Marketing a market

I know everyone is citing Janis Ian on the Internet debacle but check out the rest of her articles - talk about voice!

She explains far better than I ever could why we need to make something like I propose at mediAgora

Locke on Gonzo

Mother gonzo is running off to a parent-teacher conference, but not before I point you to George Partington's great interview with Chris Locke on Gonzo Marketing. I like the part where Chris slams his ankle into his desk. Okay, I haven't read the whole thing, but that struck me as a genuinely human moment from a genuinely human guy. I'm sure there are more gems just like that. Read on... gonzo on...

Honesty needed for business

George Trefgarne, city edito ro the Daily Telegraph says that post-Enron, INtegrity is demanded more then ever before:
In the Noughties, many people suspect those in power tell porkies. Teenagers are especially cynical. You might think it rich coming from a generation that is itself pretty untrustworthy, stealing mobile phones etc, but according to a new survey in the latest issue of The Face magazine, around 80 per cent of 16- to 29-year-olds reckon you can't believe corporations or the media.

Such sentiments are not confined to yoof. The Daily Telegraph's poll by YouGov last week found more than half of all voters don't trust the Government.

You could be forgiven for thinking the world is run by gangsters. Well, would that it was, some might say. At least they have standards, which is more than can be said for an executive selling shares in his company even as he knows the whole thing is about to go down the pan; or a dodgy accountant; or a spin doctor trying to stitch up Black Rod; or advertisers making wildly exaggerated claims; or the ex-directors of Equitable Life, who disgracefully tried to wriggle out of a promise of guaranteed annuities.
[...]
But government failure is as much to blame as market failure for this phenomenon. Leaving aside the issue of spin, our poor education system is not much help in the development of "social capital" - the human values and skills on which a market-oriented economy rests.

But, generally speaking, the last thing we want is the Government sticking its nose in and interfering. Far better for individuals to take responsibility for their own conduct and dust down the values on which the market is, once again, putting a premium: honesty, self-restraint and personal integrity.

Is your word really your bond? It had better be.

A call for Gonzo Authenticity?

Young Grrrl Reveals All...

The Andrea James interview is available for your edification and delight. Come on by. Also, a little memic propagation wouldn't hurt if you find that you've enjoyed the interview.
-fp-

Gonzo Marketing Movie from 1947

Seasonally inappropriate, but the movie I watched tonight was Miracle on 34th Street which has Santa founding truth-based marketing. 'Don't buy it here at Macy's - go to Gimmels where its cheaper'.

I vote for "Authentic"

Wow! What a scathing, unkind piece that personally attacks all those people who were willing to share their actual life/work experiences with a product. The switch stories are individual and obviously heartfelt and it was, imho, a stroke of Gonzo genius on Apple's part to choose to market its products this way. As a recent convert myself I've been meaning to submit a story, and Orlowski's piece was probably just what I needed to prompt me to take the plunge and explain why my Mac is not "a punishment surrogate, a child substitute or a masturbation object," but the most innovative and headache-relieving computing tool I've ever had the pleasure of using. They could easily re-brand from "Apple" to "Advil." (May have to throw that in.)

Apple's Real People - Gonzo?

Andrew Orlowski attacks Apple's Real People Ads:
Ease of use is a strong suite for Apple - particularly with its recent consumer apps - so unusually for advertising, this is a new campaign which promises to something approaching the truth. It's a strong premise, but what sinks it is the execution.

Quite frankly, this new ad campaign is terrifying. No, it's worse than that - it's a theatre of cruelty that makes victims of Apple's loyal Macintosh user base.

I think he is unnecessarily abusive about their looks, but is it just that seeing people in Ads who aren't models disturbs him? Is Apple's switch campaign Gonzo? Are these people's voices authentic, or has the process of selection removed that?

