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Talk about major hype -- if you haven't heard about this book, you don't read the right magazines and web sites. Everyone has something to say about it, so it seems, and they all say something different. It's as if the book is a sort of mirror, reflecting what the reader feels rather than dictating. Sometimes powerful ideas and observations can be like that; you read them, and they hit home in such a way that you feel they are your own. Because, maybe they are.
It started out as a web site, with 95 Theses "hammered up" on a web page, a la Martin Luther. Theses that presented a series of ideas about the Internet, the new economy, and personal interaction. But they could all be boiled down to one thesis:
The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.
That's it in a nutshell. In the past 5 years or so, since the Internet has become commonplace, people are conversing with each other more than ever, whether by e-mail, in newsgroups, or chat rooms. The consequences of this already seem to be monumental, both in the realm of human relations and in business: for the former, this means that we are all interacting with far more people than in the past, even though our relationships may be shallower. And, concerning business, the big lesson is that companies can no longer get away with waffling.
Communication is a skill, and one that develops as we use it. The more you communicate, the more proficient you are at communicating. We all belong to many speech communities, each with its own mores and rules, and the more we practice, the more we can fit in.
We are involved with others in our work, in our schools or our children's schools, and in our leisure activities. We come across hundreds of different people in our everyday life, and choose whether to communicate with them or not.
What's unique about now is that communication, for the first time in ages, is taking place among total strangers. This occurred in the past, in markets, where merchants came from far away to sell their goods, and brought stories with them, stories from distant countries with strange customs. But as markets faded away this storytelling disappeared (though not in all countries--in France, where I live, the market tradition is alive and well, and people interact in a unique melting pot around commercial activities that take on the characteristics of a social activity). We lost touch with the pleasure of listening to strangers telling stories. But the Internet is changing that. We can subscribe to any of the myriad mailing lists, or listen in on newsgroups, and listen to stories -- about everyday life, about hobbies and interests, about work, about almost anything. And this, dear reader, is changing the way the world will work.
Sure, this sounds like hubris, but look at how you can now contact total strangers by e-mail and get answers to questions. Have you ever written to the author of a book you enjoyed, you know, by writing a letter on paper? You probably never got an answer, or, if you did, it was short and curt: "Thank you for your kind words. Yours truly, XXX". Read a book today and look up the author's web site, then send him or her an e-mail. Not only will they answer, but you may get into an interesting conversation with them.
This has powerful ramifications for business, both today and tomorrow. Since the web is (among other things) a huge shopping mall, with tons of stores selling the same things, the companies that don't grok the idea of open communication with their customers will found out the basic principle of shopping in cyberspace: buyers vote with their feet, or, rather, with their mice. If a company doesn't cut the mustard, hasta la vista!
Another result of the Internet is that traditional top-down media are being supplanted, albeit slowly, by the possibility that each of us has to publish whatever we want (within the limits of our societies acceptable rules). This means that instead of having to read the usual watered-down newspapers and magazines, we have a real choice as to which voices we want to listen to. Publishers don't need to worry about shelf space, postage costs, advertising revenue and the rest, but they can merely stick what they have to say up on the web for everyone to read. (Well, everyone who finds it, and is interested.)
Of course, there are pros and cons for this. We have access to more media and more information than ever, yet not that many of the million channels really have that much to say.
One other element the book examines closely is the vast changes that the Internet is causing in the structure of organizations, and business in particular. E-mail, the web, intranets and the Internet all have one thing in common: they break down structural and hierarchical barriers. Yesterday's companies were vertical, today's are horizontal. If you try to run a company today with an old-fashioned structure, you may do okay for a while, but, then again, you may founder.
You see, even if companies are not conversing digitally, their consumers are. And they are going all out. Check any product-oriented mailing list or newsgroup. If the product sucks, there will be lots of people saying it, but if it rocks, people will be praising it. Can any company afford to not know what their consumers are saying?
So, we have seen the future, and it's here, right now, right in front of our noses. You may just want to go with the flow, or you may want to read a book about it. One that says, "We may not know what the web is for, but we've adopted it faster than any technology but fire."
-- Kirk McElhearn (kirk@mcelhearn.com)
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