousness level 3. His initial definition, back in one of the earlier consciousnesses was this: "A market transaction involves the transfer of ownership or use of an economic good or service from one party to another in return for a payment of some kind."

Right now on the Net, the most valuable transactions are often anything but financial. A transaction is an exchange--and exchange IS communication, it IS conversation. It's more than the click that buys the book on Amazon--it's the communities and lists that ignite conversations around shared interest. Today, a transaction of ideas, opinions, tips organic gardening, getting rid of fire ants... the like can be just as valuable as that $14.99 click that brings the book to my door.

But Kotler expands this definition of transaction in his discussion of consciousness level 3. There is a ring of gonzo in this expanded definition: "What then is the disciplinary focus of marketing? The core concept of marketing is the transaction. A transaction is the exchange of values between two parties. The things-of-values need not be limited to goods, services, and money; they include other resources such as time, energy, and feelings. Transactions occur not only between buyers and sellers and organizations and clients, but also between any two parties."

Transaction as feelings. THAT I like. Given that we've pushed the envelope way beyond the notion of "two party" communication, still, transactions as feelings made it worth the read.

From here, the article goes into some axioms, typologies and the like. But I prefer to noodle on this idea of transactions as feelings for a while. I'll get to the rest of the article one day. So if someone hasn't already written an article taking us into consciousness level 4, then they need to, because that is some cool territory that needs a flag stuck in it.

later.

A Pause in the Action....

I'll be getting back to the rest of the NOTES chapter after this short interlude. I'm tired of waiting to see whether or not Amazon.com will decide to run my little review of the book, so I'm blogging it here...

Take off Your Tie. Heck, Take Off All Your Clothes--Marketing's Having a Party.

If you've had a feeling that there's something rotten in the land of marketing, but you haven't quite been able to identify the source of the stench--Gonzo Marketing is for you.

What's rotten is marketing as usual. No surprise to many, the tactics employed by most organizations to woo customers today aren't working and can't work, because these companies have failed to get engaged--to participate down-and-dirty-style--in the incredible expanding marketplace better known as the Internet. The bottom line: Because of the Internet's impact on modern society, broadcast marketing and mass media--techniques honed for an entirely different and nearly extinct era and audience--don't reach consumers anymore. At least not within the winding, twisting landscape of the Net.

As Locke describes: "Mass production, whether of goods or information, has always depended on broadcast marketing in which markets are viewed as top-down targets from the lofty vantage point of long-established power and control."

So why get naked? Because command and control is crumbling… The barriers are coming down… We the people ARE the people. And business has no choice now but to recognize, to accept, and to embrace.

"The promise of the net is the promise of humanity coming together, seeing itself for the first time, as we saw ourselves from the moon more than three decades ago, saw the breathtaking blue planet spinning out there. Out here," Locke writes. "This time it's much more intimate. Maybe we can't see the faces yet, but we can read the words and begin to sense the lives behind them."

In Gonzo, we get a wisp of what business might be like--what the world might be like--as the Internet moves from mainstream to inherent. And a refreshing wisp it is. Through the Gonzo Model, organizations can join the marketplace and converse with customers, form amazing bonds and a commonality of purpose they never believed possible. No more shouting at us, barraging us, insulting us. But talking with us. Getting to know us. And amazing new opportunities exist within these new 'micromarkets' for organizations ready to move past denial and take the plunge.

I for one say, hurray for Gonzo. I'm already at the party waiting. Come on in. I'd like to get to know you.

I'll be the one with the lampshade on my head.

Notes on NOTES

I'll tell you what. The NOTES chapter is an amazing resource--I could spend another month just wandering through the maze of links and related readings it references. I hope that when you decide to piss off all of your "business partners" and put the whole book online, you include the NOTES chapter, with all of its references available for our hyperlinked exploration. If Gonzo readers could post related readings and net sightings we come across to this online NOTES place--or off of it on a separate page--that would be even cooler.

