Video to Introduce the Book Review

The Cluetrain Manifesto: Book Review

Levine R., Locke C., Searls D. and Weinberger D. (2001). The Cluetrain Manifesto. Cambrige: Cambrige Center

The book The Cluetrain Manifesto by Levine, Locke, Searls and Weinberger, addresses important issues about the communication between companies with customers and employees. They point out that companies have forgotten the human side and had ignored not only their customers, but also their employees. Companies claim to communicate with their customers, but this communication is only a one way communication, in which companies are doing all the talking. On the other hand customers and employees have already started a two way communication thanks to the Internet. Companies need to enter and be a part of this networking conversation which is changing the way that marketing, advertising and public relations have been done before. The authors agreed that if companies refuse to join this conversation that their business will suffer. However, asking the companies to change their old ways of doing business is be very difficult, because they have been doing business in one way that had brought them not only success, but revenues as well. If they are able to change these “old ways” to run their business then they will not only have the opportunity to listen, but to innovate and improve their products or services.

The Cluetrain Manifesto connects the current conversation with the conversation that started five thousand years ago in the market place “the market place was the hub of civilization, a place to which traders returned for remote lands with exotic spices, silks, monkeys, parrots jewels-and fabulous conversations”(9). Locke states that commerce back then was a natural part of human life, but later companies started divorcing not only their workers, but their customers and “huge factories took the place of village shops; the market place moved from the center of the town and came to depend on far-flung mercantile trade” (10). However, thanks to the Internet these human conversations have started again.

Currently, customers can use blogs, social platforms and engine searches to find what they look for. As a result customers have more choices; they talk and listen to others about a product or a service. They are honest and ready to move on, while companies are stuck in their own old ways of control. They want to have complete power over what their customers consume, they don’t understand that thanks to the Internet they can shop somewhere else because customers don’t have any time or distance limitations anymore. “The Net represents cheap natural resources (data), cheap transport (the pipe itself) and most important, cheap and efficient access to global know-how” (15). Another mistake that companies are making is to think that their brand will save them. For example, a customer that needs to buy a new television has many options, one is to buy it in a store, or buy it on-line and once the customer logs on, the choices become massive. A customer can buy a Sony television that costs over one thousand dollars only because of the brand, but if the customer decides to do a price and brand research, the customer may change his/her mind when he/she finds out that there is another product with the same or better reviews than Sony and for a couple of hundred less. This is the power of the Internet, a power that now is on the hands of the customers and not big manufacturers.

Another aspect studied in this book as part of this conversation is the employees’ role in this market conversation, which is not only to be in direct contact with the customers, but being part of the conversation that their employers refuse to join. Employees want to help, they have useful ideas for their employers, but they don’t want to listen. Lock states that “the fact is, people at the bottommost tiers of the organization often have far more valuable knowledge than managers and corporate control freaks.” (19) Employers build very expensive intranets so that they have a way to say that they are listening, but the truth is that the intranet is full of human resources messages that no one wants to read because the messages are boring and since is a one way communication in which the only ones talking are the managers, no one cares. Managers need to use the intranet for conversation purposes like letting employers express their new ideas on how to improve a product or a service, and why not they are the ones that are part of the big conversation with customers. So far I haven’t heard of a customer talking to a CEO or ED. As a customer you want to talk to someone who listens to them, not someone who is going to read or re-state the company’s policies. For example, not so long ago a customer was having a problem with Comcast and he decided to talk about it on Twitter, a micro blog, a Comcast employee caught it and was able to resolve the customer’s problem. As a result now Comcast has a Twitter account where customers can talk to Comcast employee (http://twitter.com/comcastcares).

In conclusion, the power of market conversations can create product reputation by checking with others before they buy a product. This is a good example that in his market conversation the word of mouth is now global and powerful. Companies need to change their strategy manuals, they need to listen, they need to talk to their customers with a real voice and avoid the buzz phrases like “high performance system solutions” or “innovative system architecture”(105), they need to bring back the trust, they need to stop sending their public relations people to talk to the press because their employees are already talking, they need to join the conversation as humans, not as a legal entity because no one wants to talk to them, they need to add their names to the conversation, add a point of view, a sense of humor and most important, to add passion. The conversation is not only a chatting place it is also a way to coordinate distribution (175). These are not easy changes to implement, however companies must try harder to incorporate some of these ideas. They need to join the conversation because no one will stop. And with more products and services options available to customers, companies need to realize that this conversation is growing everywhere and expensive TV advertising will not do the trick anymore. They need to be a part of this conversation, before is too late.