Some Gonzo Thoughts On Corporate Blogging

From Sean Carton, clickZ, "Macromedia Blogs and the Death of the 'Official Story.'"
From Dave Rogers, Can Blogs Find A Place In The Corpocracy?
From me, "'Official Story,' Meet 'Trusty Spokesperson.'"

(Phew, I could use an injection from Shelley's Needle about now.)

Global Warming - a feedback proposal

Here's an idea that struck me last summer when CA was going through power cuts every time it got hot.
Pass a law requiring all Air Conditioning to be solar powered.
Baseload electricity can nicely be supplied by Nuclear & Hydro (or Gas if you must - we should still stop using Coal, and reduce dependency on Oil).
The bulk of the power spikes in hotter parts of the US are driven by Air conditioning demand, which is almost perfectly correlated with available solar energy.

Eat your feeds

I think we now have an RSS Feed

Deconstructing Me

I thought you all might want to see Frank Paynter on Jeneane Sessum over on Sandhill. I may not pull out all the stops, but I confess enough I think, what with the losing my virginity to my husband, smoking pot in college, and wading my way through family alcohol torture. Oh I think I mention blogging too. Not to mention sex in the sea, bowling alley, and other places. GONZO! --jeneane

Cluetrain, MS and the British Government

It seems someone at Microsoft UK wants to make Chris Locke into a liar. You remember that opening passage from Internet Apocalypso?

We die.

You will never hear those words spoken in a television ad. Yet this central fact of human existence colors our world and how we perceive ourselves within it.

"Life is too short," we say, and it is.

Well, some of the millions MS spent on launching the X-box went on an ad specifically designed to falsify this claim:

It starts with a woman giving birth to a baby boy who then shoots out of a window in a surreal sequence.

Viewers then saw the boy ageing rapidly as he flies through the air screaming, before violently crashing into his own grave.

The advert ends with the payoff: "Life is short. Play more."

Fortunately this crisis has been averted. The British Independent Television Commission has banned this shocking violation of normality.

Is this a sinister quid pro quo deal, with Doc Searls flying in to dispense clues in return?

Lets leave the last word to Chris:

We die. And there's more than one way to get it over with. Advertising has some serving suggestions for your premature burial.

Warming Jitters

Thanks for your input, Kevin. This is such a complex issue. There's plenty of room for diasgreement on approaches to the problem. What disturbs me is the level of denial. It takes adroit, committed leadership to move a culture out of denial. You won't get it from W on this issue.

What's he concerned about? His conservative base, apparently. After hearing their outrage over the EPA report, Bush is quickly distancing himself from said report. So it's back to square one: "Folks, don't believe what my experts are telling you. We don't necessarily have a problem here. Get on with your lives." Why am I not surprised?

The media are equal culprits in this. Have you noticed how back-page the coverage has been? Media defenders would probably retort that the media is just following the public. Joe Public doesn't give a shit, so the media isn't going to give a shit either.

It isn't just the prez that's got to provide the leadership. The media has a role as well. But where is it going to come from? What scares me is that the Republicans have developed too many political smarts. They know there aren't any votes in this. Forget the Earth. It's War, baby, all the way to re-election.

Anyway, Kevin, thanks for the link to Viridian. There's a lot there and I haven't had time yet to absorb it. It looks promising.

My wife tells me that I'm addicted to worst-case scenarios. While she may be right, I can't help thinking that a bit of alarmism is appropriate in this case. The threat of nuclear attack is the only thing I can think of that's more alarming than global warming.

Global Warming

OK, Tom, I'll take the bait. Kyoto would have done nothing to stop this. What would work is tradable carbon quotas, but Kyoto wasn't into that. If you want people to use less energy, put the price up. It worked for us in California.
Moving electricity generation baseload to nuclear from coal is the biggest, cleanest thing we could do about this. Strangely, this is never high on the list of pro-Kyoto activists either. Here's what I said in April:

US nuclear generation creates about 2,000 tons of high-level waste per year.
This worries people, and it is thus treated with lots of care, and its storage is the subject of much debate.