Here are a few of my favorites, for anyone visiting who wants quick links to some of the references:

Everything you never wanted to know about Disney. Shall I quote? "Why does Disney take such care with its casting department? The job market in central Florida is quite competitive. The unemployment rate is about 3 percent, and Disney has to compete to get the best workers. In addition, Disney cast members are represented by 34 unions, and the company deals with 11 contract negotiations a year. Quality cast members are a direct result of quality hiring practices." (There's more links in the Notes section--but you get the drift.) Can you imagine what they're saying now? Get out--we don't no stinkin goofies!

And this (dramamine is advised): "It's easy to have a cheerful, helpful and motivated cast member when he or she comes right out of the Traditions class at Disney University, says Parker. The challenge is to keep that person motivated six months later when it's 90 degrees outside with 98-percent humidity. The answer is not constant training, it's leadership." Powers of the Net unite. They must be stopped.

Ah, the Ad Age top jingles of the century are enough to snip the heartstrings of any aspiring artist. Besides "I wish I were an Oscar Myer Wiener," let's give props to "See the USA in Your Chevrolet"--who could forget that little diddy. (?) And that wonderfully sexist Brylcreem anthem, "A little dab'll do ya." (Can you see her now, peering into the mirror behind the shoulder of her cherished stud? Mission accomplished.)

The Courtney Love you didn't know in "Courtney Love Does the Math" (I love what she says, but am I the only one wondering if Love's outfit here was the inspiration behind Flying Butterfly Barbie?)

Great article about getting personal and getting connected from October 4, 1999 New Yorker, ANNALS OF MARKETING -- The Science of the Sleeper: How the Information Age could blow away the blockbuster, by Malcolm Gladwell.

More to come...

CHAPTER 8: CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD

Pages 205-214 - Yikes. Who knew you were a profit? Certainly the global rumblings you mention are taking form. "Which side are you on? Are you for the world or against it? Come on. Join up, take sides." (i.e., you are either with the terrorists or with us.) And the stuff on Islamic nations... Don't make me turn the FBI onto this book. You don't know what might happen. Chris Locke, newest 'detainee'. Talk about foreshadowing. My goodness. You speak the words many of us feel--and you didn't know when you wrote these pages, did you, where we would be now--us and The Evil Ones.

The word according to Locke: "Such either-or thinking constitutes a conceptual booby trap. Although the 'logic' is usually transparent and invisible, when we think this way we are invoking extremely old binary opposites. Spirit good, world bad. World good, spirit bad. But such zero-sum heads-I-win-tails-you-lose alternatives are suffocating and insufferable. I don't want to take sides. I don't want to be lumped into such confining categories. I want an olive tree AND a Lexus. I want a Big Mac AND a jihad."

Wow. Okay, on to lighter matters...

As for the Roland guitar synthesizer--and this may have profound meaning beyond your example--"If you can't play guitar, you can't play the Roland guitar synth." (those, words from my husband, proud owner of same--he knows of what he speaks.) hmmmmmmmmmm. [Ed Note: Write gespro@bellsouth.net for tips. Blog coming soon to a browser near you.]

The evolution of consciousness to the easiest path of purchase--I'm there. Two minutes ago, my flu-bitten child jumped on my lap, in need of a present to make her feel better. Before letting her hijack my laptop to her favorite zoogdisney.com destination, I said, "Let's pick out a treat..." Off to Amazon, toys, Bob the Builder Walkie Talkies - under $20 delivered. One click. She even got to do the click. Done. Now she gets the trill of watching the porch for packages--and I get the thrill of saying, "If you're do that again, young lady, I'll get back on Amazon and cancel that order!" Who needs threats of Santa. Of course, this from a child who looked under the Gonzo book jacket and said, "Wow, he's cute."

The world is more beautiful because of this new dimension, the Internet. In this time of terror in the offline world, especially, the online world is a place to just "be." It does not make me materialistic. Nor does it make me non-materialistic. It just is. (depending on what your meaning of "is" is, of course.)

Never before have I turned to the Net for laughs and giggles as I do now. You can't find them in any offline media outlet right now. Anthrax, bombs, jihad, food drops, on and on. Sappy commercials aimed at bringing us all together (not to make us buy stuff, of course) drive me away.

(Flash to that new commercial: I am an American, I am an American, ... what next? NO, I am an American, NO ME!--I wait for the fight to break out between the Arab and the American Indian.)

