Network Trader's Manifesto

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Network markets...

Network markets are beginning to self-organize faster than the companies that traditionally served them. Thanks to the Web, markets are becoming more informed, more flexible, and more demanding of qualities that most companies have lost.

...People of the Earth

The heavens are open to the stars. Clouds revolve around us day and night. There are ebbs and flows in the ocean. Whatever you think, this is our world, our habitat. No matter what they tell you, our flags fly freely. Our hearts beat forever. People of Earth, remember.

95 theses

1. Markets are conversations.

2. Markets are made up of people, not demographic sectors.

3. Conversations between people sound human. They are conducted by human voices.

4. When communicating information, opinion, forecast, objection or telling anecdotes, human voices tend to be open, natural, and sincere.

5. People recognize each other as people by the sound of their voices.

6. The Internet gives people the opportunity to have conversations that were not possible in the mass media era.

7. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.

, 8. In both Internet and intranet markets people communicate with each other in new and effective ways.

9. These online conversations lead to the emergence of new and effective forms of social organization and information exchange.

10. As a result, markets become more flexible, more informed, more organized. Participation in the online market radically changes people.

11. People in online markets realized that they received much better information and support from each other than from manufacturers. And enough of the corporate rhetoric about the value of consumer goods.

12. There are no secrets. Network markets know more than companies about their latest products. Whether the news is good or bad, it will be conveyed to everyone.

13. Whatever happens to markets happens to employees. The metaphysical construct “Company” is the only thing that stands between one and the other.

14. Corporations do not speak the same language as these new online conversations. Companies speak to their target online audiences in an insincere, monotonous, and essentially inhumane manner.

15. Within just a few years, the monotonous "voice" of business today - the voice of memoranda and pamphlets - will seem as insincere and artificial as the language of the French court of the eighteenth century.

16. Already now, companies that speak the language of advertising speak to no one.

17. Companies that decide that online markets are the same as those who usually watch their advertisements on TV are fooling themselves.

18. Companies that don't understand that their markets are now networked, connecting people, and becoming more flexible and engaged in conversation, are missing their best chance.

19. Companies can now communicate directly with their markets. If they miss this opportunity, it will be their last.

20. Companies must realize that their markets often laugh. Above them.

21. Companies need to stop putting on airs and start taking themselves less seriously. They need to find a sense of humor.

22. A sense of humor does not mean posting jokes on the corporate website. Rather, it requires high standards, a minimum of humility, sincerity of dialogue and a clear point of view.

23. Companies trying to “position” need to take a position. Optimally, this position should relate to something that is truly important to their markets.

24. Arrogant boasting - "We are going to be the most outstanding provider of XYZ" - is not an attitude.

25. Companies need to come down from their dizzying heights and communicate with the people with whom they are supposed to build relationships.

26. Public relations does not deal with the public. Companies are terribly afraid of their markets.

27. Speaking at a distance, unappetizingly and arrogantly, they erect walls to protect them from the markets.

28. Most marketing programs are based on the fear that markets will see what is really going on inside the company.

29. Elvis said it best: “We can't be together without trust . ”

30. Brand loyalty is the corporate version of a long-term romance, but a breakup is inevitable - and will happen soon. Flexible markets, having a network structure, are able to redefine relationships in the blink of an eye.

31. Online markets may change suppliers unexpectedly. Networked employees can change employers over lunch. Your own "downsizing initiatives" have taught us to ask the question, "Loyalty? What is that?"

32. Flexible markets will find suppliers who speak their language.

33. Learning to speak human language is not a trick for classrooms. This is what they get at some fancy conferences.

34. To speak humanly, companies must share the concerns of their target communities.

35. To begin with, however, they must belong to these communities.

36. Companies must ask themselves where the boundaries of their corporate ethics are.

37. If corporate ethics ends before reaching the community, companies will have no market.

38. Human communities are based on discourse - on human conversation about human problems.

39. The community of discourse is the market.

40. Companies that do not belong to conversational communities will die out.

41. Companies have created a religion around security, but it's mostly a red herring. Most defend themselves not so much from competitors as from their own markets and labor force.

42. As in online markets, people within a company talk directly to each other - and not just about rules and regulations, board decrees and notes to them.

43. Such conversations occur today in corporate local networks. But only when conditions allow.

44. Companies tend to organize hierarchical local networks in order to pass down their directives and other corporate information that employees try their best to ignore.

45. Local networks tend to turn into terribly dreary structures. The best networks are built on the principle of inverse hierarchy, where people collaborate to create something much more valuable: local networked corporate conversation.

46. ​​A healthy intranet organizes employees in many senses of the word. Its influence is more radical than the plans of any union.

47. Although companies are scared to death, they are very dependent on open local networks to generate and distribute constructive criticism. They need to overcome the temptation to “improve” or control these online conversations.

48. In cases where corporate local networks are not bound by fear and formalism, the conversation they generate strongly resembles the conversations of the network market.

49. Charts and tables worked in the old economy, where plans were understood at the top of the management pyramid, and detailed instructions came down from the top.

