Let's Talk

[Image by marketingfacts]

Ever since Cluetrain we've known that markets were conversations, even if we weren't entirely sure exactly what that meant.

As brands caught up with Doc Searls and co. the shift from monologue to dialogue became a staple of planning decks and the shift was welcomed with open arms. This isn't entirely surprising - according to John Peters in his excellent Speaking into the Air [thanks BigShinyThing for the tip on that one], we have culturally fetishised communication as the ultimate therapeutic tool, the only way to heal relationships. 

Accessing each other's unknowable interiority without recourse to clumsy tools like language was always seen as the ultimate end goal - whereas Peters argues the beauty of being human is that we are individual and communicate.

Psychoanalysis became the talking cure, using the therapist and your dreams to better communicate, and heal your relationship, with yourself.

Later we discover that interpersonal intercourse, relationship building, is possibly what drove our cognitive evolution and made us sentient and conversation achieved its apotheosis.

The cultural position of conversation is hard to overstate - but it's not all or nothing [is it ever?], as Richard eloquently points out, brand monologue still has a role. Brands need a point of view and a statement of intent.

That said, I'm still very excited to have contributed some small part to the upcoming book The Age of Conversation.

100+ bloggers have contributed a chapter to the book, which is being sold for Variety, the Children's Charity.

It goes on sale next Monday, so I'll point you in the right direction then. I hope you all buy a copy. I certainly will.

I've written a chapter entitled:

"Don't give me songs. Give me something to sing about."

which the geeky among you will recognise as a quote from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

But don't let that put you off - just check out the other authors and think of the children.

Gavin Heaton
Drew McLellan
CK
Valeria Maltoni
Emily Reed
Katie Chatfield
Greg Verdino
Mack Collier
Lewis Green
Sacrum
Ann Handley
Mike Sansone
Paul McEnany
Roger von Oech
Anna Farmery
David Armano
Bob Glaza
Mark Goren
Matt Dickman
Scott Monty
Richard Huntington
Cam Beck
David Reich
Luc Debaisieux
Sean Howard
Tim Jackson
Patrick Schaber
Roberta Rosenberg
Uwe Hook
Tony D. Clark
Todd Andrlik
Toby Bloomberg
Steve Woodruff
Steve Bannister
Steve Roesler
Stanley Johnson
Spike Jones
Nathan Snell
Simon Payn
Ryan Rasmussen
Ron Shevlin
Roger Anderson
Robert Hruzek
Rishi Desai
Phil Gerbyshak
Peter Corbett
Pete Deutschman
Nick Rice
Nick Wright
Michael Morton
Mark Earls
Mark Blair
Mario Vellandi
Lori Magno
Kristin Gorski
Kris Hoet
G.Kofi Annan
Kimberly Dawn Wells
Karl Long
Julie Fleischer
Jordan Behan
John La Grou
Joe Raasch
Jim Kukral
Jessica Hagy
Janet Green
Jamey Shiels
Dr. Graham Hill
Gia Facchini
Geert Desager
Gaurav Mishra
Gary Schoeniger
Gareth Kay
Faris Yakob
Emily Clasper
Ed Cotton
Dustin Jacobsen
Tom Clifford
David Polinchock
David Koopmans
David Brazeal
David Berkowitz
Carolyn Manning
Craig Wilson
Cord Silverstein
Connie Reece
Colin McKay
Chris Newlan
Chris Corrigan
Cedric Giorgi
Brian Reich
Becky Carroll
Arun Rajagopal
Andy Nulman
Amy Jussel
AJ James
Kim Klaver
Sandy Renshaw
Susan Bird
Ryan Barrett
Troy Worman
S. Neil Vineberg