April 15, 2005
“the market for something to complain about is infinite”
This made my day. From Thom Lawrence:
It’s interesting that there’s a bit of a backlash over at gapingvoid. The whole English Cut thing has to stand as the best example of Cluetrain-style thinking actually bringing in the Houblons. And Hugh’s done a great job helping Thomas get the word out. But some of the calmer posters in that thread are right — it’s not news anymore, and it’s getting a bit stale.
I suppose what’s happened is this:Cluetrain works.
What’s next?Took the dinosaurs thousands of years to die out, and the mammals millions of years to get to the moon. I imagine the interregnum was largely like this: a lot of opposable-thumb-pointing but not much progress.
In the comments I reply:
Heh. I actually agree with you.
Still, it follows a pattern.
I write about something and it takes over my life. Then it gets old. Then I find something new to write about.
This happened with “How To Be Creative”, “The Hughtrain” and now English Cut.
Usually when I’ve been overdosing on a subject, the best cure is just to spend more time drawing cartoons. It clears the head pretty effectively.
Thanks for the feedback =)
“Cluetrain works. What’s next?” Exactly.
FreeTextBox Woes
You know, I’m just not convinced about this whole Cluetrain thingy. You’re a compelling and insightful writer that people respect and admire. Thus you ask us to buy suits and we do. That’s not a repeatable business model for those of us not blessed such a fine fist. I’ve got a blog with a few regular readers, but I’ll be damned if anyone would buy a 5 grand suit on my advice.
I bet Thomas has sold suits to some of your readers who haven’t event read the English Cut. I bet if you hadn’t promoted the English Cut his blog-based sales wouldn’t have taken off.
C’mon. You can’t invent a concept and claim to be its number 1 success story at the same time.
Can’t say I didn’t warn you, bro.
Is there a cartoon that goes “quiet desperation is for suckers” or was I imagining that?
T-shirts?
As one of your rabble of 100,000 who’s trying to make blogs work for my (obscure) clients, I’d suggest that you start from scratch for someone.
Give it 3 or 6 mos, don’t link to them from gapingvoid, don’t let on that you’re behind the effort.
See if you can get some semblance of visibility for a heretofore nameless, faceless Everyblogger.
Call it covert-train or some other clever derivitive, and really prove your point to the rest of us who are trying to scale the wall of power laws.
Hey Everybody, thanks for the feedback. All great advice. Seriously.
Nelbo, yes, you’re right. You did warn me
I doubt if anyone bought a Tom suit just because of Hugh. People don’t spend that kind of money on things they don’t already covet. (Or, if the five grand is meaningless to them, they don’t spend that kind of time getting measured.)
I think the magic here was that Hugh pointed people who didn’t have any particular tailor in mind in the direction of one particularly clueful elite suitmaker. And of course reminded a lot of us of our latent, occasional lust for high-quality, hand-made things with good stories behind them.
For me at least, Hugh’s at his best when he’s riffing on creative marketing ideas. Particularly about branding.
The thing that’s getting old about English Cut is not English Cut itself, not the story behind it, but the incessant focus on the associated activities. I’ve noticed a lot of “I did this, then I did that, now I’m going to do this at noon” type of posting lately, and that’s very much not what attracted me to the Gaping Void. It’s starting to get a little too meta for my taste lately.
Personally, I’d like to see the English Cut story continue, but not on the front page. Maybe in another section. Or maybe in the sidebar. Or maybe on English Cut itself, as a guest writer. Feature the major developments, but move the details elsewhere.
Anyway, that’s my 3.8 Forints. I’ve only been coming here for about a month, so make of it what you will.
At first, because Hugh’s pretty popular, I did wonder if English Cut was a success purely because it was the first bespoke outfit to really _go after_ people and do some halfway decent advertising.
But you’re not buying a suit on _Hugh’s_ advice. You’re buying it on Thomas’s. If the guy was an oaf, you’d know it immediately. There’s been an advert for Young Adam down the side of gapingvoid for months, and I don’t have the slightest temptation to see it (no offence) because it doesn’t look like my kind of thing.
I don’t see that it’s cheating the Cluetrain for Hugh to _start_ the conversation. But it got a whole lot smarter when Thomas started talking.
Anyway, I complained about this being a stale subject and I’m rambling on.
joehumanist’s idea sounds just like what Hugh was trying to achieve with the Hughtrain before English Cut took off — a behind-the-scenes mentoring approach. Email and IM and stuff. How _did_ that go?