Coal generation, creates about 100 million tons. And it's exempt from being treated as hazardous waste!

Coal waste has approximately 20-30 parts per million of Uranium.

Lets do the maths then:

100 million tons x 25 parts per million = 2,500 tons of uranium from the coal industry per year.

So, the coal industry is generating more nuclear waste per year as the nuclear one, but they are just chucking it in landfills and the atmosphere.

And that's just counting Uranium, not other radionuclides - never mind greenhouse gases, Mercury and other toxins that last forever, unlike radioactive waste that has a half-life.

According to the DoE, there are 2-3 billion tons of coal finings already lying around near coal mines - enough that its worth them researching a way to turn them back into coal.

Getting us weaned from coal generation onto nuclear and other alternatives should be the focus of energy policy.

Now what we really need is a massive class action suit against coal companies for poisoning us, creating greenhouse gases and dumping radioacive waste into the atmosphere.

For a Gonzo approach to this whole subject, go visit Bruce Sterling's Viridian group

Blogtank Massive Failure Project

Hey guys. Just wanted to invite you to a discussion to put Gonzo Marketing into practice at Blogtank. I asked a question and people responded. I also wrote some ideas about how to proceed. Come over and Make Some Noise. Thanks

Revival Anyone?

Maybe we need a little political crossfire to get this blog moving again. It's worth a try, at least. So, in that spirit, I'll reprint my post today from my blog:

Catch Those Alpine Meadows While You Can

Time to bestow another one of my "Huh? Lemme See If I Got That Straight" Awards. This time the award goes to George W. Bush and his entire environmental team. They quietly issued a report today--"U.S. Climate Action Report 2002"-- admitting, after years of denial, that, yes, global warming is actually happening and, yes, it presents a serious threat to the quality of the environment.

Oh, and the responsible party, according to the report? Human beings. How about that? Thought it might have been those pesky dolphins.

If you're tempted to say, "Way to go, W! Glad to see you got it right this time," consider the Administration's recommendation for responding to the threat. I'll quote from the New York Times so that you won't think that I'm making this up:

"It recommends adapting to inevitable changes.(my emphasis) It does not recommend making rapid reductions in greenhouse gases to limit warming, the approach favored by many environmental groups and countries that have accepted the Kyoto Protocol, a climate treaty written in the Clinton administration that was rejected by Mr. Bush."

And what are the changes which the report predicts and asks us to "adapt to?"

"the United States will be substantially changed in the next few decades — 'very likely' seeing the disruption of snow-fed water supplies, more stifling heat waves and the permanent disappearance of Rocky Mountain meadows and coastal marshes, for example — (yet) it does not propose any major shift in the administration's policy on greenhouse gases."

The Bushies are trying to have it both ways. They will try to say to the environmentally-conscious swing voters that they've cleaned up their environmental act, while at the same time doing nothing to offend the Big Energy Crowd to whom they're beholden.

You'd like to think that they won't get away with it. I wouldn't count on it. First of all, the candy-ass, pussyfooting Democrats have shrunk from developing any authentic voice to effectively question and counter-attack this mean-spirited, dangerous mindlessness to which we are being subjected.

Secondly, according to political observers, suburban Moms are no longer the swing vote that counts. Suburban Dads have deftly been identified by the Repubs as the new swing vote treasure. This group, by and large, loves the beat of the war drums, and they're too exhausted from all those hours in their office cubicles to give a shit about Alpine Meadows.

Well, I've managed to break my self-imposed rule against ranting. I couldn't help it this time. Sometimes those shithead Boys-Currently-In-Charge just cause me to lose it.

Bop a Rep

Wish they'd had this back when I was fielding scores of calls every week from cliche-spouting media reps--a great new game on the Web, "Upfront."

The media buyer starts the game with a supply of staplers, bagels, and other projectiles which are pelted at the virtual reps as they pop up from behind desks and filing cabinets--mouthing their usual lines like, "'We'd like to talk to you about out-of-the-box ideas' and "creating new paradigms," or "building long-term relationships."

