Google Current Events page
"links to news and information sites, including cached reports as they appeared yesterday [9/11/01]"
4:20 PM | link

National White Collar Crime Center
"This home page is designed to provide general information to the accessing party. It should not be considered advice or fit for any particular purpose by the using party." Well, we finally have a winner in our Most Compelling Web Page Disclaimer contest.
4:16 PM | link

Red Cross via Amazon
Support relief efforts by making a donation to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. Amazon is passing ALL funds to the the Red Cross. I've watched this fund grow by $50,000 over the last several hours.
2:24 AM | link

RB on Savage Chic
Tomorrow I'll be taping another segment for NPR's Marketplace Morning Edition -- this time (are you ready for this?) on Fashion Week. Yes, the runways are all a-flutter! "Diane von Furstenberg called her collection 'Rebel Princess,' a look she described as 'roses and razor blades and 'savage chic'... Luella Bartley... evoked a hippie '60s look with funky embroidered jackets, torn light blue denims, sheer off-the-shoulder peasant blouses, gathered peasant skirts, short shorts, ruffled minis and ragged hemlines."

Oh wow, man! Fashion discovers recycling! If I keep wearing the same clothes, I'll be in fashion every 30 years. Marketers do "research" by watching what the kids are wearing, then they sell those ideas back to them at 1000% markup. As ever, the real creativity emerges bottom up. but the marketing and sales are top down. Nirvana hits big in Seattle and within months The Gap is selling "the grunge look" -- jeans with the knees ripped out, pre-wrinkled flannel shirts, clunky-funky work boots. This is pre-packaged semiotics. collect the whole set! find out who you REALLY are -- this week.

Does the semiotic connection seem a stretch? in 1967, French semiotician Roland Barthes wrote a book titled Système de la Mode -- The Fashion System. The NY Times called it "his most elaborate attempt to reveal the little worlds of meaning enclosed in each nuance of social life." This book has been studied far more closely by marketeers than by the cult-crit crowd.

Here's a tip: wanna be really "hip"? Truly "with it"? Wear whatever the fuck you feel like.
10:53 AM | link

Cluetrain Authors Called '60s Rejects, Techno Nerds
Yet another (very) late-breaking review of The Cluetrain Manifesto. "The authors come across as rejects from '60s who never grew up and forgot how they came to this world of wealth and health. I found the critical corporate tirades particularly humorous since I was reading it during a period of massive new age company meltdowns." The review includes many more head-scratcher non sequiturs. "...if you are a CEO who has to deal with Web marketers, pick up a copy of 'The Cluetrain Manifesto' and look at the world through cool techno nerds' eyes—and smile." Man, this guy is a hoot!
9:55 AM | link

Smart Customers, Dumb Companies
"The Internet is creating a myriad of micro-markets, controlled not by companies but by customers. Yet in most businesses, the mass-market mind-set continues to hold sway. It's time for marketers to wake up." I didn't know until just now that HBR had put the full text of this article online for free. This contains material that I later incorporated into the Gonzo Marketing book.
9:34 AM | link

Harvard Business Review
"Christopher Locke is an Internet industry expert..." You read it in HBR, so it must be true!
9:21 AM | link

Talking Moose
"The guys who wrote the Cluetrain Manifesto are Gods in this Moose's eyes. One of the authors, Christopher Locke, will soon release a new book titled Gonzo Marketing which proposes that marketers will win by following worst practices. If chapter two is any indication (it starts 'market research is dead') then this book should be as interesting and relevant as Cluetrain. Basically Locke seems to be saying 'be different or die.' Hey, I'm a muddy Moose. How different can I be?" Actually, the book is addressed to moose, so this note is particularly germane.
9:11 AM | link

Gonzo Marketing In Action?
While I do appreciate the bloggery that went into these speculations, I don't think that what PepsiCo did in this case really fits my notion of gonzo marketing. They leveraged (by accident, it appears), the widespread recognition of an Internet virus, and thus saved a bundle on advertising. Being savvy enough to take advantage of markets in this way is certainly "hipper" than the usual brain-dead approaches taken by traditional marketing, and does indicate that marketers are beginning to tune in to the net as a force unto itself. But it's still taking advantage. It's still manipulation, however "savvy."

Gonzo marketing comes out of a particular state of mind that is genuinely engaged with audiences and markets, but it's not just a matter of attitude. At the heart of the book is a model by which companies can create true relationships with emerging markets by underwriting the micromedia that are already conversing with those audiences. By these criteria, I think it's too early to go looking for examples -- though I hope there will be many to point to by this time next year. Only time will tell...
2:52 PM | link

BusinessWeak online
"Hey Fuckhead, Admit it: You Got Caught"
2:47 PM | link

The Ultimate Bad Candy Web Site - A Confectionary Nightmare
"...bad candy is the impetus of all wrongdoing; it is the shapeless force that drives drug addiction, prostitution, and global warming. It is a mysterious force that transcends space and time." You will laugh your ass off.
1:24 PM | link

Big Ads Get Good Looks - HARDER TO IGNORE
And this, says the Vice Chairman of the Internet Advertising Bureau is "the price we pay for free media." Read it and puke.
1:17 PM | link

RageBoy: Seriously
"This dude is off the hook; easily the most in-your-face troublemaker in the business book business; a vocabularian errant who gives me incredible hope. (Ahem... nice semicolons.)" The author of this page works at The Motley Fool.
12:56 PM | link

The Underground History of American Education
"The real makers of modern schooling weren't at all who we think..." John Taylor Gatto's new book looks excellent. You can read the full-text Prologue and Table of Contents here.
9:28 AM | link

Teens Take Diaries to Public on Web (Washington Post)
"Today’s youngsters are increasingly choosing to write... in public, on the Internet, essentially a global billboard accessible by anyone and everyone. About one out of every five teenagers ages 12 to 17—more than 4 million of them—now have personal Web pages, according to a recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project..." Interesting story, but of course the Post plays the fear & trembling card.
9:23 AM | link

Making Money With The Web
Forrester Research invites "senior marketing executives responsible for attracting and retaining customers," "business executives who set company objectives for driving consumer sales and profitability," and "technology decision-makers responsible for supporting online strategies" to a Marketing Forum on how to cash in on the web. And who will deliver the magic feather they've all been wet-dreaming about? Why who other than Christie Hefner, Chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises. Oh Dumbo, where are you now?
8:31 PM | link

Marketing Goes Gonzo (Publish magazine)
"You know if you walked in to a party that you've been invited to by some friend, and you went and you started acting like a marketer, I mean they'd throw you out. And that's kind of what's going on here. You've got all these parties going on and here come these clueless guys in suits with their canned spiel and we're going, why don't you tune into to what's going on at this party, why don't you meet some new people and shut up for a minute? You know, get a feel for who your neighbors are and maybe you'll make some new friends. But, man if you just keep up that sales pitch, nobody wants to hear you."
8:58 AM | link

	live dangerously. subscribe to EGR
at a major industry conference, chris locke once again captures the real story.