Conversations
if you only have time for one clue this year, this is the one to get…
we are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers.
we are human beings – and our reach exceeds your grasp.
This post started out to be about Companies that Tweet. That was about four days ago, and part of my hesitation has to do with my concern for being understood; wondering if we shared enough of common assumptions to make the topic meaningful. Roundabout 1985 I found myself in a freshman honors English class, taught by one Elizabeth Daley. On this particular day Elizabeth had assigned the story by Eudora Welty and in it appeared the phrase, "the patience of Job". Oddly, or so it seemed to me at the time, she asked the class if anyone knew what that meant. There was a silence, and after a bit I raised my hand. Because I was about 30 years older than any of the other students, Elizabeth had grown used to the possibility that I wasn’t exactly normal, so she simply glanced at me and gave me a slight shake of her head. We waited another 60 or 80 seconds, and finally one of the girls said somewhat hesitantly, "Uh… doesn’t it have something to do with the Bible?" Elizabeth bowed her head and began to repeat, "How can I be expected to teach, how can I be expected to teach, there is no common body of knowledge, how can I possibly teach?" What struck me about this experience was not so much that a group of honors English students didn’t know who Job was, but rather when they had encountered him in a critical moment of literature, they didn’t bother to try and find out. Perhaps they read it is the patience of job; work being a drag and all that. Of course that would call into question their chimerical skills, but I suppose that’s a small thing.
Today, and specifically in my local work environment, I find myself trying to talk to folks, but I’m pretty sure don’t share a common knowledge or experience base. We use the same words, words like "community" and "conversation" but I don’t think we use them the same way, or to mean the same thing. I’ve added a link to the Clue Train Manifesto on the left sidebar. If you’re familiar with the Clue Train think of it as a handy reference. If you’re not familiar with the Clue Train then most of what you encounter here isn’t going to make much sense; at least not the same sort of sense it makes to me. This is not to suggest that the Manifesto is dogma, or even fundamentally correct. It is to suggest that familiarity with the manifesto is necessary if we’re going to have a truly meaningful discussion. Beyond that, you are free to agree with disagree, free to engage in a conversation with its authors, with yourself, and with the people of the world.
