Hugh McLeod does these really funny drawings on the backs of business cards. I mean funny as in odd, strange. I mean funny as in... huh? I have a hard time understanding most of them. Maybe it's because I'm a girl. For instance, yesterday he wrote a thing called why so many companies find the whole web 2.0, post-cluetrain world so painful. Here's the second half...
...I started thinking to myself, if this is something that any healthy 22-year-old can work through without too much fuss, then how come so many large companies, with all those smart, experienced, talented people making the big money and the big decisions, find it so difficult?"Hi, I'm a large company, and I'm going to blow $100 million telling you how great I am. I'm so great. I rock. That's right. And you like me, too. You really do. You like hanging onto my every word. Group Hug!"
Maybe this is why so many companies find the whole Web 2.0, post-Cluetrain world so painful. Growing up always is, he said, rolling his eyeballs.
Now, can someone please explain to me a) what that picture has to do with what he wrote, b) what's wrong with group hugs, and c) what a "Cluetrain" is?
[Bonus back-link:] "This could apply to SO MANY industries. Heh."
a) picture has nothing todo with it, Hugh simply thinks that he makes abstract art but in reality he can't draw drawings that resemble real people so he draws doodles, b) nothing is wrong with Gruop Hugs but Hugh never worked in a team with many people etc - he is instead just selectively brownnosing some bloggers and PR companies (like Edelman). He thinks in terms of "whom to brownnose" and not in terms of teamwork. c) Cluetrain is a book that first postulated that businesses must conversate, possibly over internets (possibly through blogs), with customers to be successful.
ReplyDeleteOh thanks, that's very helpful. And it sounds as if I should look for that Clue Training book.
ReplyDeleteComic Strip Blogger is right about the cartoon having nothing to do with the post. Hugh usually does that. He's wrong about everything else.
ReplyDeleteCluetrain is a sort of a manifesto of marketing - a framework for understanding the change in power dynamic that social media and the whatnot has created. Anyone who works in the field should read it, though not necessarily take it as gospel. It's among the most important documents for really understanding new media.
As for not being able to draw... glass houses, CSB.
also, visit: grouphug.us
ReplyDeleteI'll probably take a little different tack to Comic Strip Blogger...
ReplyDeleteHugh's drawings aren't always connected to his thoughts, but the words in them [for me at least] are often connected with the thoughts in his posts.
Hugh's been a leader in the conversations market for some time, and [again for me] uses the conversation extremely well. If the perceived Z-list see it as brown nosing the A-list bloggers, then they are missing some of the points that Hugh himself makes that there is no A-list [nobody cares].
The cluetrain is an important thesis found here about how markets are conversations. How the consumer is in charge, and particularly at the time, was a big change from how traditional marketing was done.
Hugh's done some work on it and published the Hughtrain manifesto as well.
I think a subscription to his blog is well worth the time to read, and every now and then there's a free laugh when one of his cartoons really hits a nerve for the reader, my favourite is here
I didn't mean that I disliked Mr. McLeod's drawings, just that I didn't always understand them. They do make me think, though. Sometimes I'll just sit and stare at one for about an hour. It's almost like one of those lost-time experiences people say they have when they get abducted by a flying saucer.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I did go to that cluetrain.com page and I think those people are plain old crazy! All that stuff about Elvis and hearing voices. I mean, I try to be open minded, but I don't know...
Kat,
ReplyDeleteMaybe we can start a book study at work. Sometimes things that seem crazy are just great ideas waiting to happen.
Let's make it happen!
(See you in a few hours--I'm making decaf first!)
-jeremy
I tell ya, all that brown-nosing comes in handy sometimes:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.alexaholic.com/gapingvoid.com+comicstripblog.com/
Reading Hugh's blog has been blowing my mind for a few months. Right or wrong, provocative ideas are daily fare there. It's a mental puzzle to connect his cartoons to the content, which is perhaps a joke on me but fun anyway.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad there's folks like Hugh out there to help out guys like me who need to deconstruct their ideas of what business communication is, and suggest what it can be.
BTW, I generally despise sites that automatically make sound, but I like the play list so you get a pass for now.
Oh, and please stop hogging all the awesome...
http://www.joeandmonkey.com/index.php?comic=182
Comic Strip Blogger cannot draw... he merely traces, using a Tablet PC, from the looks of things.
ReplyDeleteAnd all he ever writes about is A-Listers, trying to get their attention [which is a form of brown nosing, if you ask me].
Besides that, he is utterly bereft of original thought.
But I suspect he knows this already... likes having a go at me to make himeself feel better, I suppose ;-)