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| Author: |
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Doc Searls |
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| Posted: |
6/11/2000; 7:52:59 PM |
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The Cynic's Manifesto
By Rob D
1. Markets are money.
2. Markets consist of money not yet separated by their humans.
3. Conversations with Doctors, Lawyers, Shrinks, Tech-Support etc. are billable. Conversations between human beings aren't.
4. The human voice can obfuscate things better than it can clear things up. Watch C-Span lately?
5. That people can tell each other by the sound of their voice, that doesn't guarantee they can tell when you're speaking the truth by the sound of your voice.
6. The internet makes conversations possible like never before. Except telephone party lines and everyone knows how well that's going.
7. Hyperlinks are the text version of voicemail.
8. In both internetworked markets and among intranetworked employees are using the internet to goof off every bit as much as doing anything really important. Maybe more so.
9. Psychedelic drugs, crystals and commune living were considered new social organization and new realms of knowledge back in the day. However they are not currently in general use (well, maybe the drugs) among those on the Forbes 500 list.
10. Markets still only know what you tell them so long as litigation is expensive and confidentiality agreements is standard operating practice. If you are rich you may not be able to buy the truth, but you can definitely purchase the absence of lies. People want to go home at night and be left to themselves, not worry about your dirty laundry unless its in their own personal backyard.
11. People trust other consumers, but that doesn't mean you can't act like an impartial consumer. You can lie to markets not only on the quality of your own goods but who you are. This still works on the internet.
12. 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 whomever pays the most for the information. Whistleblowers are people who have not been paid enough.
13. What's happening to markets is also happening among employees. A metaphysical construct called "The Company" is the only thing that pays him, keeps him in food, shelter and if he's lucky a health plan. You cannot download a house, a can of beans or antibiotics.
14. Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. However, leading one of those conversations won't earn you a mansion or a yacht.
15. In just a few more years, the current homogenized "voice" of business&Mac247;the sound of mission statements and brochures&Mac247;will sound a lot more like how everyone who isn't poor will talk like. The homogenous "voices" own something like 95% of the US. If you want to borrow the car from Dad, you quickly learn to ask in a way that he likes.
16. Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone except to others like them. They are, however, the ones with the money.
17. Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on television are laughing all the way to the bank. Try to remember the last day you went without buying something not in a garishly packaged container. The net is just another place to put those garish ads.
18. For all this talk of networked markets people feel more alone than ever. Garishly packaged and advertised mood "elevating" drugs are a good example of profiting on this.
19. Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. They can now lie directly to their consumers as well, without the benefit of an expert to filter the pertinent information beforehand.
20. Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. Laughing is a natural human reaction to many things. Humor can be used to divert attention and pain, but it doesn't have to divert people to the truth. An example of non-truthful humor: ethnic jokes.
21. People may say "Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor." Needless to say these are not the people that own stock in your company. When it comes to money people don't care how much of a hard-ass you are so long as keep making them money.
22. Getting a sense of humor does not mean putting some jokes on the corporate web site. Rather, it requires big values, a little humility, straight talk, and a genuine point of view. However if bald-faced lying and following convention means making more money, the people making the money don't care.
23. If people have a choice between staying safe and warm in a house or hitting the streets with the hopes of finding a bigger and nicer house nearly everyone chooses to stay where they are. Thousands went to California and Alaska went for gold in the last century. Many died, many more went broke, and of those who struck it rich, most were the conventional merchants selling stuff to the gold diggers.
24. Bombastic boasts do not constitute a position, though women do not tend to go out with the shy fellow in the corner reading his book.
25. Companies need to come down from their Ivory Towers and mingle with other people that came down from their Ivory Towers. So long as they don't let any commoners in, it will still appear as if they can stand the pauper that maintains their towers.
26. Public Relations does not relate to the public. They are there to distract the ornery customers until they get discouraged and stop complaining.
27. By speaking in language that is distant, uninviting, arrogant, companies tell the customer that they are the experts and since they don't know how it works their questions or opinions don't amount to a hill of beans.
28. Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what's really going on inside the company. However few people want to see where their dinner comes from either.
29. Elvis died a fat, drug addicted, parody of himself. He was surrounded by yes-men and hangers on. Lesson: Don't listen to the little people.
30. Brand loyalty is the corporate version of going steady, but the breakup is inevitable&Mac247;and coming fast. Because they are networked, smart markets are able to be confused by every bit of junk out there. Confused people are easier to control if you treat them as such.
31. So long as people live under the illusion that networked markets can change "Change The World" people will continue to buy Ford, GM, M$ etc. even after their job was shipped off to a child laborer overseas. People don't know a choice is an illusion if they never get the chance to use it.
32. Smart markets will find suppliers who make them feel good. Whether on not this is the truth is not important.
33. Learning to speak with a human voice is not a parlor trick. It can, however, be used like one.
34. To speak with a human voice, companies only need to sound like they care. The one thing companies truly need to care about is money.