In my crazy town, at least, the roads are amass with bad drivers sporting flags on their cars--ALWAYS the ones to cut you off... pride turned bullying. Anyway, that's why the witty sites are getting my 'business' now. Where I used to shop online clearance sales, I now wander about looking for life, wit, and anything that makes me giggle. Yes, I'd even pay for it right now. In fact, a boing boing t-shirt is in my gift-giving future.

I don't know how I got here. Must be something you said. And although I'm enlisting, I need to say it is with cautious optimism, which sometimes, against my will, slips into skepticism as I wonder if we've already wandered too far into the International Geophysical Year...

On that train all graphite and glitter
Under sea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
(More leisure for artists everywhere)
A just machine to make big decisions
Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision
We'll be clean when their work is done
We'll be eternally free, yes and eternally young
-Donald Fagan, I.G.Y

So who is to blame for the lack of trust on both sides? Trust--that chasm between artist and business. I wonder who will go first in this trust dare you propose. Line in the sand. I dare you, slimey artist. No, I dare you, greedy business. You go first... No, you.. Okay. scissors cut paper...

To me it's obvious. The artist must go first. Because we're used to going first. Because we like the risk and reward of going first. It's a rush. It's about the thrill of creating and procreating. And we'll go--with or without you, business. In fact, we're well on our way. Down the road, ushering other folks out of their houses to join our march.

So, if you don't want to pop onto a site one day, and see hundreds of potential customers vibing back and forth with one another--you know, those folks that fit your demographic and psychographic profile oh so perfectly--And if you don't want to see them hooking up, hanging out, being happy, ready and ripe to unleash those pursestrings--And if you don't want to see your most notorius competitor's abnoxious logo sponsoring this conversational and informational orgy, well then... get moving.

Stand and walk
Tragedy
Is cheap and so is talk
Decision
Yours to make what will you do
In the end
It comes back to you
Cause it's a long... way to fall
-Blues Traveler, Stand

That's it. Just get going. And hurry the fuck up, because we wait for no man. And if you wait too long, keep in mind, it's a long way down.

Business Responds: Is this a threat? Are you talkin ta me? You think I can't crush the likes of you? You're no one.

Me: You can't crush what you can't catch--haven't you learned that? We're not no one--we're everyone. Come on, make my motherfuckin day.

Oh but wait. It doesn't have to be this way--us against them. That's not the point at all. No, we're trying to create a better world. Let's put aside our collective baggage and see if we can't make something good happen here. Wouldn't that be something? To create something good? Yes, that would be nice. We could all use a little good right about now.

Businesses leveled--let's help them rebuild. Families destroyed--let's help them recover.

Put your hand in mine. It won't hurt much, this Change.
Wonderful, disorienting change, is how we got here, after all.

From the pain come the dream
From the dream come the vision
From the vision come the people
From the people come the power
From this power come the change
Peter Gabriel - Fourteen Black Paintings

Page 202 - I'm hungry for more. I want more what-ifs. More imagine a worlds... I'm ready to sign a lease for my spot in the new net world, but wonder what might be next (or after next). You know, once we have major corporations accepting and being defined by the net voices it chooses to underwrite... then what? Certainly the greed cycle will be launched into high gear--or could this really be happily ever after?

I wonder, once we 'voices of the net' finally have the corporate-come-lately in our pockets, then what else might we do to and with them? And what might they do to us? Is there a risk that the late comers will spoil it all? Think of it this way: A company like Dell, to use your example, has its shit together and jumps on a bunch of somehow-related sites it decides to underwrite. So suddenly, the Toshibas of the world are worried--shit, we're late on this. How did it happen, boys? Let's get busy.

How likely is it that the late comers will "get it" and look for more of us to pair up with, rather than trying to create their own contrived worlds--thereby leeching any meaning out of what we've built? I bite my nails. In other words, who might fuck it up, and how can we stop them? And what will the lawyers be doing in the midst of all this--facilitating partnerships or bullying us into shutting up? Paying us not to grow our crops? You have to wonder.

Do I worry too much? So I've been told.