50. Today, charts and tables are linked and not hierarchical. Respect for practical knowledge outweighed respect for abstract authority.

51. The command-and-control style of management has as its cause and effect bureaucracy, intoxication with power and a culture of general paranoia.

52. Paranoia kills conversation. This is its essence. But a lack of open conversations is killing companies.

53. Two conversations take place. One within the company. The other is with the market.

54. Most of the time, none of them go smoothly. Almost invariably, the cause of failure can be traced back to outdated command-and-control concepts.

55. As strategic principles, these concepts are destructive. As instruments - they went bankrupt. The command-and-control method encounters hostility among employees with local networking experience and creates distrust in networked markets.

56. These two conversations tend to merge into one . They occur in the same language. They recognize each other's voices.

57. Agile companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable happen sooner.

58. If the desire to get out of the way is taken as a unit of IQ, then very few companies yet demonstrate intelligence.

59. Millions of people online, albeit subconsciously, perceive companies as something not far removed from the convoluted legal fictions that are actively trying to disrupt the flow of these conversations.

60. This is suicide. Markets want to talk to companies.

61. It is unfortunate that the part of the company that the online market wants to talk to is usually hidden behind a smokescreen of intrusive advertising and language that seems false - and often is.

62. Markets do not want to communicate with agents and peddlers. They want to be part of the conversation happening behind the corporate firewall.

63. Down with the masks, let’s become ourselves: we are the markets. We want to talk to you .

64. We want access to your corporate information, your plans and strategies, your best minds, your genuine knowledge. We are not satisfied with four-color brochures, crammed websites that are pleasing to the eye but have absolutely no substance.

65. We are also the employees who make your companies work. We want to speak directly to customers, in our own voices, without scripted platitudes.

66. We - the markets, the employees - are sick to death of controlled information. Why are we subjected to faceless annual reports and second-rate market research designed to introduce us to each other?

67. We - markets, employees - would like to know why you are not listening to us. You seem to speak a different language.

68. The pompous professional jargon full of self-consciousness that you spit - in the press, at your conferences - what do we care about it?

69. You probably impress investors. It's possible that you're making an impression on Wall Street. You don't impress us.

70. If you don't impress us, investors go to the bathroom. Don't they understand this? If they understood, they wouldn't allow you to talk like that.

71. Your worn-out concepts about the “market” will blind our eyes. We will not recognize ourselves in your projections - probably because we know that we are already everywhere.

72. We like this new market much better. In fact, we are creating it.

73. We invite you, but this is our world. At the threshold, take off your shoes. If you want to establish an exchange with us, get off the camel!

74. We are immune to advertising. Forget about her.

75. If you want us to talk, say something. For a change - something interesting.

76. We have ideas for you: we need new tools, better service. Things we would be willing to pay for. Do you have a minute?

77. Are you too busy with your work to answer an e-mail? Oh God, sorry, we have to come back later. May be.

78. Do you want money from us? We want your attention.

79. We want you to come out of your trance, get out of your neurosis, and join the celebration.

80. Don't worry, you can make money. As long as they are not the only thing on your mind.

81. Have you ever noticed how one-dimensional and boring money itself is? Maybe we can talk about something else?

82. Your product is broken. Why? We'd like to ask the guy who made it. Your corporate strategy is meaningless. We'd like to chat with your boss. What does it mean “she’s not here now”?

83. We want you to take 50 million of us as seriously as one reporter from the Wall Street Journal .

84. We know someone from your company. They're quite nice online. Maybe you're hiding more people like that there? Can they come out and play with us?

85. If we have questions, we ask each other. If you didn't keep "your people" in line, perhaps they would be among those we turn to.

86. When we're not busy playing the role of your "target market", many of us are your people. We would rather talk online with friends than stare at the clock. This communication between us would make your name more famous than a million dollar website. But you tell us that communication with the market is the task of the person responsible for marketing.

87. It would be good if you understood what is happening here. It would be simply wonderful. But it is a big mistake to think that we are holding our breath here.

88. We have better things to do than worry about whether you will change over time to understand our business. Business is only a part of our life. And yours, it seems, is one hundred percent. Think: who needs whom here?

89. We have power and we know it. If you can't see light well, other people will appear, more attentive, more interesting, more pleasant playmates.

90. At its worst, our newly discovered conversation is more interesting than most trade shows, more engaging than any comedy on TV, and certainly closer to life than the corporate websites we've seen.

91. We are true to ourselves - to our friends, to our new allies and acquaintances, even to our opponents in disputes. Companies that have no share in this world have no future.

92. Companies are spending billions of dollars on the Y2K problem. Why can't they hear this market's time bomb ticking? The stakes are higher here.

93. We are inside and outside companies. The boundaries separating our conversations look like the Berlin Wall today, but they are just annoying. We know they are collapsing. We intend to destroy them on both sides.

94. Traditional corporations can be confused by online conversations; these conversations are confusing. But we organize faster than them. We have better tools, more new ideas, no rules to slow us down.

95. We wake up and make contact with each other. We observe. But we don't wait.

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Translated from English by Nastic Gryzunova

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