Episodes

Yesterday I managed to digest the fifth chapter of Cluetrain Manifesto entitled The Hyperlinked Organization. And I don’t have to be a corporate king (or queen at that) in order to affirm the points made by Weinberger.

Whenever I go online (and that means everyday), I see that the Web is really just how it was described in this chapter–hyperlinked, decentralized, has the concept of hyper time, provides open access to everyone, contains rich data, sometimes broken, and borderless.

So how exactly did those things transform the way people do business?

Let me share with you some of what I saw and what I thought about them

1.Deception is an option (and you see it anywhere).

I totally cannot imagine my friend Arvin making use of his time online playing Travian or Poker or what-have-you. So when I saw this thingy flashing somewhere at the top of my Facebook page, I was riveted.

On surface level, the purpose was to drive traffic at their site. Not totally evil. But if we look deeper, it actually illustrates how companies that utilize social media have discovered another way of customizing their messages in ways that will best attract their target market. At this point, maybe the thing that gave us away is the frequency of message exchanges between him and me. They managed to make wise use of the links that I have with people so they came up with this banner ad that was meant to deceive in the hope of compelling me to experience it too. It (and all the other similar ads) failed.

Deception should not always be the way to go for companies and for the people that comprise it. It is unethical and it can be annoying, especially when people find out that you have deceived them for your company’s self-serving purpose.

2. They talk to me (us).

These dialog boxes appeared when I re-launched the Firefox/Chrome window after I forced-close it when my laptop was running ultra slow.

The label, obviously, is like someone from the Internet is actually talking to me. But more than sheer repackaging, what can be their intention in opting for a softer, more human kind of approach than the bland, computer tone like “Window and tabs cannot be recovered?” By actually trying to appeal to a “human side” and admit that what was happening is something that is, uhm, embarrassing, it kind of softens the blow as it reach the person. So, when you are trying to upload a video and then the window closes down, the initial reaction is get pissed. But with that message popping up, it is somewhat implied that they tried, but they failed so maybe you can let that pass.

In the same way that the kind of message that was exchanged online has evolved—from highly confidential matters by the military to gossips going on in chat rooms—the way companies talk to us have also differed. It is not always them in the serious tone. Rather, they try to appear human, imperfect and flawed. If you are a company who is too occupied with making sure that you sound oh-so-professional online [yawn yawn], perfect grammar, and brilliant formatting, in the light of attracting the right people, then you are mistaken. If no one has braved to tell you the truth, I will. You are boring. And if we find something boring, we will only click on any link in your site just to get you out of sight.

Time, money, and effort not spent quite well, ain’t it?

Disclaimer: I am not doing shameless plugs here. I was not exhaustive in capturing all pages and sites possible so those that will be mentioned here are just snippets of those that I happen to stumble upon lately.