The game was developed and is offered by G4, the media network for gamers. Is this a great marketing ploy or what? Looks like they've got some "out-of-the-box" types over there.

Egads

I'm with you Tom. It won't be "blogads" that help this happen. But there is something to the regional flavor emerging in some blogging pockets--the Boston bloggers, and some on the west coast as examples. They would be my go-to source if I lived in those areas and needed to find out how reliable a business was, or if I were traveling to the area and wanted to know the best hotel for my family. But as I'm finding out now, I'd be just as likely to pick up the phone and call one of them, because I it seems that I'm talking to at least one blogger--who have actually ceased being "bloggers" to me and have crossed the chasm to "friendship" -- every week.

Ah, for another post, another time.

j.

Blogads

The article is called "Making a Living from Blogging," and it offers some stimulating thoughts. But this seems a bit much:

"Eventually, a sufficient density of local blogs could make Blogads an effective tool for selling local goods and services."

Sing this with me...

The EFF parody 'The Mickey Mouse Club' to fight the CBDTPA.
Cory explains what parody is.

The phrases 'Mickey Mouse Copy Protection' and 'Mickey Mouse Computer' need to enter the language in this context - as in 'Do you want a Mickey Mouse computer that stops you making music?'

WSJ.com - Technology

WSJ.com - Technology
Julie Strietelmeier suddenly has a bunch of new suitors.

The 37-year-old, who operates a Web site on electronic gadgets as a hobby, recently was courted by Sharp Electronics Corp., which paid her way to California for the launch of its new hand-held computer. Microsoft Corp. also vied for Ms. Strietelmeier's attention by paying for a trip to Seattle so she could attend a shindig on its Pocket PC hand-held software. Palm Inc. has invited her to attend gatherings and to join an exclusive mailing list. And Handspring Inc. has offered to lend her an assortment of its products.

"It's quite flattering," says Ms. Strietelmeier, a software programmer who runs her Web site, the Gadgeteer (www.the-gadgeteer.com) at nights out of her home in Columbus, Ind. "Of course I like it," she says of the attention. "Who wouldn't?"

With tough times in Silicon Valley, many makers of hand-held devices, facing cuts in their marketing and advertising budgets, are trying to woo people like Ms. Strietelmeier, one of about 50 around the country known by the industry as "influencers."

This is almost Gonzo, but it still has a bit too much of broadcast feel to it for me. Encouraging sign though.

Landing in the Zone of Gonzo Politics

Excuse my flailings as I try to figure out where this snippet of text will land, or even it is lands in the Gonzo Politics thread. Funnily enough, we're working with a small team of people in Ireland, trying to set up and run a wireless blogging network for a series of conferences in the autumn. If our work is successful, we will be able to reduce mailing list chaos by implementing a more coherent flow of blogged comments.

Gonzo Politics

Eric - what you need is to start a conversation. Gather up email addresses at your meeting, and start a mailing list (topica.com makes this fairly easy).

You'll need to marshall it,but hopefully the conversation will get going.

Once you have a conversation, pick some issues, and set up a blog for each one. Invite people to join in. Escalate good postings from the chaos of the email list to the semi-permanace of the blog.

None of this will work though, unless your group contains people who can write (and think) clearly; finding them will be the hard part.

If you do find them, tell us about them, and if we like them, we'll tell our friends. It worked for Andrew...

I can't speak for Jeneane as to why , but you can comment here, but you need to do it in front of the class, on the main thread. It stops the conversation fragmenting. Layers of comments are only really needed with a much bigger group (cf slashdot, boingboing, metafilter). Doing it this way helps focus the discussion (IMO), as one is more likely to reflect before posting, thus getting closer to the ideal writing/reading time ratio.

