Monday, May 17, 2010

Cluetrain adding a little humour in your company

The humour referred to in this thesis to me is actually communication. Companies and businesses need to be able to catch peoples attention through their communication, catching attention is a good start for any business and humour is often the best way to get consumers/public to notice you. Like a JESTER in the Kings court, often seen as a fool but in actual fact he was a marvelous mass communicator and entertainer giving the public what they want and in that time it was comic relief or distraction. Communication is the tool each company and business uses in order to communicate and create understanding or at very least a sense of understanding. Like the saying goes many a true words are said in jest. Companies need to be transparent and honest with consumers. The joke is only as good as the teller and the person’s understanding. The communication is also only as good as the medium, the medium is the channel or storyteller in your communication, poor medium = poor communication. Another key point is that the person should have a relation or some understanding of what you are trying to say in order for successful communication. So often business use the wrong medium and then in turn communicate with the people who have the least understanding of their product or service (wrong target audience). Value, businesses create value to their products and provide us with reasons as to why their products and services are valuable in our lives. Humour often has value or a hidden message that someone wanted us to figure out, otherwise why are they communicating in the first place. Sometimes the value to the humour is as simple as to just see how sharp you are in picking up the joke or a life experience you wanted to share with someone.
The businesses or companies characteristics are serious. They have a mission often so complicated not even their consumers understand this. The office environment is tense, with the boss ready to pounce on any unsuspecting employee. The 4 serious P’s Policies, procedures, professionalism and power. These 4 serious P’s are taken so seriously that you need to cover up all you honestly want to say with a well thought out conversation that wouldn’t let people get the wrong impression of you. You can’t tell your boss he/she has no life or that they take their job way to seriously otherwise it’s off with your head. Businesses should move away from this control everything serious nature of doing business and try a relaxed approach in doing business, the business should be able to accept their faults and implement ways to improve them. Understanding with the internet the pen is truly mightier than the sword and if a consumer feels that a company isn’t credible and honest they will make it known to the world. Companies must create a mutual understanding with its consumers in order to develop honest and loyal relationships. Indicate why your company chose this as a mission and vision. Show us all the good that you do as a business and give us a reason to want to do business with you. Message, if many a true words are said in jest than tell us a damn good joke. Companies and business are so secretive in their messages often leading them to misinterpretation. Markets are conversations. They want to know what consumers like, what they do with their time and almost every aspect to of their lives in order to build relations. Don’t take everything so serious as a business, sure a business and business related issue are important, as a business is their to make a profit at the end of the day but that doesn’t mean that you need to stress day in and day out. Evaluate your business, establish your strengths and remember you are human and by getting a sense of humour in your business, you are actually getting a sense of human.

2 comments:

  1. CLUEtRAIN MANIFESTO.. is an awesome guide to understanding the world of business in terms of the internet.. nice post..

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  2. You made some valid points but bear in mind that many comapnies take the serious approach because traditioanlly it is more "professional".
    it won't hurt comapnies to use the cluetrain approach.
    It's a long blog,could have been shorter, remember to structure your blogs.

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