April 15, 2005
“markets are relationships”/hughtrain wiki
Doc Searls says in the comments of a recent gapingvoid post:
By the way, the next step after Cluetrain, IMHO, is Markets are Relationships.
You heard it here first. Or maybe you heard it somewhere else first. Whatever.
Doc and I are meeting in Paris next week. Hurrah!
Doc and I are talking about collaborating to create some Cluetrain/Hughtrain hybrid.
So we have “Markets are relationships” meets “The market for something to believe in is infinite”…
Add those two together and you get…?
I’m trying to think of possible answers. If you have any ideas, please leave them in the comments. Thanks.
[NOTE TO SELF:] Maybe The Hughtrain needs to be Open Source. Maybe I need to build The Hughtrain Wiki…?
Business is Relationships
From markets are conversations to markets are relationships to business is relationships.…
Why not throw some long-tail in there too…
The long tail is a bunch of markets based on relationships based on things we believe in. I made this point over on CA’s site… somehow you’ve got to “enter” the distribution of “things for sale” that are under the tail… you enter it based on things you like in common with other people. You will talk to those other people about those things you like. You will talk to the vendors of those things you like. You will form long-lasting relationships with people who you like talking to and who treat you with respect. That milieu will be creative and will point you (consumer) and your friends and the vendors of the things you like down a long tail… into other sets of niche-y relationships…
HRM = “Hughtrain Relationship Marketing”
Markets Are… Boring
Markets Are… Boring
this is kind of like trying to figure out a zen koan, if it’s infinite, it goes without saying,
markets are conversations
markets are relationships
markets are personal
the market for something to believe in is universal
etc.
now watch me tap dance
If markets are conversations, and maybe markets are also relationships then perhaps Markets are collaborations.
Markets always have been collaborations.
Of all the toons I’ve seen so far, that’s the one I’d want on a t-shirt.
Tee shirts? Baaa! I’m getting a tattoo.
Hugh train wiki.. yessss. Great idea !
“pr guy that gets it” + tattoo = brilliant
but, i’ll still take the t-shirt dave
how about “creating markets that believe in infinite relationships”…
So does everything always need to be rolled into a single catchphrase? I mean, I know it’s convenient as shorthand, but nobody ever wrote a good novel in shorthand. Maybe if we got somebody like James Joyce to write a realllllly long catchphrase, with lots of buried puns. I think there’s a danger of tunnel vision in playing by labels… it’s perhaps too easy to lose sight of a broader picture. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to have fettered Hugh or English Cut
If we must have a name for the “next thing” I still like “better choices,” which I see as including reputation, filtering (blogs, relationships, google, etc), maybe even things like experimentation, improvisation, openness.
I think collaboration is going to continue to play a more and more important role also…
add the two together and we have the next 2 steps in Maslow’s hierarchy.
once we have food, safety and love…we begin to desire esteem and self actualization. much of the market is driven by a desire for esteem and self actualization. we want to feel good about ourselves and after that, we want to help others feel good as well.
somewhere along the way, we became mired in the need for esteem. it seems much of our current marketing/branding is about feeling good about yourself. if we can’t get past esteem — especially self esteem — we can’t get to self actualization.
so, it is my hope that when the cluetrain and hughtrain meet, the end result is a fast track to self actualization. if you will — the pinnacle of needs express.
this should make for interesting conversation.…
“relationships are something to believe in”
the less we concentrate on esteem, the better our choices.
the less we concentrate on self, the better our relationships.
It might be interesting to try something Wiki-like but not exactly a Wiki.
This is just off the top of my head, so maybe it’s a very messy idea.
I imagine something where there’s an original article (by Hugh) and some combination of alterations, expansions, comments (with threads), and so on. Then there are different views of this collection, and you can switch between the views.
For a limited example, let’s say you can comment on a particular word or phrase in the article. So I comment on “Cluetrain/Hughtrain” — now there’s a view of the article where hovering on those words brings up a floating box with my comment. Sort of like what Flickr does, but with text, and probably with a lot more permutations.
It would be an interesting experiment. Has anybody seen anything like that around?
Maybe I should build a prototype…
see you in Paris!
transactions => conversations => relationships => communities
“markets are transactions” : the crap-ass state where 99% of business is stuck
“markets are conversations” : good! yes! but still, doesn’t imply longer-term thinking. a “conversation” may be a one-shot deal
“markets are relationships” : great! better! yes! however, still, has a feel to it where the “market” is a collection of disjoint pieces; it’s a collection of disjoint, unconnected relationships. still, relationships are longer-term, long-thinking, persistent things. this is good.
“markets are communities” : perhaps, the logical conclusion. markets are groups of interconnected relationships, where the collection of relationships are all pulling in the same, positive direction.
and, as doc would write…
Bonus link #1:
http://www.socialcustomer.com/2005/03/communities_cus.html
Bonus link #2:
http://www.socialcustomer.com/2005/03/we_v_they.html
To the person who said that markets have always been collaborations, I must disagree.
When was the last time Nike called you to ask about what kind of shoe you would like?
Or Macdonalds called you to ask what kind of food you would like?
Surveys and focus groups are not collaboration, and most companies are push only.
Larry Borsato, …and most companies are in a suicide pact with the people doing their marketing.
Now that’s funny.
Next thing? Stop patching the problems and dig deep and fix the underlying issues perhaps?
From separate-boxes-company-oriented hierarchies to customer-initiated-process-flow organisations — now that would help. (That was rather obscure, or what?)
The “flow-organisation”. You heard it here first, at Gapingvoid
Relationships plus Market for Something to Believe in is Infinite = Scientology