tsukinofaerii | Cluetrain Maifesto (Reply)

I was bored. I usually am at some point in the day, predictably right before lunch. So I browsed the internet... and behold, I stumble upon The Cluetrain Manifesto.

"Wow" pretty much sums it up.

Sooooooo, in my intense boredom, I'm going to go through it and ramble a bit. Enjoy.

Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
This reminds me of something that happened a few years ago. When I was in my writing class, my teacher asked, "What's your audience?" I admit that I was floored. I'd never thought about needing a target audience. People who like fantasy can be anyone and anything - male/female, old/young, black/white/green... So why do I need a target? If they like my stuff, they'll read more.

Of course, I didn't say that. What I blurted out was, "Educated women 15-40".

Which is me. Huh.

I guess that when it comes down to it, if you really believe in a product, you are your own audience. If the thing you're trying to market is something you're not interested in, or that you don't really understand... then it'll show. Because you'll have no real idea what your audience (customers) want. Livejournal is a great example of this, really. The employees have LJ accounts, and they use them. So while they might not understand subculture users like fandom, they understand the basics of what the user is going through. The execs, however, haven't been LJ users since brad sold the company. They probably have accounts, but I've never seen one use it for more than a basic "Hi, I'm [name], [title] of [company x]" post. They don't know who the users are, what they want, or how to give them things they don't want in a way that they're not going piss people off.

One imperfect solution would be for execs to be annonymous users. If the service costs money, they can get reimbursement, but the key need is that they not use a company or special account. If Barak had been registered as a normal LJ user, actually used his blog and posted in communities and his LJ wasn't known as "his"... I bet LiveJournal would be a completely different website today. The Customer Service would be fantastic, because the reps would never know when the irate user on the other end of the line happened to be their boss. Freedom of creativity concerns would probably exist (simply because a lot of things are gray area and dangerous to the company), but the execs would understand our worries and be able to address them. We'd grumble, but Strikethough never would have happened. Policy changes could be spelled out so users can understand, because when the execs all get an e-mail saying "item a is no longer allowed and you'll be banned for it", they're going to want to know what "item a" is and why it's not allowed. Any answer given to them could then be translated and given back to us.

Like I said, it's not perfect... but gods, it would be a help.
People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.

This has no end to its trueness. The number of times I've broken out Google rather than wade through the help desk with various companies is phenomenal. This has even expanded into real life. The last time our phones broke down, I tracked down the broken line and spliced it myself. Not too long ago, I would have broken out the cellphone and called for help. There's a reason why AIM's support center is a FAQ, a "technical bug only" area and a user forum.

The problem is that this takes employees out of the loop. If users are having trouble with a product that's not a technical problem, the only way employees are going to find out is if they surf the forum. For example, say fifty people a day ask for help figuring out how to set their signature in web-based email Y. That might suggest that the "create personalized signature" button is too hard to find and that the FAQ doesn't provide enough information. This could be added to the next system update, and the FAQ expanded in the meantime, but it'll only happen if someone is paying attention to the forums.

I'm all for self-help, but companies need to be aware of these things, or users will just start going somewhere else.
There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.

Strikethough. Need I say more?

Okay, I will anyways. When Strikethrough went down, the news was out in hours. In less than 12 hours, everyone knew about it, with varying levels of concern. In a day, the users had tracked down the affected, found out that it was a deliberate move by LJ, dug up the reason it had happened and then proceeded to explode. Business as usual went on in SixApart, but Livejournal was falling to pieces. SixApart even tried to play it off as "business as usual" by going to the media before their users. They seemed to think that the users didn't already know what had happened and were trying to put out their version of events. This spin on things enraged an already pissed populace, both because it was clearly not true and because Barak informed the media before talking to the affected. Think of it as being extremely ill, and your doctor goes and tells CNN that you have a brand new disease before he tells you. "Exploded" wasn't even close enough to describe it. The entire website had problems because so many users were trying to complain all at once.

Days later, the company acted to reverse the suspensions. The scars remain as proof that users know, users speak to each other and that a company's foremost responsibility is to tell the users what is going on before it starts a riot.

Internet time can be calculated as a 8:1 ratio to real-time, I think. 1 hour online is equal to 8 real-time hours. Most people will wait a week for service from a physical company (cable, for example), but a 24 hour turnaround is the longest a lot of people will wait online, and 24 is pushing it. Speed and communication are the only way to do things. Since it takes more time to get a news interview than to type an e-mail... guess which one users expect first?
Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on television are kidding themselves.

