Clark's Spot

Earlier this morning, our cat cornered a mouse beneath a shelf of movies, caught it, and brought it – hanging from its mouth – to my wife and me. I grabbed a dustpan, got the cat to drop the mouse, and tried to smash the mouse. I missed. The mouse ran, and the cat caught the mouse in its mouth again. We repeated this series two more times before the mouse escaped beneath the TV stand.

Our creations sometimes aren't the easiest solutions.

Background: The cat successfully caught and killed a mouse early Friday morning. (This is the first year we’ve had any mice issues… cat only has back claws.) So my wife had me get mouse traps the next day – to set out this weekend to catch any other mice who come inside the house. We have a couple traps – but none set out when this morning’s events happen.

So I make a quick decision. We put the cat in room upstairs with the litter box and food, and my wife and I set the mousetraps downstairs. We run out to shovel snow and run a few errands. We return home. No mouse caught, and the cat seems pretty content in the comfy chair in the upstairs room.

This got me thinking: Can I and all of the gadgets I love do better than the cat? Can I build a better mousetrap? This reminded me of an essay I read in The Cluetrain Manifesto.

How Lego Caught the Cluetrain (links to a video presentation that covers the same topic as his essay) by Jake McKee tells the story of how the Lego Company entered the world of social networking as part of its communication outreach. Lego had been aware of AFOLs (adult fan of Legos) but only marketed to children. The company slowly began to embrace AFOLs who had built websites, message boards, forums, e-mail groups, photo sites, and virtual stores to buy and sell pieces. Lego joined the conversation on the existing websites and developed new programs that made it easier for AFOLs to create their own designs and purchase the needed blocks to build those creations.

One paragraph in particular stood out. It highlights something that Jake says Lego did not do – something Lego did well.

“The mistake many companies make when they first engage a community is to rush in and try to replace unofficial efforts with official efforts. Even if such a move is well intentioned, it’s as if the company is saying, ‘Your efforts are sub par. Let us professionals step in and show you how it’s done.’ Not a very good way to start off the relationship.”

Lego included and built off the work that the fan community had already established. Lego joined the community. Its customers welcomed it, and they didn’t try to replace the work that was already done. The lesson is important for any company that connects with customers online – whether through a simple website or on a series of online communities. Don’t work to create an “official” and “artificial” community; go to where the customers are. You can add a legitimate voice to the conversation, but don’t hijack what’s already been built. Look for ways to complement what your customers, users, and constituents are doing.

Sometimes you can’t build a better network, and you waste resources and annoy everyone involved. That’s what my cat taught me about mousetraps today.

Thanks for picture: Picture is Creative Commons licensed from Joming Lau through Flickr.

I’ve been reading The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott. (The graduate research continues.) Parts of chapter 12 struck me as very similar to the Cluetrain Manifesto. And my analytical mind enjoyed his analysis – first published in this post – of certain phrases of gobbledygook.

The entire point of the chapter reminded me of a lesson from journalism school: avoid jargon. Don’t use fancy phrases or industry language to make a point. It confuses the reader, and the reader’s eyeballs will glaze over as they lose focus on your writing.

I was amused and happy to read that point – and to see it quantified and graphed.

I had too much fun writing this review for my profile on Goodreads. (I read it as part of my research for my PC for my graduate degree.) I just had to cross-post it here as well. Check out my review below, the cluetrain website, and the book.

Expanding on their website launched in 1999 (actually, expanding on the book published that expanded on the website), the four authors add additional commentary to their original work(s) and review how the Internet has changed business.

There are some good nuggets aboard this train.

First, you have to get past the voices. Oh, the writers are very proud of their voices. They explain how humanity hid its voices for The Corporation. They explain how the Web will free voices – has freed voices – and how if you don’t find A Voice and talk in A Voice, then your business will fail.

Perhaps they’re making up for lost time for their many years of hiding their voices. The voices must be stretched to check for their limits – the same way a 42-year-old at his college reunion tries to tailgate the same way he did as a senior.

You must also get through the tone, which can rail against business the same way a jilted lover proclaims all the failures of his or her beloved.

At times, the authors strike a tone similar to teenagers who sneaked into the office, turned on the P.A. system, and barricaded the doors – determined to have as much fun as they can squeeze into their minutes in the Sun.

That said, I’m convinced that markets are conversations. I’m convinced that conversations sound humans, and that ignoring those conversations means missing opportunities. I’m convinced that hyperlinks mean that networks can be as powerful as hierarchies within organizations. That smart companies can connect conversations that occur inside and outside the corporate firewall. That one of the changes wrought by the Internet and the World Wide Web is the lack of scarcity. That this abundance and this connectedness offer unique possibilities and challenges for all of the “people of Earth” – business and market.

So don’t misread my warning about voice and tone. Set those aside as you read it. This book offers four viewpoints (eight, now, with the new chapters and forward) of how to use the power of the Web to listen and to speak with your customers.