I've been wondering about the implications of gonzo for politics. Current politics, although different in certain specific aspects, still uses primarily a broadcast model. The primary goal of which is to sell their product (candidate) by way of advertising (TV spots; yard signs; personal appearances). They use "focus groups", much of which has watered down the discourse to the least common demoninator of what they think we are thinking, which leads to fucking boredom. And I think that is really why the kids don't vote (not to mention us old kids). It is the same reason that we'd rather get online and chat than read a press release. Ugh. Hell, I'd rather get a molar pulled than read a press release!

Anyway, the reason for blogging this, really is to get some feedback. I'm looking to organize a forum for progressive groups in Ohio to look at the Internet and how it can be used to better support their causes. I heard recently in a meeting of progressive types the familiar lines: "We started a website, but nobody came." "We have an email link, but nobody uses it." "The Internet is not the silver bullet for political activism." To which I said, "Horseshit. It Is! You're just not using it right yet." OK, so that's what I wanted to say. I chickened out. Bock Bock!

So while sitting there thinking about organizing a forum (mostly due to the "Internet doesn't work" comments), I look down at my copy of Gonzo Marketing and start thinking about how it applies to politics. What are your thoughts?

I've also been wondering why we can't comment on entries here...

I guess there was a problem with the blogspot server...needed to republish. Done.

Gonzo Humanitarianism and Environmentalism

Wow. Thanks for the kudos, folks. I am seriously happy to be blogging with you guys. I hope to learn, grow, teach, and laugh a great deal as I continue to meet more people with the cluetrain spirit. I am in the pumped state, Jeneane. The same one I was in for months over Cluetrain. Hell, I even wrote a long polemic and distributed to managers at my old company at an annual meeting (flop). Anyway, thanks. You may come to regret it.

I wanted to blog this because I think it is 1) very interesting, and 2) seems to have a gonzo spirit at first glance:

ThinkCycle - Open Collaborative Design

ThinkCycle is using both open source and collaborative computing theories to work in the real world of design focusing on humanitarian and environmental problems of the world. This is the kind of thing that needs to be replicated. It is focused - giving it a better chance to succeed in terms of interest and participation. It is open - [sarcasm] which makes it a bottom-up process that has been somewhat successfull for a little known operating system [/sarcasm]. And to top it all off, it is designed well and appears to be programmed well as well. Well, well, well. (Just seeing how many times I could say "well". Well! Eight. Not bad.

ThinkCycle. Gonzo at work in the world (OK, open source should get more credit, but it is all the same, really)

Eric's Gold

Let me add my welcome to Eric. We need some fresh blood in here to get things going again. Eric's blood obviously runs true and swift. That was as sharp a take on Gonzo as I've seen.

Let me offer a personal experience of what Eric's talking about:
there's a great CD shop in my neck of the woods-Hear Music. They have about a dozen listening stations throughout the shop, each hooked into eight CD's or so. The stations are grouped into idiosyncratic, intriguing categories by the various employees of the store. In addition, you can take any CD you want to a central listening station and they'll play it for you.

On average, it's about five or six bucks per CD over internet prices. I started to get cold feet the last time I made a multiple purchase there. I calculated how much extra it was costing me over a year's time to do my buying there. Then I thought about the "one-hit wonders" to which Eric refers--all the ones I didn't have to buy because I had had the opportunity to listen to them at this wonderful store (and, yes Eric, there sure are a shitload of these rip-offs out there).

I realized that the money I had saved far outweighed the extra per-CD cost. And I'm so appreciative of this merchant's hip and helpful employees, I wouldn't dream of going there just to listen, only to head home and log on to Amazon.

Obviously, a lot of loyal customers feel the same way. Hear Music has had nothing to fear from the rise of e-commerce. Their greatest period of growth has coincided with the rise of the Web. And the icing on the cake: their dedication to the listening experience of their customers caught the attention of Starbuck's, who in '99 awarded them the contract for creating album mixes for their cafes.