But there is room for much optimism (even among those of us with diagnosed anxiety disorders). I like this especially: "The diciest of situations will be where the content of the external site has a direct bearing on the company's products--for example, if Toyota were to underwrite a site equivilant to Car & Driver Magazine. This might be a dynamite idea. It's certainly not one to be avoided. But in cases like this, the company will need to sit on its hands and count to ten when the site reports that its latest product bites. Of course, it can then argue and debate the opinion--it just can't threaten to penalize the site. If it does so, then it paradoxically opens the door to Mitzubishi taking over its slot."

And, as you say, after all, the more relative distance put between the company's products & services and the content in the underwritten site, the less chance for these kind of battles. An organic gardening site or a home schooling site is not so likely to eek out the controversy corporate lawyers will be drewling for.

I can't wait to see who steps up to the plate here. I can't wait to see who opens up to this idea first. It's probably happening already... I know it is covertly. Take my case: my own writing 'tips' site exists... colleages within my company go to my site for writing tips and templates... But there's no official sponsorship, and probably there shouldn't be. The way I see it now--after reading this chapter--is that the link in my particular case may be too close to the company's core services. In other words, having my own writing site, with PR-related writing how-tos and how-to-nots (offered up to my colleagues on the QT--word of mouth, so to speak) is too incestuous with my own corporate role to fit this model well. And since I don't have a burning desire to quit my day job, I'm thinking I need to expand my horizons... run off now and learn about gardening :-) ... or better yet--Life tips for the telecommuting mom... or managing asthma in children... you know. I get it. Hell, why not? Gosh this is going to be fun. (Can you tell--My mood is picking up.)

Page 196 - This site "underwriting" is a great idea. As first described, I thought (as a visitor), wouldn't I just view that site like an off-shoot of the underwriting company's site? But then the 'great' idea. No one company underwriting these sites. Instead, many companies underwriting a site. The biggest reason I like this is the potential for collaboration and further exploration among this group of underwriting companies, who, by their association with the site, inherently have something "special" in common.

Very cool. This would shake up the whole "positioning" notion, wouldn't it? In this world you are creating, companies are as much positioning themeselves WITH other companies of similiar ideals and interests (who are also underwriting these sites) as they are AGAINST their competitors (who are off underwriting different sites with their own like-minded bunch.) Ala, the visitor, in one fleeting sweep, "understands" what the group of underwriting companies is about. The "flavor" of the company is discerned from the personality and voice of the sites it underwrites, and by the other companies involved in the site.

Neato. I'm liking this....

Page 188 - When I first read the "Intellectual Capital" bit, I got nervous. Flashbacks to a client whose claim to fame was being the Human Capital experts. I was weak-kneed when I first heard the phrase early last year. I said, Hey. Don't be so sensitive. It makes sense. Value your people as highly as your other corporate assets. But then the pessimist reared her ugly head: Human Capital--humans as capital expenditures. No better than the beat-up laser printer on the third floor, a server, a monitor, a keyboard.

But that's not what you were getting at. So I put down the drink and the pills. I'm better now. In fact, I'm inspired by the idea that companies may actually one day value intellect this way. Reward and promote based on intellect, rather than billability. Ideas as currency. Set us loose--go forth and ponder, create, invent.

So I try not to rain on the parade I just joined. I see some of this coming to fruition in my own company. But in this horror of a market, it is always carefully balanced against billability, utilization, and any other ility and ation you can think of. In fact, it's almost a double-edged sword. We are enticed and encouraged to take the company in this direction.... but the unsaid is voiced just as soundly: Do it in your spare time.

For a while, this may have to be so. It just might be that we have to accept that. Yes, they'll let us do it. But no, It's not part of your job, not yet, and for now you won't be directly incented on it. Recognized? Yes. Sure. Great idea!!! Hey, she's a real asset. (For the corporate novice, that means you get even more work to do. But it also means you get to keep your job.) But incented directly to move the organization toward Web connections in ways that don't obviously relate to core services... not quite yet. But then, that's what Gonzo's about, right? Getting them to get religion. Inching toward it.

Right now, I'm okay with doing it split-personality style. Troops, we have to offer it up for the good of the cause. i.e., Sometimes it just bes that way.

more in a few... -j.

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.

