Hi people,
I'm new here, so I guess I'm still learning what kinds of conversations happen on this blog, but I'm a bit surprised that people are into the Cluetrain Manifesto. I mean, the first line in the list of theses, "Markets are a conversation", is creepy and ridiculous. It's the same 90s management literature rhetoric rehashed, the kind of crap that got us to the point where we as a nation believe that markets are a more democratic form of social order than an actual democratically elected government (or any other form of social organization). It's called market populism, and it's the rhetoric that tells us that whatever the market does is what the people want- because the market is their voice, they vote with their dollars. They converse by buying. They CONSENT by buying. Therefore to question what the market does (send jobs overseas, drive down wages, etc) is unpatriotic- because you are questioning the people's will. This isn't new stuff, all throughout the 90s  people like Peter Senge, Thomas Friedman, and the utterly bonkers Tom Peters (who, interestingly, blurbs Small Pieces Loosley Joined), were raving about the righteousness of markets and their role as the people's voice for change. Their management theory books go on and on about 'revolutionary' approaches to business, they co-opt the language of the left to describe how companies should be 'anti-heirarchical' and pro-change, which mainly meant getting rid of middle management, firing the shop floor employees and rehiring them as temps in the name of flexibility, and decreasing the job stability of everyone else- all while renaming upper management with whimsical, revolutionary titles like 'Chief Change Officer". The idea that a company should be flexible enough to bend to the whims of the market really just translates to the company should be able to do whatever it needs to do in order to make the most money, workers and the environment be damned. And if you question their 'revolutionary, pro-change' actions, or if you dare to suggest that a labor union might be a better way to let the people's voices be heard, then you are clearly one of those unpatriotic, snobbish intellectuals. This is a rhetoric of rationalization, and nothing else.
And things like "20. Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them."? Companies DID realize this. A LONG time ago. That's when they started using irony in advertising. That's when advertising became self-referential and self-conscious. This process began IN THE SEVENTIES and there is a vast body of advertising and management literature on exactly this subject. I kind of can't believe these people are presenting this as new!
Hopefully I am making sense, but either way I HUGELY encourage people to read Thomas Frank's GENIUS book on precisely this subject: One Market Under God. It speaks eloquently and interestingly about books like Cluetrain. And what market populism and 'revolutionary' management literature has really meant for our culture and our workers. It's a fascinating book, and even if you love Cluetrain, you might be interested in checking out the opposite viewpoint.
Please Please Please investigate this book here: http://www.tcfrank.com/omug.html

1. Markets are a conversation
7. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy
39. The community of discourse is the market

What? C'mon dudes, we can do better than that!