So, yes, Uncle Eric, there's gold in them thar' Gonzo, customer-up models.

Taking blogging to the streets

Our own boy wonder, Chris Locke was on Marketplace Morning Report this morning, a radio show that captures the earballs of some 2,000,000 listeners (yup, I said two million).

You can listen to the RealAudio stream here or go to the marketplace.org homepage and click on "The Best of Today's Morning Report."

Tess Vigeland was so fascinated with the topic that she extended the segment from something like two minutes to a full six or seven minutes.

We owe it to the man. Blog the hell out of this.

And while I'm at it, Eric, HELLO! I'm SO glad you're here. You sound like I did just after finishing Gonzo. Drink it, breathe it, live it, don't stop, don't quit, write it, love it, hate it, trash it, burn it, reconstruct it, sleep with it, dream with it, sweat it, taste it, create and recreate it, shape it, and take it out--way out. I'm with ya, Les.

Gonzo Latecomer

OK, so I never did buy the fucking book. Even after I kept getting all these inflammatory emails from some jackass whose Topica list I was dumb enough to subscribe to. So I see Gonzo Marketing in the library and I think, "What the hell!", and pile it on my stack of Linux tutorials and Lester Brown's Eco-Economy (couldn't find Natural Capitalism by Amory Lovins - rats). Man am I glad I decided to start with Gonzo (Does anyone else have this problem with books - I read 5 at the same time until I get hooked to one and toss the rest - or am I just mental). Holy shit. What was I thinking. I've read Cluetrain four times now and I was dumb enough not to buy this one sight-unseen. [shakes head in personal disgust]

So while pretending to work today (kidding boss, I was working. I read on lunch hour, er, um half hour), I was reading Gonzo Marketing and making notes (is THAT normal...please tell me that's normal). Do I use too many damned parentheses? (what do you think?). Here is a bit of my notes:

Gonzo Marketing: The question really does come down to quality. It matters much more now. In mass marketing, you could sell inferior junk because your goal was to blast the message (ad) to millions of eyeballs and hook a certain percentage (I'm reminded of the shoveling chum scene in Jaws...not sure why. HOOPER!). With Gonzo Marketing, you can't do that. In fact, you had better make damned sure your shit is great or you will essentially be marketing for your competitors! Napster proved this to the record industry. The old model allowed them to put out 11 shit tracks and 1 hit and sell tons of records. Ever get pissed off after you buy the album with "that one cool song" on it only to discover that one song was all she wrote? Not anymore, Jack. The conversation is real. And it goes a little somthin' like 'dis:

"Dude. Did you download that Slayer album?"
"Yep. All crap but track nine."
"No shit. I'm gonna have to burn a compilation!"

Now imagine that same conversation concerning the latest Tool release:

"Dude. (the kids always say "dude"...maybe we can use that in our personalization) Did you hear the Aenima album?"
"Fucking A. I got 5 tracks off Napster and they all rock!"
"Straight up. I'm gonna have to get that one!"
"No doubt"

See? Now this is precisely what the RIAA and most of the labels just can't get through their copyrighted skulls:

New Economy Rule #1 For Selling Records:
Make an awesome record. Give away the tracks. Sell a bunch or records.

A smart label would have strongly supported Napster and would have employed music enthusiasts (or better yet, set up a site for them) to get online and talk to the kids. I said to. Not at. Because, as Metallica used to say: "What about the kids?!" Wonder what changed their minds?

There's a billion dollar formula for you folks. Just a little tip from your uncle Eric.

Developer, meet Prospect: why don't you two blog a bit?

I'm getting a big Gonzo kick out of Rick Klau's (V.P. of Vertical Markets, Interface Software, Inc.) exchange with Christopher Smith (knowledge management guru with A Very Large Law Firm). This, as they say, is what it's all about, and reinforces Kevin's point below (though I have no idea if either of the companies knows about the boys' blogs - suspect not, in Christopher's case). Blogged a little more here.