Book Review Sources:

Disruptive Technologies and Small New Markets

HBR, Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave by Joseph L. Bower and Clayton M. Christensen, explains why historically companies prefer investing on sustaining technologies versus disruptive technologies, which can make their business fail in times that markets are constantly changing, and offers alternatives to companies to avoid this scenario of failure. This article from the Harvard Business Review was written back in 1995, and even though you may think that companies would have learned from past mistakes, currently in 2009, they still making the same mistake. But why?

Earlier in the article the authors explained that one of the main reasons of this failure is because companies stay close to their customers. They usually ask their customers if they want this new technology to find out the size of the market and if this new product will bring profits to the company. But why is this wrong, after all according to late strategies in business, they should be listening to their customers? For example, according to The Cluetrain Manifesto by Levine, Locke, Searls and Winberger, companies need to engage in old market models in which customers talk about a product and offer their opinion about it, and most importantly, companies will listen. Why is this model of listening to the customers not working for established businesses dealing with disruptive technologies?

One of the main reasons is that most of their mainstream customers only want a product with high performance and not a new product, which only appeals to small or emerging markets. However, later when the disruptive technologies become successful in these new markets, then those mainstream customers want that technology that they initially rejected. This brings me back to The Cluetrain Manifesto in which it states that the power of word of mouth is very powerful and that is why companies need to listen to the customers. In the case of establish companies dealing with disruptive technologies, they have only listened to mainstream customers. But why?

Some of the reasons besides bureaucracy, arrogance, poor planning and short-term investments are the company’s revenue and cost structure, “Generally disruptive technologies look financially unattractive.” However, there are alternatives that these companies can use like going down-market and accept lower profit margins from the emerging markets or after these companies have spotted this new disruptive technology, they need to create an organization within the company that is completely independent from the mainstream business, so that they can build up the market. One good example of failure as a result of ignoring a disruptive technology with a small market was the American automobile industry. They decided to ignore the green technology perhaps because it was financially unattractive, after all the market for cars with green technology was very small ten years ago, but as we learned more about global warming and green technology this market grew. In this case the American companies paid more attention to the sustaining technology and ignore the new disruptive technology. The mistake they made was not to pay any attention to the small new market.

Currently, there are many potential small markets out there and established companies need to pay more attention to them. They need to think out of the box, they need to realize that just because they won’t make huge profits at first it doesn’t mean that later their profits won’t increase, they need to remember that any new technology once is tried and successful in a small market then the power of the word of mouth will take care of the mainstream market. So far it has been proven to be the case.

Final Project Idea: Mobile Technology in Mexico

Thesis:

Analogue cell phones today allow Mexican people to communicate from almost anywhere with others by making a simple cell phone call. However as this technology continues to innovate its interface, analogue cell phones now allow its users to go beyond just a simple call, it allows them to exchange pictures, videos, music, text messages and even e-mail. How is this new technology on analogue cell phones impacting the Mexican cell phone market?

Statement of intent:

I intend to conduct a research in the Mexican cell phone market especially focused in the analogue cell phone. According to the Mexican Federal Commission of Communication (Comision Federal de Telecomunicaciones), the cell phone was introduced in Mexico in 1990. Cell phone users grew about 397% in 13 years in comparison of the telephone users that grew only 17% in 32 years. Since the introduction of the cell phone in Mexico, there have been many changes done to the interface and services of the cell phone, allowing Mexicans to have access to the analogue cell phone. As a result the number of customers increased from 69 thousand in 1990 to 27,427 million in 2003. The latest interface innovations of the analogue cell phone continues to provide more and more features that allow customers to exchange videos, music, pictures, text messages and e-mail, this changes not only the telephone market, but the way that Mexicans communicate and connect with each other.

This research will discuss and evaluate the changes of the cell phone in the Mexican market as well as the current usage of the analogue cell phone among Mexicans. This paper will look into the history of the market growth of the telephone in comparison to the rapid growth of the cell phone in Mexico. It will also explore the current use of analogue cell phone and projecting ahead into the future of the analogue cell phone all the way to the G-phone, and the social impacts of this technology in the Mexican society.

