My nephew, a mature and well-educated man, told me that The Cluetrain Manifesto was an important document in his thinking. I downloaded it into a Kindle and am reading it. From that document, I learned that some people are impatient with all the steps required to use a computer these days. Right after starting Cluetrain, I tried to compliment two different organizations on the documents they had recently sent me.
It was frustrating to try write a compliment. Cluetrain, at least the part I have read so far, focuses on the language used by businesses to write ads and narrations spoken on tv and such. One of the authors coined the phrase "the cluetrain stopped by every day but they never took delivery". Those words rang in my head as a magazine I subscribe to required me to fill out a form with my name, mailing address and assorted other bits of identification. Having just lived through both a US election for president, senate and other offices and then the Christmas shopping season, I was in no mood to entice or allow more mailings, offers and phone calls.
I am tired of the common approach that it seems every business now wants to use. It seems as though they all want a list of people who will accept their mailings and their calls and who will be willing to lust for their products in unending amounts. Many web pages not only insert further deals on top of the first several while I am reading them, they add a sound track to the page with an eager young voice explaining why it would be smart of me to buy now, right now. I don't want to be a member of a rewards club or any other type of club. I would like to get the goods I am after with little hassle and no invitation to evaluate my shopping experience and rate its worth.
