Rubber Republic's Book Crossing

Love this!

Came back from holidays this morning, a little depressed and grey, to find a package from Rubber Republic  on my desk.

Inside was a copy of the seminal (but probably not read widely enough) tome, The Cluetrain Manifesto. I think that the Cluetrain is a great, provactive, insightful piece of writing. It came out when I was working in Ogilvy Interactive New York and I remember how it just seemed to encapsulate how I was thinking and feeling about digital.

Their 95 Theses were great - here are a couple:

1. Markets are conversations
2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors
3. Conversations among humans sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

9. These networked conversations are enabling powerful forms of social organization and knowledge exhange to emerge.
10. As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.

The point of this Book Crossing scheme is that I pass the book along, so much as I want to keep it (actually I just need to hunt for my original version) I will post on the book to anyone who wants it. The condition is that they need to send it on to someone else after they have finished with it.

Just let me know...

Comments

[Nicola Davies]

I got the very same surprise - love those dudes at RR. My post often consists of invoices so this always cheers me up. Anyways, it's been too long...

[PF]

If no one else is ahead of me in the queue then I'd be happy to read and pass it along.

[Anjali]

Hey Amelia - I'd love to read it! :) Shall I send you my address by email?

[Dan]

Hi Amelia

i'd love to read it but looks like i am too late... you snooze you lose and all that.

I worked on the balloon race at Orange and notice that you still have race widget on your blog... you ok with it being there or do you need a hand with removing it?

Dan from Orange

[Rory Ahern]

Thanks Amelia for the props!

For the rest of you we have 5 spare copies still here in the office if you want to drop me an e-mail ([email protected]) I'll send them out - "First in best dressed and all that!"

(I'm on holiday next week so it may be sent early October).

[Martin Thomas]

As someone who has just published their first book (available at all good stores) I am horrified by this suggestion. Do us impoverished authors a favour and buy our books ... repeat after me, 'sharing is evil'

[Amelia]

Martin - very funny! David Brain your co-author just gave me a copy of your book Crowd Surfing about an hour ago. I had planned to read in and then in the words of Charles Leadbetter "we are what we share", I was going to pass it along to anyone else who was interested and wanted to read it.

[Tom Hopkins]

Well it's all very jolly so sorry to be contrary on this but isn't it a brilliant example of why Viral Marketing is a bit shit? Rubber Republic are trying to make a point about how powerful viral marketing can be but (like with monkeys, trees etc).

1. Does this communication do anything to dispose you favourably to them (since the content of carrier is bound to be more compelling than the the content of the 'payload') or make you any more likely to use them.
2. If markets are conversations, then what is viral marketing? Cheap soap operas to lubricate the conversation?
3. Who in Rubber Republics 'target' audience hasn't read the ClueTrain?

[Amelia]

Hello Cynical Tom!

In answer to your concerns:
1. Given a choice of viral/seeding agencies out there, Rubber Republic are now front of mind and I am impressed by their imagination (and we have used them before on Binge and they were really good)
2. Viral marketing can provide the spark for conversations ("social objects" in Hugh McCloud parlance if you like)
3. Loads of people in our industry have not read Cluetrain I've found. You and I are oldies Tom, talk to some of the youngsters and they've not even heard of it!

;-)

Amelia

[John]

And wait till you ask clients if they know about it!

[steviec]

I've had 3 from them now!