I’d like to know where joe humanist has his blog. When I read what he wrote I was going to go check it out and give him a link (unless it was totally not my cup of tea). Start there.
I’m finding that it makes more sense to start conversations in the comments. Whuffie takes time.
You can try and break into the conversation with Suw, Hugh, Seth, Dan, Evelyn, but they’ve been at this a lot longer than you. I’m sure that many of my revelations are of the stary-eyed, gee whiz sort that won’t stir a response from someone who’s been at it for so long.
Anyone coming into the blogosphere has to realize that it’s like school. There’s always a freshman class. Find your peers in that freshman class, and build your own social network.
It’s not Amway. It’s not too late.
if someone has to ask, “what’s next?”, then you may be struggling with the entire cluetrain “thingy”.
there is no “next”. it is evolution and if you want a script/guidebook, sorry. that’s not how it works. it works the same way “english cut” has worked. connections were made, conversations were had and increased commerce was the outcome.
for business, as stated in cluetrain’s last page, we “don’t have any magic-bullet cure”. the only real tool for business is…“imagination can finally bring the curtain down”.
if you have to ask “what’s next”, then imagination is apparently not a strong suit. in an ever increasingly connected marketplace, lack of imagination is a very large liability. at least that’s my opinion…
When I asked ‘what’s next?’ it was more of a ‘well, that’s taken care of, who’s coming down the pub’ thing, but you’re absolutely right.
jbr: asking what’s next *is* basically what imagination is *for*. There is always a “next,” regardless of whether we’re comfortable or postioned for it. Thinking about what the next thing will be is generally considered to be more creative than happily tucking into the monument of the moment and considering history to be at a standstill. at least, that’s my opinion…
That said, there are pretty much always precedents. Conversations and word of mouth existed long before Cluetrain. The first caveman who said, “hey, *these* berries don’t make my tummy hurt like those bad berries over there,” was engaging in word of mouth. All he needed was rudimentary language… heck, hand gestures would have done it. All that’s really new about Cluetrain is the application of long-known, time-tested evangelism to readily accessible global communications networks. And maybe the idea that truth, honesty, passion and authenticity work better than BS when it’s so easy to fact-check… In any small village, this has been true for centuries.
Cluetrain and Hughtrain have not yet outlived their novelty, nor really hit the mainstream so deeply as to dull the edge past usefulness. But the day is in sight when we may find “conversations” to be as ubiquitous and annoying as commercial radio.
So what’s next? I expect it will be a new flavor, on a new scale, of something we were pretty much aware of already. My theory? Bespoke everything. The tech pretty much exists to have anything and everything custom fabricated at a price nearly in line with mass-manufactured products. Once we move beyond micro-brands to designing, producing and consuming everything on a personal level, I suppose the only brands worth talking about will be which fab shops have the best pricing, turnaround, tech support and customer service.
Not everyone has the time or inclination to design their own socks and toasters etc, so there’ll still be room for exceptional designs from people like Philippe Starke, or whoever. On the other hand, when 200,000 *have* designed their own toaster, I wouldn’t be surprised to see open source and file sharing of product design specs flood the bulk of the market. Whether these will be free or just really cheap is up for grabs. Probably both.
Now that I’ve laid all that out, I suppose I should be getting over to Amazon and looking for some Chinese language tapes, eh?
When I asked ‘what’s next?’ it was more of a ‘well, that’s taken care of, who’s coming down the pub’ thing, but you’re absolutely right.
Jumping Into The Fray Again At gapingvoid: “the market for something to complain about is infinite”
Maybe the action is picking up again over at gapingvoid as reader revolt spawns conversation about
john t. enjoyed those insights.…maybe, we don’t need chinese tapes just yet. at some point, i suspect the ebay nation will will begin to infiltrate the blogosphere and fill some of the custom made marketplace. so far, it seems ebay is a separate environment, but it’s not too difficult to imagine a transition…
in fact, thinking out loud and intending no insult to Thomas/Hugh; in the rare instance that they get “stiffed” on a suit and end up with inventory, they “could” liquidate that inventory via that market mechanism. i doubt this would ever occur for them, but it’s an illustration of blurring the lines.
so, yes, i agree that asking the question, “what’s next?” is a method to trigger imagination. it’s the conscious verbalization of our natural human nature.
Alan: You’re right. It’s not too late. In fact, those of us just starting are right on time.