Citation:

Comision Federal de Comunicaciones, (2008)Telefonia Fija from 1971-2003 en Mexico. Retrieved January 23, 2008, from http://www.cft.gob.mx/wb/Cofetel_2008/Cofe_telefonia_local_fija

Comision Federal de Comunicaciones, (2008)Telefonia Movil from 1990-2008 in Mexico. Retrieved January 22, 2008, from http://www.cft.gob.mx/wb/Cofetel_2008/Cofe_telefonia_movil

Questions/Week #3

Questions connected to the content of the book Seeing What’s Next

How to Use Theory to Analyze

1. Since the market has become more global, what can business offer for the non-consumer market in other countries or communities that are not English speaking, would language be part of the innovation in their products?

2. Now that it seems that there are no limits in consumption in the newspaper industry –thanks to the Internet- (convenience, customization and low prices) what do newspapers have to do to bring non-consumer and to create opportunities for a new-market disruptive growth in many thing that this industry as we know it now is dying?

3. In the newspaper industry who may we say are the non-consumers, now that news are free thanks to the Internet?

Two part question

4. In the book there is a section that talks about standards and how sometimes these standards are not always a good think for undershot customers, in this same note the book mentions how banks integrated the predictive risk assessment in order to determine if a customer qualify for a loan as a standard. Why did banks/mortgage decided to ignore this standard in the last couple of years and as a result many homeowners lost their properties? In this case the only reason could be that some of the homeowners where overshot customers, then was okay to ignore this standard (according to the book), but at the end it was not. Is there a risk factor that helps us determine whether is good or bad to ignore a standard when the customer is an overshot customer?

5. I’m still a little confused with the term modular. What makes a product modular?

First Idea For Research Project

My idea is to research about a the G-Phone (as a Multi Use Phone-computer).

The first step will cover the background history of the technology available before the G-Phone, like the first cell phone-mobile phones the like radio telephone technology from two-way radios in vehicles to handheld cellular phones. During the early 1940s, Motorola developed a backpacked two-way radio, the Walkie-Talkie and later developed a large hand-held two-way radio for the US military. This battery powered “Handie-Talkie” (HT) was about the size of a man’s forearm (Wikipedia).  Then continue researching until I get to the G-Phone.

The second step will be to research the G-phone as it is now (present).  I don’t have a G-phone, but I will love to have one.

The third step will be the future of the G-phone, wich I think that it will end up being a mini computer-phone-projector etc.

Please let me know if I’m in the right path.

Thank you,

An Article For My Project

Name of the Article: The Uses and Dependency Model: A Theoretical Guide for Researching the Cell Phone.

References

Ferris, A. (2007, November). The Uses and Dependency Model: A Theoretical Guide for Researching the Cell Phone. Conference Papers — National Communication Association, Retrieved January 14, 2009, from Communication & Mass Media Complete database.

I chose this article for now, because I want to do a research about the cell phone model, not as a phone, but as a venue of other uses like internet, sending pictures, marketing, text, etc.  I’m not sure if this to broad, but at least this article will give me a better idea on what path to take.

Cyberspace Real or Virtual?

In Four Puzzles From Cyberspace, the author provides four stories about cyberspace communities. All these communities are living in a virtual space following their own virtual rules. The author questions the power of these norms, as they are different from the ones established in the real world. He brings up a strong point about these norms use in the cyber world since they are different from the ones applied to the real world and the opportunity that this represents for criminal and illegal behavior. If cyberspace is providing a platform for illegal or criminal behavior to occur, then this virtual space needs to be monitored and regulated by real laws to prevent crimes like child prostitution or citizen’s addictive behaviors like gambling. However, questions about these regulations like what is real and what is not, and when, how and who is responsible for these regulations have been posted by the author as well.

One example of this dilemma is the second story presented by the author, in which a particular state created a law against gambling and its citizens have found a space through the Internet to gamble. In this case if the citizens are losing or gaining real money then regulations are needed since it breaks the law against gambling in that particular state, but what about fake money? Is it right to say that because an illegal practice or behavior is happening in a virtual world then is not affecting real people?

My Worst Power Point Presentation Ever!

I believe this is my worst presentation because of the kind of project it was.  I was trying to raise $4.5 million dollars for this transitional housing program.  I think, I could have done a better job and perhaps I could have raised this money faster than I did, but well at the end I was able to get it and the project opened on 2007. I can only think “if I knew then what I know now”

Worst Power Point Presentation