From Library Journal
Beginning as 95 posted theses in March 1999, the Cluetrain Manifesto (http://www. cluetrain.com) quickly sparked a lively Internet conversation about the current nature of business. The idea came from a former veteran executive from a now-defunct Fortune 500 firm when he was describing his firm's plummet: "The clue train stopped here four times a day for ten years, and they never took delivery." Authors Levine (Sun Guide to Web Style), Doc Searls (president, The Searls Group), et al., present their view of how the Internet is changing the very way people discuss their business challenges and how it's making markets smarter and faster. As the authors say, business-as-usual is gone forever, and this new "clue train" acts as a wake-up call, offering answers that are often couched in anecdotes and war stories. The narrative rides the razor's edge between glib hype and substance, and though readers may find that it occasionally dips deep into the New Age genre, this is for the most part a weighty work that gets at the heart of the matter: the powerful impact the Internet has had and will continue to have on our fundamental concept of organizational structure, management style, and market success. Highly recommended for all academic and larger public libraries.
-Dale F. Farris, Groves, TX
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
The Internet is loosening the corset strings of businesspretty much sloughing off the whole cruel garmentsuggest computer-folk Levine, Locke, Searls, and Weinberger; and businesses that don't get natural soon won't have any customers. At once atavistic and nimble, Levine, Locke, Searls, and Weinberger ring the changes brought by the Internet, which for them have one particular, radiant elementthe humanity of it all: human language, the human love of fabulous stories, the human joy in mingling aesthetics with all aspects of life. The Internet and intranet workstations encourage open, unaffected, uncontrived talk, giving back to business the banter of the bazaar, where laughter and personality were the spices and a person's word the lubrication. The book pokes its finger, repeatedly and deeply, in the eye of corporate business practice, sweeping before it such self-destructive constructs as management pyramids, corporate firewalls, the culture of secrecy and hierarchy, flacks and hucksters, and advertising's jargon and eye candy. Although the Internet may not make people ``smarter,'' it certainly exposes them to more informationif they can wade through all the material and winnow the good from the badand allows in many cases unfettered access to the makers of the goods, which is why it is the godsend for the artisan and a boon for the buyer who still likes the maker's mark upon the product. There are no wall-to-wall answers here, so cherished by quick-fix business books, for all producers must express themselves individually. That unpredictability is also one of the charms of Levine and Co. Playful and leveling in their anti-bureaucratic and non-hierarchical tone, they love plain talk about substance and values. Their manifesto is as demanding as a Bill of Rights, yet so broadly applicable it rubs shoulders with Brownian motion. A different brand of business book, thank goodness: saucy, heartfelt, and warmly appealing in its faith in the commonwealth. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
"...Cluetrain's authors are right in what they say. Networks-the Internet, intranets, and extranets-are changing everything, and corporations must adapt or become roadkill...an insightful book..." -- Business 2.0
"...Locke & Co. produced The Cluetrain Manifesto, a screed urging businesses to make their corporate communication more honest, open, and engaging... The document created a buzz in marketing circles and sparked a nascent Cluetrain movement...Now, in the just released The Cluetrain Manifesto, [they]...expand on their Net-savvy marketing primer." -- Wired
"A dose of The Cluetrain Manifesto could go a long way toward showing the willing-but-ignorant that for a healthy company, enabling conversations is a business opportunity-not a risk...One of the most refreshing business books ever." -- Sm@rt Reseller
"Controversial." -- Techweek
"If you are a raving radical about the Internet, you'll find the authors to be kindred spirits. Even if you're not, the book provokes new ways of thinking about business. It may even turn you into one of those radicals." -- Eric Nee, Context
"Locke's cooked up a crazy and brilliant and rather hotheaded business book/philosophy called The Cluetrain Manifesto, and with a few e-mail buddies managed to sneak this madness past a lot of corporate entities who ought to have been very, very afraid of publishing something so smart and obnoxious and true. The Cluetrain Manifesto is a highly effective device for kicking out the jams on what you thought you knew about being a consumer and citizen in the year 2000. -- Seattle Weekly
"Provocative." -- The Book Page
"Read it...these guys are on to something...The Cluetrain Manifesto offers a simple message...and it's turning business right-side up." -- Knowledge Management
"The Manifesto is the pretentious, strident, and absolutely brilliant creation of four marketing gurus who have renounced marketing as usual." -- Thomas Petzinger, Jr., The Wall Street Journal
"The chapter called 'Markets are Conversations' alone is worth the price of admission...an educational and entertaining way to pass the time until the old guard capitalists get a clue." -- Upside
"[The Cluetrain Manifesto is] the most important business book since In Search of Excellence...Get a clue. Read the book." -- Jeff Angus, Information Week
"[An] irreverent book [that] strikes a responsive chord on e-commerce dichotomy...It's honest. It's funny. It makes a whole heck of a lot of sense." -- Rocky Mountain News
From the Author
Christopher Locke clocke@panix.com
Unlike any other business book you've ever read.
Does the cluetrain manifesto tell business where to get off -- or how to get on? A bit of both, actually. The book unpacks the ideas telegraphically presented in our "95 Theses" that appeared on the web in the Spring of 1999. A mere 17 days after the site went live, cluetrain was the focus of an above-the-fold story on the front page of The Wall Street Journal's Marketplace section. Tom Petzinger wrote there: "The Manifesto is the pretentious, strident and absolutely brilliant creation of four marketing gurus who have renounced marketing-as-usual." We don't think of ourselves as gurus, just as four guys who've thought a whole lot about business and the Internet. By the way, the pretentiousness was my contribution. Much of the brilliance came from my co-conspirators (and co-authors): David Weinberger, Rick Levine and Doc Searls.
The premise of the book is that markets are conversations. However, the industrial revolution, and everything that followed in its wake right up until today, has represented a 200-year-long interruption of this dialogue. We explain how the Internet brings it back -- with a vengeance -- both in the online marketplace and inside wired corporations.
The book as a whole is subtitled: "the end of business as usual." Is it? Read the book to find out. And please: don't reveal the exciting conclusion!
We had a lot of fun writing this. We hope you'll have fun reading it. If you gain penetrating new insights into the dynamics of e-commerce, we'll be very pleased. If it makes you blow coffee out your nose, even better!
About the Author
Rick Levine is web architect for Sun Microsystems' Java Software group. He is responsible for the creation of much of the public web interface for java.sun.com and the Java Developer Connection. He is also the creator of hatfactory.com and author of the Sun Guide to Web Style. Christopher Locke publishes Entropy Gradient Reversals from Boulder, Colorado. He has worked for Fujitsu, Carnegie Mellon University, Mecklermedia, MCI, and IBM, and has written extensively for publications such as Forbes, Byte, Internet World, and Information Week.
Doc Searls is the senior editor for Linux Journal, the first and only magazine for the Linux space. He is also president of The Searls Group, the Silicon Valley marketing consultancy. He has written on technology and business for OMNI, PC Magazine, and Upside. His own Web 'zine is Reality 2.0.
David Weinberger is the publisher of JOHO (Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization). He is a regular commentator on National Public Radio and a columnist for KMWorld and Intranet Design Magazine. He has written for Wired, The New York Times, and Smithsonian.