Joe: It would be nice to see what would happen without Gaping Void wastah behind a new project. It’s probably already happening.
John: Bespoke everything may be the next wave. I think people actually need FEWER choices, and blogs, etc. can help us narrow the field and cut down the clutter.
Then we can have “smarter conversations” about something other than our new toaster.
Timbo: Few choices. Witness Sam’s Club. One choice for frozen orange juice. Cheaper than any grocery store. It’s a commodity anyway. I’m learning to dislike Kroger with it’s cards, cupons, and sales. You’re in the grocery business. Give me the lowest price for the best orange juice.
Also, with Craig’s List, I think we’re going to buy more durable goods. Why buy a new exercise bike? You know someone is giving up on an exercise bike, buy it of Craig’s List. Then sell it when you are sick of it. The path from factory to landfill will no longer be so direct.
If I’m buying off Craig’s List, I’ll look for something durable. Now we’re looking at durability and resale value of more than just automobiles. If the materials we purchase retain value, we shop for maximum retention of value.
English Cut is riding that wave.
John T. Have you heard of Fab Labs?
Bespoke everything, yes.
Design your own toaster, yes.
Patents are the evil that stands in our way.
I think is is a mixture of bespoke and the long tail. We we all be able to assemble new objects tailored to our needs. The component parts will be captured in software (for toasters in CAD/CAM diagrams). Some folks tailor and fit. Others conjure up new components.
Nothing quite like it yet. Open source software is close, but still not atomic enough. The new model for software is the bespoke and long tail programmer.
A long tail programmer makes a small part to do a single task. Google routes part to the application where it falls into place with a happy snap. The bespoke programmer is the one calling together the parts to create software to tailored to fit the individual.
It spills into manufacturing eventually.
John T: you make it sound like Bespoke Everything would mean the commoditization of design. I’d love to think that ‘bespoke’ is more about collaboration than it is about listing my own personal requirements.
Tom Peters says companies should be obsessed with customer SUCCESS and not just customer SERVICE. I want to see the new breed of Bespoke Everything companies taking my ideas and setting their crafts-people free on them. Give me the product I was _imagining_ not the one I was just fumbling around trying to _describe_.
Thom L: I see Bespoke Everything as not as commoditization of design, rather a matter of routing design. People who make the parts are going to be evolving a base of code. It is about collaboration. Software is going to start to look like Jazz.
I’ve been asking “what’s next” for the last six years. The next thing always comes up, along with the last thing. Like some of you say, it’s an evolutionary thing. Circular, sort of. The Invisible Hand writes in cursive. Also in cartoons. You can’t see it if your life is the nib.
By the way, the next step after Cluetrain, IMHO, is Markets are Relationships. Of course, Hugh/Thomas/TheRestofUs are already there, no?
When I stop being fat, I want one of those suits.
Doc: Absolutely. It’s all about relationships. Hugh has the it’s not about Who You Know, It’s Who Trusts You cartoon, which has become my mantra.
I think, too, that everyone is a futures market. That we’ll get paid for what we will do, not what we’ve done.
but, Doc, a suit by Thomas will accentuate your form and highlight your strengths/assets. people will see “you” and not a body form. they will see the intelligence, the wit…your very essence.
that’s what a suit by Thomas will do for you…
by the way, likely a frequent dumb question to you.…any plans for a Cluetrain part deux? sort of a “let’s check in on the world and determine progress”? it would be an interesting post.
Wow. This *is* a nice thread, eh?
Timbo: Well, do we need fewer choices, more choices or better choices? I think it’s really context dependent. And maybe, no pun intended, a matter of personal choice.
Being able to style a commodity, appliance, or product to fit the exact vision you have for your life will certainly appeal to many. The ability to tailor things exactly to your own lifestyle, workflow, idiosyncrasies etc is likely to be what really drives the long tail. I figure a good example is the way Firefox released a stripped down and highly functional browser, then allowed *anyone* to write and distribute plugins to modify its behavior on any level… I love tabbed browsing, but hated the fact that I couldn’t drag the tabs to reorganize the order of pages. Hey, there’s a plug-in for that! If it’s happening in software, it will happen in hardware too. It already is.
As far as fewer choices goes, yes, certainly filters will be a big part of the marketplace and blogs will be one of those filtration mechanisms, just as google is, or IMDB. Already, I’m quite accustomed to filtering all my news intake through trusted sources who post on specific areas of interest. Your grocery store metaphor is a good one… Yeah, I would love to go to a store that just has one good simple choice for everything, but *my* idea of that store is not going to be the same as *your* idea of that store… Mine would have no seafood for example. ever.