35. Many companies do quite well by promising the market a little slice of their community. Forbes says, "Buy our magazine and be like the rich!". Ben & Jerry's say, "Buy us and you'll improve the environment." However, notice when you buy a copy of Forbes you're actually losing money. And I still don't know how eating a fatty, non-nutritional, empty calorie desert, individual wrapper and all, helps restore the Earth and make you a healthier person. But no one questions them!
36. Companies must ask themselves how much they can think they can possibly get away with.
37. If their cultures end before the community begins, the rich can always invent a market.
38. Human communities are based on discourse &Mac247; though the majority of rich people through history got that way by taking it by force or slyly stealing out from under the general public.
39. Confusing people does not automatically stop them from buying your product.
40. Companies that do not belong to a community of discourse can make people listen to them anyway. When you played ball as a kid, the kid that owned the ball could make the rules.
41. Companies make a religion of security, but this is largely a red herring. Most are protecting less against competitors than against inside people stealing work from the company and going out on their own. The fact that the owners or the security men aren't the ones that actually do the work is not pertinent.
42. As with networked markets, people are also talking to each other directly inside the company&Mac247;and not just about rules and regulations, boardroom directives, bottom lines. They are goofing off and ruining your productivity.
43. Such conversations are taking place today on corporate intranets. But only when the boss is out of the office.
44. If you are more responsive than Dilbert's company you're doing too much.
45. Intranets naturally tend to route directly to topics that are boring to every outside their little circle. This is just like high school. Anyone whose greatest memory is high school is definitely not rich.
46. A healthy intranet organizes workers in many meanings of the word. Its effect is more radical than the agenda of any union. Unions are proven bad for a board of directors paycheck so intranets must be worse.
47. While this scares companies witless, they can continue to exploit their employees so long as the owners are the least scared.
48. Controlling corporate intranets is another method of keeping your employees from realizing the fact that they don't really need you.
49. The boss is still the person who tells you to do your job. So long as he continues to sign the check things will continue to be as normal.
50. The more confusing an Org chart is, the greater chance the employees will ask dumb questions and miss the big picture. Which is typically how little of the cut they're getting.
51. Command-and-control management styles both derive from and reinforce bureaucracy, power tripping and an overall culture of paranoia. However the army, what this system derives from, can drop a trans-sonic bomb on any little upstart "citizen's militia" with their super sonic fighter planes. C+C is very handy for crushing opponents of smaller size, regardless if they have a better product than you.
52. Paranoia kills conversation. That's its point. But lack of open conversation keeps employees feeling inadequate and therefore easily controlled.
53. There's a lot of conversations going on. All you need to make sure of is that you're advertising is the loudest.
54. Failure in any conversation is acceptable so long as your spin control is louder.
55. These conversations should at all times keep employees from thinking independently and realizing they're the ones doing all the work.
56. Having all these conversations breaking into each other only serves to heighten the confusion and strengthen the control of the few who stay above it.
57. Smart companies will make sure no one ever catches on.
58. If willingness to get out of the way is taken as a measure of IQ, then very few companies have yet wised up. However if willingness to get in other peoples way is a sign of profits, then most companies should keep doing what they're doing.
59. However subliminally at the moment, millions of people now online perceive companies as little more than quaint legal fictions and they're wondering how they can get in on.
60. Markets want to be validated by companies.
61. Sadly, the part of the company a networked market wants to talk to is usually hidden behind a smokescreen of hucksterism, of language that rings false&Mac247;and often is. This hucksterism, however shows little sign of ceasing to be profitable anytime soon. Look at the number of seats changing in Congress.
62. Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. However if your hucksters are truly good at their jobs no one will know they're hucksters but you.
63. De-cloaking, getting personal: We want in on your action, we want to be rich and cool.
64. We want access to your corporate information, to your plans and strategies, your best thinking, your genuine knowledge. Once we will get rich probably the same way you did, by stealing your work.
65. Always keep disgruntled consumers from realizing they're not the only one.
66. As markets, as workers, both of us are sick to death of getting our information remotely. Since the board controls the flow of information, the board also controls salaries. Loss of control of this information costs the board personal income.
67. As markets, as workers, we wonder why you're not listening. You seem to be speaking a different language and so long as none of us learn that language we won't be earning the big bucks.
68. The inflated self-important jargon you sling around&Mac247;in the press, at your conferences&Mac247;what's that got to do with us? See-keep us confused and we won't ask how come you get a hundred times more money than we do.
69. Maybe you're impressing your investors. Maybe you're impressing Wall Street. You're not impressing us. However, you are the ones with the stock options.
70. If you don't impress us, your investors are going to take a bath. Don't they understand this? If they did, they wouldn't let you talk that way so make dead sure they never figure it out. If you make the truth complicated, but keep the lies simple they'll go for the lie every time.
71. Your tired notions of "the market" make our eyes glaze over. We don't recognize ourselves in your projections&Mac247;perhaps because we know we're already elsewhere. Chances are you'll still be rich, just the name of the rube will have changed.
72. We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it. Please note that its not furnished yet, and I don't see the movers either.
73. When the man from the bank comes to your house you don't make him take off his shoes if he doesn't want to.
74. We like to think we are immune to advertising. However the number of SUVs that never leave the road is soaring astronomically. People buy as many $100 sunglasses as the $10 kinds. Objects change prices depending on whose name is on the wrapper.