Page 170 - Oh Look! You're talking about blogs. I should have held that last thought in my head nine more pages. "One of the latest and most interesting additions to the suite of micromedia tools are weblogs--simply 'blogs' to the faithful," you say. Another interesting thing is that I read "additions" as "addictions." Hmmmm. At any rate, everything you say about blogging is so right on cool. Especially about the people writing them. (He says nice stuff--like, we're really smart).

In fact, I'm so excited to see you've written about blogs that I almost forgot about the incredible eye strain and sharp pain in my temple I've developed since I started blogging. Can barely see now, so I'd better get back to the book.

(half hour passes). I'm back. I got lost on Sweet Fancy Moses. I really did need that. And now, since I've done the pleasure of linking, let me share just a few lines from the inspired poem on the site, "Do Not Be My Groupie."


Do not be
my groupie
I am not so great
not necessarily deserving
of your warmth,
your soft blue eyes
your large, cantaloupe breasts
shaped like cantaloupe,
that famous melon,
which is often served with whipped cream.

At least at my house.

There's more--go see for yourself. Suffice it to say, this poem took me on an amazing journey inside the mind of a drummer--that half of the rhythm section known for its love of literature, fine wines, and things that go boom. (Get a load of the twist at the end of this poem, man. Whoa. I need to go lay down.)

The great thing about blogging is, as you remind us, there's no money in it...

Yet.

That is to say, that there will be one day. That would be the good news. In Gonzo, there is hope for lucrative blogging. Wow. As you point out, micromarkets don't exist yet, but micromedia (like blogs) do. If I get it (and I hope I got it), blogs have the potential to be this networked web within a network. It's about open spaces, new territories. Who settles the territories? What's the culture? What's the weather like? What crops do you grow? Who will emerge as leaders?

So blogs are these kind of influencial settlements within a larger continent that is the Net. Weaving communities together, ground up. I like it--count me in.

But one last thing--when businesses finally do decide to come to interact with us, could you ask them to leave the small pox at home? That'd be great.

(Now, I must go rest up, because, with all the anticipation of a bottoms-up bottle of Ketchup, I await my read of--dum-dum-dum-dum.....--The Gonzo Model !)

-night.

Page 161 - On the subject of "subjectivity," engaged journalism, and the like, let me stand up and pledge my allegiance to the blog. A few days ago, I kind of knew what a blog was--been to blogger, read some folks' stuff, went about my novice noodling--but didn't think I'd actually have anything to say myself in one of these things.

In the midst of reading Gonzo (well really, I was still in the Introduction when the revelation hit me), I really wanted to talk about it. But who with? Book's not out yet. Husband's at work. Mom would be scared. Daughter might like the fancy graphics (cough), but she's only four. No need to alert her to what the work world holds in store for her at this tender age.

Blogging is the most natural outlet for voice that I've found. What amazing tapestries of voices they represent. No limit to topics. No IQ requirements. Nothing off limits. Unreal. Here is what I've learned about blogging in a nutshell:

Blog when you're mad. You'll save money on therapy.
Read them at night. They don't make sense during the day.
Play loud music while blogging--it drowns out the voice telling you, "It's not a good idea to say that."
Blogs taste best served cold.

While not exactly profound, it does point well to what you say about journalism, subjectivity, and the like: "We don't need press credientials to have a point of view."

So I blog on. And if anyone is listening (because this voice in my head is so loud, you must hear it), start blogging. It's time to make some news, shake something loose.

Rise up from your hibernation
These are the days of celebration
If you feel you need a boost to your pride
Ring the bell, let 'em know you're alive.
-LEADbelly, Wake Up

-see ya later.

Page 156. Objectivity. If I get what you're saying here, it ain't all it's cracked up to be--at least not in journalism today. And "Today" has turned into a heavy word. Heavier every day. It's amazing reading this book through a post-9/11 lens, as compared to how I would have read it pre. You remember pre? You wrote this thing pre.

What you discuss here--objectivity-turned-truth-hiding--is smacking us in the face right now. [Self to other self: Well jeez, no kidding, Jeneane, the whole country is embracing censorship because it's the right thing to do--to save our troops! What's wrong with you? Do you want American troops killed?] Okay, no. I don't want anyone killed... really. Well, a few people... Well, not really killed... I mean does killing the killer really accompli.... And who... Oh hell. I don't know.

