I’m admittedly a little tardy on this, but a few weeks back, RichardatDell tagged me in a meme that asked five questions about the Cluetrain ten years later. It’s taken me a bit of time to put together a meaningful response, but here are my answers.

1) What does the cluetrain manifesto mean to you?

The Cluetrain Manifesto to me signaled the birth of common sense in business communications – the first principles from which almost all of the current writing on blogging, social media and connecting with people online has stemmed. At the time the book was published, I was still taking marketing at university, learning how to yell at consumers, but very little about how talk to people. The Cluetrain was a great wake-up call for the industry to remind us that a) consumers aren’t idiots; and b) the way we’re consuming media is changing drastically.

As RichardAtDell writes, the book has a very grim outlook on the future of business, which I think is vastly overstated, but the point is well taken. The Cluetrain Manifesto is about being human in order to interact with other humans. In many ways, it’s saddening that this had to be committed to paper.

While I don’t profess to be an expert on hypothetical history, my feeling is that had the Cluetrain never been written, we would be light years behind where we are now on critical thought about engaging directly with customers online and being social rather than spending more effort on foisting unwanted messages on captive audiences.

The danger of the Cluetrain is taking it as gospel rather than criticism. To me, trying to change your company radically based on new media fundamentalism is as silly as trying to run your company by any other business book alone. The power of the Cluetrain is to use it as a lens to evaluate how your company interacts and use the theses to improve what you’re doing honestly – not as an infallible guide for any business.

2) Which companies have best implemented the cluetrain manifesto in your opinion and how were they effective?

I don’t know that there is a company around today that could totally live up to the expectations set by the Cluetrain, but there many have taken the spirit of those 95 theses to heart in their marketing.

Dell is the obvious example of a major corporation that has found real value in adding a human element to their marketing through their Direct2Dell blog and the Ideastorm site, and I think they’ve proven that in order to get that value out of going social, you need to make it part of your business practices, rather than just an addition to a laundry list of marketing tactics.

Microsoft (a client) is also a good example of empowering, or at least, allowing employees to blog freely and interact with end users and developers – their clients. When something goes as much against the grain as letting every employee talk to the public, the fact that a company as large as MSFT has done so much to make it happen says something.

3) In thesis 57, the cluetrain manifesto states, “smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner.” In light of that thesis, is encouraging employees to use social media and blogging a good idea? Is it really effective, when an employee is encouraged but not directed?

Effective is an interesting word to choose in a situation like this. To me, encouraging employees to blog on their own is a smart move, but in reality, it’s unlikely to directly drive more business. The benefit of such an exercise is much more indirect. Employees that are closer to the community they’re serving, who feel more ownership in what they’re doing, who are forced to organize their thoughts and improve their communication skills.

To really be effective in the traditional sense of the term, however, direction is definitely required, but should be looked at more as an overall business direction than blog direction. If an organization is well-managed and a blogging strategy has a clear sense of purpose, then the benefits of knowledge leadership, branding and communicating directly with customers can be achieved through some work. However, if a blog is approached with a “get me one of those” attitude and corporate bloggers are left to fend for themselves with no clear goal in mind, the results will most likely be unfavourable.

4) How can a company encourage employees to use social media, and empower them to answer customer questions and learn from customers?

There are a few main stumbling blocks that come up when employees feel pressure to engage in social media, but don’t know where to begin. First is the “what do I write about” syndrome, which is common for most first time bloggers. The second is more of an institutional problem – the fear of failure. Customer service failures typically happen in private – on the phone or by email. But social media failures happen in front of the world.

However, both of these problems can be solved with an effective blogging strategy, training, and management buy-in and understanding. Strategy to establish a set of first principles that employees can look to for a compass, and training to let them know what to expect. Beyond that, it must be made clear that it’s okay to fail (at least in small degrees), and that making a choice based on that strategy and training won’t inadvertently end in their dismissal.

5) Do all employees want to talk with customers? If not what percentage want to internetwork and converse

No. Not all employees want to talk with customers. Not all employees want to write. Not all employees want to engage in community. Every company has people like this, and the percentage is going to be different in every company and every industry. You can’t force social interaction – you can merely encourage it and provide the tools and the support to do so. The good news is that every company should have some employees that want to be active in their networks, and who want to connect those networks to their work.

If you don’t have people like this, then my feeling is that you’re either not paying close enough attention, or you haven’t hired the right mix of people.

So, those are my answers. I’ll keep this going, and tag a few people I’d like to hear from. I’m going to tag a couple of Twitter friends who I know will have great answers: Dave Fleet, Ed Lee and Brady Gilchrist. Can’t wait to hear what they have to say!