Cluetrain-A-Day 2009: Introduction.

Hi. Since this past Thursday morning at 12:00AM, it’s been 2009. You’ve said, “it’s going to be better than 2008″. You’ve said “I’m going to resolve…”.

Screw that. Year long resolutions are too long to keep, which is why they’re so rarely kept. I’m making a resolution to make smaller resolutions this year. Want to play along?

What are you going to do for the first 95 days of 2009?

I figure the first 3 months of the year is a pretty solid commitment to anything. Lucky for me, I’m not committing to the gym, or to eat better (though I hope to do that anyway). I’m committing to working my way through the 95 theses of The Cluetrain Manifesto to riff, expound, and hopefully ask new questions about what they mean today.

What’s that? You haven’t read Cluetrain yet? Go buy yourself a copy now (disclosure: affiliate link). You’ll thank me. I promise. In fact, you should buy one for a business associate you care about as well. They’ll thank you.

This series won’t refer to the original Cluetrain so much that you MUST read it, but I can’t recommend enough that you should read it anyway.

Kudos goes to Annie Heckenberger for the original call to action here. We often talk about how much better off the PR and Marketing industries would be if, as a pre-requisite to entering the profession, they had to read Cluetrain.

What’s wild is that now that it’s 2009, that means that Cluetrain has been around for 10 years. In fact, according to Archive.org, cluetrain.com’s first version was May 8, 1999. While this may or may not be accurate, it is poetic. If I post about one thesis each week day for 95 days starting this upcoming Monday, I’ll push the final post live on May 1st15th, 2009, just one week before after Cluetrain.com’s 10th birthday. (Seems my weekly math was off).

And so it will be.

Beginning this Monday, January 5th, 2009, I’ll take on thesis #1: Markets are Conversations.

95 days is a lot of writing. I’ll be reaching out to respected friends and mentors for guest posts. If you have posts that you’re interested in guest posting for, let me know which one and we’ll discuss the editorial calendar.

At the end, I’m confident we’re going to have something very interesting. Something very exciting. And something worthy of celebrating the 10th birthday of one of the most important books I’ve ever read.

I hope you’ll join me in this experiment. You can even subscribe to just these posts or have them emailed to you.

Oh, and a HUGE thanks to the original authors for writing a book that now, a decade later, is as relevant if not more relevant than it was when it first was published. I tip my hat to the site’s creators: Rick Levine, Chris Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger. You’ve inspired a generation, but to hell with them, you’ve inspired me.

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January 2, 2009 | Filed Under business, cluetrain-a-day-2009, community, consulting, creative | Tags:

 

Comments

19 Responses to “Cluetrain-A-Day 2009: Introduction.”

  1. Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: Markets are Conversations on January 5th, 2009 10:10 am

    [...] theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto as they relate to business in 2009. Read more about the series in the introduction post. And check out the rest of the [...]

  2. Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors. on January 6th, 2009 9:03 am

    [...] theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto as they relate to business in 2009. Read more about the series in the introduction post. And check out the rest of the [...]

  3. Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice. on January 7th, 2009 9:00 am

    [...] theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto as they relate to business in 2009. Read more about the series in the introduction post. And check out the rest of the [...]

  4. David Weinberger on January 7th, 2009 4:22 pm

    Alex, thanks for doing this!

    It’s great to see these ideas reinterpreted, and taken up in a public conversation.

    I look forward to it.

    Best,

    David W.

  5. Alex Hillman on January 7th, 2009 4:26 pm

    @David Weinberger: Wow, David. It’s a pleasure and an HONOR to have you reading and commenting along!

  6. Rick Levine on January 7th, 2009 4:41 pm

    Cool idea, Alex! Can’t wait to see what you do with some of the more interesting ones towards the end. (The ones where we were obviously up past our collective bedtimes…)

    rick

  7. Alex Hillman on January 7th, 2009 4:59 pm

    Rick, thrilled to have you here as well.

    To both of you, I want to thank you for essentially writing out my editorial calendar here. This is going to be a fun ride!

  8. Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived. on January 8th, 2009 9:01 am

    [...] theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto as they relate to business in 2009. Read more about the series in the introduction post. And check out the rest of the [...]

  9. Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice. on January 9th, 2009 9:01 am

    [...] theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto as they relate to business in 2009. Read more about the series in the introduction post. And check out the rest of the [...]

  10. Chris Locke on January 9th, 2009 8:09 pm

    Alex, this IS dangerously awesome! Good timing too, as a 10th anniversary edition of the book will be hitting the stands sometime this year. David, Doc, Rick and I have all written additional chapters for that, but by the time it hits, you will undoubtedly have written more than all of us combined. Thanks!

  11. Doc Searls Weblog · Cluecade on January 10th, 2009 12:10 pm

    [...] most remarkable of the current crop is Alex Hillman’s Cluetrain-A-Day 2009, at his blog, Dangerously Awesome. His latest unpacks Thesis #5, People recognize each other as [...]

  12. Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media. on January 11th, 2009 10:27 pm

    [...] theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto as they relate to business in 2009. Read more about the series in the introduction post. And check out the rest of the [...]

  13. Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy. on January 13th, 2009 12:01 am

    [...] theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto as they relate to business in 2009. Read more about the series in the introduction post. And check out the rest of the [...]

  14. Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: In both internetworked markets and among intranetworked employees, people are speaking to each other in a powerful new way. on January 14th, 2009 9:01 am

    [...] theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto as they relate to business in 2009. Read more about the series in the introduction post. And check out the rest of the [...]

  15. Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge. on January 15th, 2009 6:46 pm

    [...] theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto as they relate to business in 2009. Read more about the series in the introduction post. And check out the rest of the [...]

  16. Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: In just a few more years, the current homogenized “voice” of business—the sound of mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court. on January 23rd, 2009 3:24 pm

    [...] theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto as they relate to business in 2009. Read more about the series in the introduction post. And check out the rest of the [...]

  17. Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone. : dangerouslyawesome.com on January 26th, 2009 1:22 am

    [...] theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto as they relate to business in 2009. Read more about the series in the introduction post. And check out the rest of the [...]

  18. are you any closer? « best in the world on January 27th, 2009 10:32 am

    [...]  however you decide to do it (jullien is picking one thing to focus on during the year, while alex is going to set one goal every 3 months) doesn’t matter;  what matters is that you set [...]

  19. What is Social Media? Finally, an explianation your grandparents can understand. | Phillypreneurs on February 27th, 2009 10:44 am

    [...] to Alex Hillman for the Cluetrain [...]

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