Hence, better choices. Two good models here would be amazon, whose recommendations to me are generally on target (I know because they keep suggesting stuff I already have), and Zingerman’s, who offer many choices but only the finest ones. If you can be pretty sure that *any* of the 56 kinds of olive oil are equally good, if different, then it doesn’t matter so much which one you grab, right? On the other hand if you feel like learning more, experimenting, or being entertained you might happily spend 20 minutes taste-testing, reading labels, talking to educated store clerks and so on.
I think “better choices,” like Hugh’s “better conversations,” is the way to go. In fact, maybe “better choices” is what we should call the next thing, eh?
Alan: Yes, Fab Labs, exactly. I *so* want one delivered to my shop, like stat. heh. Also e-machineshop.com, etc. I’ve posted links to a few such resources over at my own blog. I didn’t realize I could hot-link in the comments here…
Software looking like jazz: Beautiful! Can I quote you on that endlessly? I think, really, it already does.
Patents I’ll have to get back to you on. I have issues from here to the moon with the current state of copyright and IP law, but I just applied for a provisional patent last week. There are some things I make that I’m totally not worried about patenting… They’re so long tail that I should be able to fill the niche and move on before anyone tries to scoop me. There are other things I wouldn’t mind having a bit of a head start on. And then yet other things that are good ideas, but not my bag, which I’ll most likely give away just so *someone* can make them.
Relationships: Definitely. The thing that’s less obvious for some is that you just need to introduce yourself sometimes, in order to know people. If you’re doing everything else right, trust should follow naturally.
Thom: I hate to break this to you, but design is among the most heavily commodified markets out there… Designers may deny this, of course, but in the end they need to eat like everyone else. When we do something with no regard for market forces, well, then, that’s “art.” I do both, sometimes for the same project. Honestly, I really see nothing wrong with commodities, so long as they are interesting, well made, well designed and don’t exceed an appropriate level of ubiquity. I mean, I still have no urge to kick someone just ’cause they’re listening to an ipod, you know? People that drive HumVees, on the other hand…
Bespoke should be about collaboration, yes. But the client’s “personal requirements” are part of that collaboration. Projects begin when someone sees and likes my work. Then we work together to figure out what they want, which is very much a dialogue. In fact, that’s often the longest part of the process. In this relationship, my job is often to help them express what they can’t quite articulate themselves — very much like what you describe at the end of your comment. I need to be able to mediate between what’s physically practical (engineering) and the deep inchoate longing buried somewhere in the client’s heart. Then again, sometimes they actually know exactly what they want. And sometimes they just turn me loose, because the trust thing is working and they know that they will like whatever comes out.
“companies should be obsessed with customer SUCCESS and not just customer SERVICE.”
Yes. Absolutely! Just like Kathy Sierra’s “I Rule” experience. I also think that it can be very rearding for everyone to get the client involved in the process and not just the end result. I find that much of my best work has been the stuff that had the highest collaboration factor. And, when finished, it also is usually the stuff that has the most personal relationship to the buyer. I’m also exploring a new model of affiliate involvement over at my ArtBuzz blog.
Hugh posted about it earlier, but it’s evolved somewhat since the early version and I’d love some feedback from any of you if you have a moment to check it out. The place to start is here.
Okay, I still don’t know how to link in the comments after all. What I meant to say was: “The place to start is:
http://johntunger.typepad.com/artbuzz/2005/03/welcome_to_artb.html
John T: Yes, “better choices” is fine, as long as I don’t spend so much time figuring out which ones fit that description that I lose the chance to enjoy them.
“The Invisible Hand writes in cursive…You can’t see it if your life is the nib.”
Damn, that’s good.
“Markets are relationships.”
Hmmm. That sounds pre-Cluetrain, when everything was about “relationship marketing”. Remember “1 – 2-1″ and all that stuff?
What’s next is that enough people get it that we aren’t having to tell big slow companies about it, and the whole mechanism is working better, better, best at giving people what they want when they want it where they want it, whether it is media, manufactured, new or used.
I used to visit gapingvoid more often, but then it became one big advertisement for English Cut.
The “conversation” got boring because you always talk about the same thing.
Less talk about English Cut, and more talk about Hughtrain kinda stuff.
Thanks