These are the thoughts that hit me reading the book's public journalism thread during these electric times (is it a thread if it's in the book and I'm the only one responding? forrest... tree falls.. no one to hear it...) Anyway, ya, so, objectivity.

So here's what I think: From a media/journalism standpoint, Web conversations are going to be the only winner in America's New War. Why? Because I'm getting downright uncomfortable watching CNN and FOX-News and the like--I mean, do you see the looks on the faces of these broadcasters? If I'm right, no sooner do they put the mic down than they dive under their desks and slap on their secret gas masks. Right? I've never seen so many wrinkled foreheads staring and talking at me with this "I'm objective. Really. Just reporting the News here. Nothing to worry about. We're gonna get the evil ones." But their body language is incredible. The unspoken is unnerving. THEN to top it off, they've got like six windows inside of windows on my TV with all of these horrific stats and other reporter's heads babbling next to their new resident experts.... But that's not enough. Scroll me by some more anthrax cases at the bottom of my screen, Bob, I haven't had enough today. And why? Because the TV screen is flat and you can't hyperlink anyplace else. You can't escape. You have to absorb it all at once or not at all.

Someone, give me a Xanax, please!

Okay, now let's dis their Web sites while we're at it. Example, CNN:
Hey, Pete, Put up another still shot from the night scope, will ya? [HELLO--WE CAN'T SEE ANYTHING.] And, I know, on the top, let's put our ugly logo. Next to that, let's fill up the rest of the space with Larry King and a guest or two. In the little square just above the news, let's put a picture of Bush [good, i forgot what he looks like], then let's run the obligatory stories on the latest anthrax scare and airplane bathroom powder incident. Forget the left-hand menu bar. Just put some useless links there--no one looks at them anyways. That leaves us room to fill the lower half with CNN-contrived fact sheets, Q&As, and a really cool new thing called an "Explainer." [noodle on that word for a minute.]

Are things better over at Foxnews.com? Hell no. Same news as CNN and LOTS of pictures of their "powerful lineup." (Notice they had to put all these guys--and they are all guys--in a circle so no one's ego would explode from being placed beneath a trusted colleague.)

To save on prescription drugs, I go to the Net for my "news." There, I can find out what's "going on"--for these reasons: It's real. It's real quick when I want it to be. It can be all night long when I want it to be. I hear people's THOUGHTS not their REPORTS. Reports, you digest once. That's it. Belch.

Thoughts? What do they lead to? More thoughts. Opinions. Ideas. And sometimes... even resolution. Right? Am I on to something here?

yikes.

Page 148 - Are you ready for this one? Sit down. The idea of boarder jumping and benchmarking you describe, where companies break down walls internally and externally in exchange for free-form communities, is catching on. I blogged a shout-out to my own employer eariler for the new feature added to our global Intranet that lets us regular guys start our own 'communities' -- unrestricted gathering places of our choosing -- on topics we think matter. And that's what makes it a bold move on their part. It's topics we think matter. Imagine... What community might I start? What might I join? We'll, let me hang with a bunch of writers--especially semi-psychotic mom writers who work from home (I know I'm not alone?)--and I'll be a happy camper. See, it doesn't take much. I'm not high maintenance.

Now, add on the capabilities to invite clients into these communities (yes, we can) and think of the possibilities. Immediately, I'm bonded with every other mom client because I know, through this community, her kids' names, what sports they play, that they were just diagnosed with asthma--and I say, "hey, mine too, and have you heard of Singulair, ya it's great, they take it once a day... And what nebby do you use... And the mask is better than the pipe at that age... And don't forget to put dust covers on her pillow..." Suddenly, I evolve from agency person to f-r-i-e-n-d.

Why should anyone care? Because agencies you shed. Friends you don't.

Bingo, bango... there you have it.

So, as digitally delayed companies begin to get this picture, hopefully they too will unleash and encourage their employees to build business this way... through good old fashioned chatting and gabbing. Note to monolithic enterprises: Don't be afraid to show your people off as the assets you claim them to be. You are gonna keel over when you see how smart some of them are.