Cluetrain at 10

John Cass over at the PR Communications blog pinged me on March 26^th. I was “unplugged” and “disconnected” taking my parents on a tour of West Texas. I will reflect on the trip another time, but the photos are on Flickr, with some of the more quiet contemplative Binhammer art ones to come :-). I make no apologies for the time away. It was a wonderful refresher.

Now that I am gradually unburying from “enterprise” email, catching up with bloggers talking about Dell and hundreds of other things at the office, it’s time to get back to good ole blogging – and for readers that followed the recent New York Times story about bloggers, you will know that this blog is hardly what they were referencing, or what Doc Searles calls flogging (what a great term).

The Tenth Anniversary of the Cluetrain Manifesto and What it Means

John Cass put a list of five questions together and asked Phil Gomes, Shel Israel, Susan Getgood, Kami Huyse and me to take a crack at them and then pass them along to another group. While delayed in my response, I’ll still take a crack at this. And just before publishing, I want you to know I asked a couple colleagues for their take on the perspective I am offering. Thanks to my partner in visiting blogs around the Web, JohnatDELL and BruceericatDell, who spear heads our internal blogs. Appreciated the input and feedback guys!

1) What does the cluetrain manifesto mean to you? How has the book and theses influenced or not influenced you?

The Cluetrain Manifesto is all about fundamental changes that we are living and experiencing -- people connecting, communicating and sharing in meaningful and amazing ways. This connected era has put us in touch with each other in ways previously not accessible to individuals –and our connections are destroying all kinds of barriers, creating real conversations that are more powerful than what has come before, and in what is quickly becoming a truly global village.

I think the Cluetrain concepts of markets as conversations, consisting of human beings not demographic sectors, who are conversing in a human voice, typically open, natural, and uncontrived are powerful concepts -- and the conversations are powerful too.

The Cluetrain Manifesto seems to posit that business is at high risk of failure.

“A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies….But learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about "listening to customers."

I am influenced by the Cluetrain every day because I want to be part of business “getting it.” If the Cluetrain was “glass half empty,” I see the Cluetrain as opportunity and as “glass half full.” I hope to be part of a business not only sounding human, but being human, connecting directly with people. I hope my real voice shines through, regularly.

As an aside, I left government and politics to be a lobbyist because I wanted to help business do a better job of understanding and talking with governments…and so this career step is a further evolution of that -- working with business to connect and build relationships directly with people.

And, if I can listen, learn and participate in conversations in a very human way, including apologizing for mistakes; joking; taking lumps when I am out of line; admitting mistakes; acknowledging we do not have all the answers but willing to see what we can do; follow up to make sure we deliver and don’t leave people hanging; and explain what my point of view may be; then perhaps I contribute to “humanizing” Dell. At the same time, I hope that means this is a business that will not be left behind, but in fact builds strong and direct personal relationships.

2) Which companies have best implemented the cluetrain manifesto in your opinion and how were they effective?

I do not know enough about what other companies are doing to comment here. My focus is on what I am doing to connect with people, listen, learn and engage in conversation…and then to follow up internally at Dell. In addition, I spend time helping “acclimatize” others at Dell to the marketplace as a conversation and the current and emerging “tools” that can be used on the web.

I think the Cluetrain authors were right about some components of "effectiveness" when they wrote:

"So what, if anything, can businesses do at this juncture? They can begin by searching out people with the organization who understand what's going on. In Almost every case, they're there. Make friends with them. Make friends with the marketplace again. Start listening. Find your voice. Then start talking as if your life depended on it. It does.....There may not be 12 or five or 20 things that you can do, but there are 10,000 possibilities. The trick is you have to figure out what they are. They have to come from you. They have to be your words, your moves, your authentic voice.

The Web got built by people who chose to build it. The lesson is: don't wait for someone to show you how. Learn from your spontaneous mistakes, not from safe prescriptions and cautiously analyzed procedures. Don't try to keep people from going wrong by repeating the mantra of how to get it right. Getting it right isn't enough anymore. There's no invention in it. There is no voice."

