So, this thread picked up, and Hugh and Doc Searls are now talking about a whole new kind of train. But before we go back to our drawing boards to think up a whole new slew of metaphors to describe exactly what markets are and are not, consider this: markets are actually pretty boring.
‘Markets’, having been merely conversations, are now officially relationships. There’s only one place this is heading: markets are sex. Markets are babies. Markets are forty year old divorcees.
And all along, we’ve been using the wrong word. Sure, people LOVE conversations. People LOVE relationships. People LOVE buying stuff and selling stuff and generally going about their daily lives. What the Cluetrain did was to remind us of all of that. It pointed out that we’d built up this layer of bullshit because we were scared, but now we have these cool tools and ideas, and we’re sick of the bullshit and we’d like to start again. In fact, we have to.
But one last bit of bullshit remained. The Market.
Hey! Let’s have a market conversation! Let’s have a market relationship! Let’s have a market heated debate! Please: stop trying to have a conversation with a market. Stop trying to have a relationship with a market. Dear God, stop trying to have sex with a market.
I honestly think that as long as people continue to speak in terms of markets, they’ll think in terms of herds. And as long as they do that, some people will continue to think of conversations and relationships as management techniques instead of basic human longings.
So, I’m hoping to hear ‘Markets are dead’ before this new Supercalifragilisticexpialidotrain sets off. That’s all, I guess.