Time Out for a personal little rant of mine:
If you are one of those hip young web-savvy entrepreneur you do not drive a Civic even though it gets a hell of a lot better gas mileage, is easier to park and has much lower insurance premiums not to mention the closest you've gotten to driving off-road was parking on the street last Thanksgiving at your parents. No, you have to drive a Land Rover. You do not use sunglasses bought in a Truck Stop or on the boardwalk for $10 even though they have the UV-coating label. You have $400 Oakleys. Lest we mention E-bay and bidding hand-over-fist for those heavily merchandised toys from our youth we threw out, and now that the opportunity presents itself ten and twenty years later we are still hooked on little plastic toys? Other than maybe the Smithsonian who needs a box of Quisp people?
Noooo, you web-savvy wiz- kids are all soooo immune from advertising. Young suburban "counter"-culture has a great track record for its thrifty and prudent spending habits. Yeah, I believe you. Swampland anyone? Though may I remind you that its Jordache Swampland!
Where'd that come from? I feel so much better I can tell my analyst to take a month off now. Phew.
75. If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change. We value Interesting more than truthful.
76. We've got some ideas for you too: some new tools we need, some better service. Stuff we'd be willing to pay for. Got a minute? We give you the idea, you make the money. Now with the internet you can steal people's ideas without ever having to see them.
77. You're too busy "doing business" to answer our email? Oh gosh, sorry, gee, we'll come back later. Maybe. When our boss is out of the office.
78. You want us to pay? We want you to look like you're paying attention. At the end use the phrase "We'll get back to you." The bigger you are, the better lip service works.
79. We want you to drop your trip, come out of your neurotic self-involvement, join the party. We want to get you drunk so we can take your place on top and then be the one doing the exploiting.
80. Don't worry, you can still make money. That is, as long as it's not the only thing on your mind. It must, however be far and away the primary thing on your mind. Remember, for every dollar that exists, someone's mind is on it. This means if you don't have your mind on your own money then somebody else does.
81. Have you noticed that, in itself, having money makes everyone else kind of one-dimensional and boring?
82. Q.Your product broke. Why?
A. Because its a cheap piece of crap.
Q. We'd like to ask the guy who made it.
A. Yet another huge benefit to shipping jobs overseas. How many consumers can be nosy in Malaysian?
Q. Your corporate strategy makes no sense.
A. We make money, that's all the sense we need.
Q. We'd like to have a chat with your CEO. What do you mean she's not in?
A. She's out precisely so you can't talk to her and find out the she's playing golf with a set of clubs that cost more than your entire college tuition, Networking with three other people having a combined net worth greater than every country your ancestors ever emigrated from. The reason the CEO does not talk to people like you is that you have no money.
83. We want you to take 50 million of us as seriously as you take one reporter from The Wall Street Journal. Of course none of us can influence 50 million other people as we are published like a respected journal, such as The Wall Street Journal.
84. We know some people from your company. They're pretty cool online. Do you have any more like that you're hiding? We would like to steal all your productive people and then be the ones riding their backs to outrageous profit. I can't see why you'd want to avoid that.
85. When we have questions we turn to each other for answers. If you didn't have such a tight rein on "your people" maybe they'd be the consultants we pay instead of the paying your tech support.
86. No one ever calls Personal Calls "Marketing" except maybe the marketing department.
87. We'd like it if you got what's going on here. That'd be real nice. But it would be a big mistake to think we're holding our breath. Of course if we have no choice, we can't really hold our breath. If someone starts charging for air we can go, "No thanks, I'll just hold mine."
88. We have better things to do than worry about whether you'll change in time to get our business. Business is only a part of our lives. It seems to be all of yours. Think about it: who needs whom? Thinking now...
Well, actually we need you to pay us so we can buy your products.
89. We have real power and we know it. If you don't quite see the light, some other outfit will come along that's more attentive, more interesting, more fun to play with. Of course if you lie to us and confuse us, well probably stick with what we have because its more comfortable than changing things.
90. This new conversation makes us feel important. At least try to humor us.
91. Our allegiance is to ourselves. Your allegiance is to yourself. So long as you remain in a position of power we'll keep our mouths shut.
92. Companies are spending billions on the market. Its called Advertising. Its called Litigation. Its called Abuse of Power.
93. We're both inside companies and outside them. The boundaries that separate our conversations look like the Berlin Wall today. The thing that kept people from climbing over the wall was not the wall itself, but rather the guards with the machine guns.
94. To traditional corporations, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing. But we are organizing faster than they are. We have better tools, more new ideas, no rules to slow us down. Whereas traditional companies that have pesky things like environmental legislation to overturn and anti-trust laws to weasel out of, we can say we are super-keen because we are not big enough to have a large enough group realizing that we too are screwing them.
95. We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting. Mwah-ha-ha-ha. MWAH-HA-HA-HA. MWAH-HA-HA-HA.
Copyright 2009 The Doc Searls Weblog
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