The Cluetrain authors are right. On the job training is real and powerful. There is no playbook or simple success formula because people are human and not all predictable or the same. Listening and asking for guidance/suggestions are among things that work. But so is just rolling up the sleeves, getting out there and "do it"! Its much like learning to walk. As I have noted here previously, so you make mistakes, we all do..that makes us human and keeps us human.

NOW.....GET UP. GET OVER IT. GO AGAIN.

3) In thesis 57, the cluetrain manifesto states, "smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner." In light of that thesis, is encouraging employees to use social media and blogging a good idea? Is it really effective, when an employee is encouraged but not directed?

First, I think it may be too early in the evolution of corporate involvement in blogs, social media and conversations to draw a conclusion about whether a single approach to “encourage” or “direct” employees to blog works best.

Second, I think the approach and results are going to be different depending on the circumstances or rationale for a company’s involvement with the new marketplace.

John notes on his blog that he thinks Dell’s approach of directing/mandating blogging and social media responsibilities to specific people as part of their job seems to be more effective than the more dispersed “encouragement” of employees to blog.

However, I think it is important to consider Dell’s situation in context. Our early direction to get involved came from Michael Dell and had a specific task associated with it. Simply put he wanted us to have conversations with customers who were having conversations about technical support issues they had. As predicted by the Cluetrain authors, we were not responding fast enough or appropriately. We first joined the conversation with a specific reason – support our customers wherever they were. It was “directed” because the employees joining conversations needed to be able to deliver a high level of technical expertise and fix specific issues.

The emergence of our blog, Direct2Dell, was also “directed” because we wanted a business voice to join the conversations, regularly and "then"...not to left to evolve. We wanted to get "out there" and start connecting. That could not be left to chance. However, within that “direction” think you will see more and more people within Dell participate at Direct2Dell, or the new “group blogs” for customers with specific interests....in a much more "encouraged" manner. And, we continue to evolve and encourage more people from different parts of the business to join conversations. The result will likely lead to a mix of both the “directed” and “encouraged” models to which John Cass refers.

As Michael Dell said to Jeff Jarvis for a story in BusinessWeek, "These conversations are going to occur whether you like it or not. You can learn from that. You can improve your reaction time. And you can be a better company by listening and being involved in that conversation."

4) How can a company encourage employees to use social media, and empower them to answer customer questions and learn from customers?

I like to remind people I work with that our heritage of direct relationships with customers can be strengthened by listening, learning and getting involved with our customers online. Web 2.0 puts on us on steroids to really perfect things in a way that we build/strengthen our direct relationships with people. Today’s increasingly connected communities are often built using technology that we helped make more available to more people around the world. In fact, the Internet, in its various evolutions, has always been an important part of realizing Dell’s direct business model.

As my colleague BruceEricatDell reminded me when I asked him what he thought, we have hundreds of small communities within Dell using blogs to collaborate and drive change. These blogs are internal and are enabling Dell teams to have more conversations with each other than they might otherwise. For the broader Dell team, our internal communications team has rolled out nearly a dozen global blogs that give everyone an opportunity to listen and add their voice to the conversations within the company. As our employees get more comfortable using social media internally, I bet they will increasingly engage externally.

I also like to remind people it’s “OK” to say we don’t know, promise to get back to them and go looking for an answer. That’s a change for businesses that are more familiar with having to have all the answers to questions posed by a reporter for the story in the paper the next day.

I also think it’s OK to have an honest disagreement with someone and let them know why I might not agree with their point of view – and I do sometimes.

Ultimately, you can’t go wrong by listening, hearing and engaging with customers. It nurtures better relationships, keeps us in touch and customers are why we make what we make -- and have our jobs.

5) Do all employees want to talk with customers? If not what percentage want to internetwork and converse?

Damn, that’s a tough question and I have no idea. I suspect some people in parts of the business like Finance are less interested in talking to customers than someone in design, marketing, or other groups might be.

But, more and more I find people asking about how to get involved or what they can do or being curious about how this new connected and vibrant web world might result in exciting new opportunities for things they work on.

Thoughts from you?

Oh, and to follow John’s instructions, I think I will tag Geoff Livingston, Michael Lingolook, Mac Collier, Joe Thornley and Ryan Anderson to answer the same five questions. Looking forward to your responses!