Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Filed under: intentions

On Internet Apocalypso

PERCEIVED INTENTIONS

A side tells me its bias is on the people outside the organization. The initial installment of the Cluetrain Manifesto treated top management as entities that are way too serious, if not extremely wanting, to control and exercise power over the organization and that is inherently bad. It talked about how managers should learn to shun being goal-oriented in place of playing in order to really connect with their market, comprising of their workers and the rest of the unique individuals on the Internet.

By revealing facts about how corporations are using or misusing the Internet, the people are empowered so that they will not fall too easily on the traps made for gullible consumers by advertisers and media buyers. It served as an eye opener so that they may realize how much their being a unique human is oftentimes forgotten by companies that are rather directed by their own selfish motives; hence, the rationale for them to speak up. The other side says it is to educate corporations. Though it may seem that corporations are defenseless looking at the revelations mentioned in the chapter, it still boiled down to the big idea of finding ways on how to attract the consumers of today given the changes in how people transact business, resulting from trends in the Internet usage. Corporations will not necessarily be kinder to their employees for the sake of being kind nor will they be more visible to their external public. Rather, it is another measure that they are taking in order to hit the consumer’s soft spot in product selection and buying. Whatever measure that may be…

  • allowing the external visitors to access some information from their Intranet;
  • setting up a real time technical support online;
  • opening up an online forum for the market to voice their concerns; or
  • allowing their janitors to author their corporate blog viewable by external people (and this was done in the Philippines already!);

…any top manager maintains the attribute of being goal oriented, with generating the highest possible profit as the ultimate goal. Imagine a top manager whose sight is not focused on reaching the goal. Where will ideas come from? He may not show direct interest in profit generation by disguising it as his desire for promotion; in any case it is partly contingent on the amount of money that they bring to the organization. They will only differ, then, on the creativity that they will employ in the process. After all, being goal oriented and playing (in the context provided by the Manifesto) are not mutually exclusive.

PERSONAL INCLINATION

I found it quite paradoxical for the author to actually talk about conditions where organizations can amass consumer purchases, which is by allowing people in organizations to play and connect to those outside the organization. This was after he mentioned on a negative note about how people are merely treated as units in a demographic survey, eventually being readied for advertisers. The stand is not clear. Or it is perhaps just peculiar in the sense that all he wanted was for companies and consumers to not take commerce to heart. Life, he said, must not be all about buying and selling, producing and owning. It is not business that should dominate the lives of the people; instead, it should be something else, something bigger, something more special—like personalized communication. Truth is some people will still have the same role as consumers, which can also be owed to the fact that in the business ecology, there will always be consumers and there will always be producers. It is the order of life and if one wants to change roles, from consumers to owners of the means and modes of production, then reading this chapter and incorporating it into his business may help him succeed. In that case, the Manifesto taught corporations, or corporate gods and goddesses wannabes, how they can leverage the Internet technology, albeit in a subtle way. The advent of the Internet brought to people opportunities to be heard of in ways that was rather not possible before. And it even required revamping of the previously held beliefs of organizations in the aspects of management and control in the new workplace, as well as rules in conducting business in the new marketplace. Power and control derived from information is also more decentralized than ever. Yet, all these do not preclude the fact that the present culture on Internet use made sustaining commerce an even more attractive endeavor, with all the creative, interactive acts that can be tried, instead of fully shifting people’s mindsets.