I’ve been trying to fathom the ‘new’ in Doc Searls idea that ‘markets are relationships.’ For those that don’t know – Searls is held up as a marketing guru on the back of his Cluetrain book. I will confess I don’t get it. Not cluetrain but Searls current thinking.
Hugh MacLeod thinks Doc is bang wrong, but then he flip flops. I still don’t get it. Where is the ‘new’ in this idea? What’s here that professional service providers (accountants, lawyers and IT consultants) wouldn’t simply shrug their shoulders at and say ‘So what? We intuitively know that.’ Even if they’re terrible at delivery – a separate argument.
Most of the folk who talk to me offline are departmentally aligned to marketing but I confess I don’t know what they do, how they’re measured or their contribution to business value. All I know is they’re there to pimp messages I’m supposed to suck up. Which I don’t (usually.)
Tara Hunt goes so far as to say:
Personally, I think Markets are a figment of our imagination…a dream…a result of wishful thinking.
Which brings me neatly around to theory. Sure, we live in a world where conventional rules are being re-written and challenged. But anyone who wants to be taken seriously in business cannot jettison ‘conventional thinking’ without developing a theoretical basis upon which to test ideas. So please tell me – where are the hypotheses here? Where is the thinking that allows me to locate the ‘new’ marketing in the context of business today – or for that matter tomorrow?
If you believe that post-modern deconstructivism undermines all present and near future economic models then fine. If so, then give me a model I can test and apply to 21st century economics.
PS – I anticipate some will write off my thoughts as elitist crap. OK – but I have to sell ideas to real people in real businesses where real money is at stake in places they and their peers call markets. ‘Nuff said.
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