I don't even need a long paragraph on this. It's pretty simple. TV ads are one-way — the "customer" is fed information, which they then take for granted and act or don't act on. If they act and don't like the product, or if they find the advertisement annoying/offensive, most of the time they don't complain to anyone other than other viewers. (I hate that commercial!) The internet is entirely two-way. Not only can companies expect customers to research the product (google is at our fingertips), but the company hosting the ad can expect feedback (probably unwanted) on its appeal, use, placement and appropriateness, as well as comments on the product itself!

If companies don't get on the ball and create ads that people want to see and place them where people want to see them, Adblock and plugins like it will make advertising obsolete.
Companies need to come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships.

I disagree with only one part of this. Companies don't hope to create relationships. They need to. I don't think the plural was intended as significant, but I'm going to ride it.

Right now, many businesses are operating under the assumption that only one relationship is necessary; that of customer and provider. This has allowed them to skate by, because before the internet it wasn't necessary to have more, it was just really, really great customer service. Here's a personal example.

For more than twenty years, my grandmother has owned and operated a legal form and paralegal business. Over time, it's become a family business. Various aunts, uncles and cousins are directly involved in it. (Yes, even in my admittedly disfunctional family.) Even my brother has a license as a paralegal. It's always been a marginal thing, both because my grandma has no interest in expanding from two or three offices and because of her pretty bad business sense. She's the kind of person who will spend days filling out complicated legal documents and then when the time comes to pay and the customer "left their wallet at home", she'll take it on trust that they'll come back with the money and just hand over the work. A lot of people don't come back.

Most of them do.

It's not for any really special reason, unless you want to call my Grandma special. She knows her clients. She asks about their families, their jobs, discusses the news while she works... If they're consistent customers (usually in the 'decades' department), she gets to know them well enough that she'll have a drink with them, or give them special discounts. But what really gets most people is that she isn't out for their money. If they've been told that they need a trust (expensive), but a living will (inexpensive) will do, she tells them that, even though it's money immediately taken from her pocket. In the long term, though, that's the sort of thing that's kept her in business, because if and when those people need a paralegal again, they think of her.

Not too many companies do that, especially online. I don't have a personal relationship with ant of the companies I use right now. None of them. There's no emotional attachment there. As a customer, I'm left to chose based on service and price. But for a company that looked like it was made of people and not automated e-mail messages, who asked how my job was or if I'm feeling alright if I cough over the phone... For a business that tried to think of my needs and not their pocket book...

I'd pay more. I'd pay a lot more.

Part of what it comes down to is employees. They're a constant variable, with memorized speeches and the knowledge that they can be fired at any minute. Single, constant employees who deal with certain customer groups, someone who you always talk to when you call, would create a personal relationship between customer and business — because as far as customer emotions are concerned, that employee is the business. Sockpuppet employees (or accounts, in LJ) just won't do anymore. But in order to do that, the employees would need job security, and that's becoming an elusive beast in todays business world.

Of course, if a company has FUBAR'd before, no amount of personal service will help. marta is a great person, but too many people remember LJ as LJ... it's going to be years before marta is the face of LJ, and by then it'll already be too late.
Networked markets can change suppliers overnight. Networked knowledge workers can change employers over lunch. Your own "downsizing initiatives" taught us to ask the question: "Loyalty? What's that?"

See above. :3
Companies typically install intranets top-down to distribute HR policies and other corporate information that workers are doing their best to ignore.

(deletes a message from her work e-mail because she doesn't need to know and doesn't really care)
We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.

You know, in 8 years online, I've clicked maybe a dozen separate ads. You know which ads they were? The ones on small websites run by real people, usually with a tag saying, "if you click this, you're supporting me".
We want you to take 50 million of us as seriously as you take one reporter from The Wall Street Journal.

(has a PTSD-induced flashback to Strikethough. And Boldthrough. And Boobiegate. And Pornogate. And the still on-going Pornogate: Child Friendly Version. And FanLib)
We know some people from your company. They're pretty cool online. Do you have any more like that you're hiding? Can they come out and play?

marta!!!!!!
Our allegiance is to ourselves—our friends, our new allies and acquaintances, even our sparring partners. Companies that have no part in this world, also have no future.

When Strikethrough went down and people started leaving, where did people turn to first?

Each other.

"Hey, where are you going? IJ? GJ? FJ? I'll meet you there!"

Disregarding those ties (especially in social networking) is suicide. Loss of a single user can snowball into thousands if companies aren't careful. Do I need to say that this is why every user is important?