The Tuesday, November 14th meeting of the Rocky
Mountain Internet Users Group (RMIUG) will discuss
"The Cluetrain Manifesto Revisited"

Launched in April of 1999, the Cluetrain Manifesto was
a monumental tome in the history of the Internet.
While the rest of the world was ogling over the
whizbang technologies behind 24x7 online shopping,
streaming videos, and peer to peer music sharing,
Cluetrain professed something about the Internet that
was different, even basic. It asked: what if the
attraction of a digitally connected world wasn't a
global "Home Shopping Network," but instead, an
intrinsic human desire to connect and communicate?

Lobbing theses such as "Markets are conversations" and
"Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy" Cluetrain served as a
wake-up call to business-as-usual. Where typical
command-and-control corporate hierarchies were
designed to keep a tight rein on information (and thus
the conversation), Cluetrain predicted that the
Internet would undermine such controls. For example,
thesis #12 said, "There are no secrets. The networked
market knows more than companies do about their own
products. And whether the news is good or bad, they
tell everyone." With bold strokes, The Cluetrain
Manifesto expressed in the strongest terms possible
that we were on the cusp of a new world of
relationships.

And it did so in the most new-world way: by offering
the whole manifesto for free, online, without any
advertising (see cluetrain.com).

For the next RMIUG meeting, we will re-examine
Cluetrain's bold predictions seven years later with
one of its authors and RMIUG regulars Chris Locke.
Which of its "theses" have come true? Can any be
thrown out?


To help us explore this topic, RMIUG will bring in
following speaker:

Chris Locke (clocke@...) is co-author of The
Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual, and
author of Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst
Practices, and The Bombast Transcripts: Rants and
Screeds of RageBoy. He is working on his next book, to
be titled Mystic Bourgeoisie. Chris has delivered
keynote talks to organizations such as Accenture,
Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, First Union Bank,
Gartner Group, Peoplesoft, SAP, and Sun Microsystems.
He has worked for Fujitsu, Ricoh, the Japanese
government's "Fifth Generation" artificial
intelligence project, Carnegie Mellon University's
Robotics Institute, CMP Publications, Mecklermedia,
MCI, and IBM. He has written for publications such as
Forbes, The Industry Standard, Information Week,
Harvard Business Review, Publish, Wired, and Release
1.0, and his work has been covered by Business Week,
The Economist, Fast Company, Fortune, The New York
Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

Links:
Cluetrain: http://www.cluetrain.com
EGR Weblog: http://www.rageboy.com/blogger.html
Mystic Bourgeoisie:
http://mysticbourgeoisie.blogspot.com/

The meeting is Tuesday, November 14th from 7:00 - 9:00
pm (with optional 6:30 pm start for refreshments and
informal networking). The meeting will be held at The
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from
the Boulder Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take
Table Mesa Drive west towards the mountains for
approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills. NCAR is at
the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving
directions, go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/),
click on Driving Directions, enter your starting
address, NCAR's address, and voila! Park in the NCAR
lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium,
right off the lobby. The meeting is free and open to
the public, but we may pass the hat to help defray
expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is
usually enough room to accommodate all attendees, but
it's impossible for us to predict how many people will
show up for any given meeting. Seating is always on a
first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of
more attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit
additional people into the auditorium after all seats
are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG
meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides
Creative and Technical talent for Web, Interactive
Media, Marketing Communications and Software
Development projects, is the sponsor of food and
beverages for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based
software company that provides semi-custom web-based
applications, sponsors the RMIUG meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides
marketing project management, marketing communications
consulting, and web content development is the AV
sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring
Internet-related Product information, brochures, and
business cards which will be displayed on an
information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, see
http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also reach
the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at
rmiug-comm@.... Our web site is at
http://www.rmiug.org/


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Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are
their guests. NCAR has security regulations in effect
that we must follow in order to use the facility. If
any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these simple
regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and
instead read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be
followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing
ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy
are expected when dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this
policy, please contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).