One time I was with a group of senior executives and we were talking about a deadline. They were very interested in hearing when I thought this task would be complete. I walked them through the steps to complete the task: “first this, then that, then some other stuff, ….” when I threw in “and then shit happens” and then finally it will be ready. There eyes bugged out and looked amongst themselves like “Oh no you didn’t!”

Of course what I meant, which I explained, was that something always goes wrong. When it does it will delay the task, but it will not be a “show stopper”. We’ll adapt to the situtation, work around, over, or through the temporary obstacle, and finally complete the task. It was a choice moment. The looks on their faces was pure gold. I just didn’t feel like getting into the gory details so I , uhum, papraphrased.

I liked the format of the last entry, the core dump blog, let’s call it a dump blog entry. Now that’s a name people will either love or hate! Moving on, this will be a speed blog entry. My goal is to complete my entry in less than 30 minutes. Most of the time a well thought out entry will take at least a couple of hours. This is why it sometimes is hard to post, because I don’t always have that much time available.

Picking up on the theme of the Cluetrain Manifesto, where in the authors put the Internet and E-Commerce in the framework of a conversation. The esteemed Jenius puts it this way in his tagline: “The Internet’s a dialogue–not a monologue–so speak up!”

One of the bible’s for this framework is “The One to One Future” by Don Pepper and Martha Rogers. I’m slowing working my way through this fascinating book. I found a couple of things that bring this perspective into very clear focus. The first quote attempts to contrast what most marketers do by filling their interaction with a strong sell message (which we are all extremely tired of hearing and will tune out the message), the model for advertising on TV, Radio, Magazines, or Newspapers which is: “Watch my commercials and I’ll bring you this content for free.”

…for the dialogue marketer – the 1:1 marketer – the bargain will be an increasingly explicit bargain, made with one customer at a time. “Ti’m bringing you something of value, some information or entertainment that you want, and in return I want to hear from you. Tell me about yourself.”

The essence of this philosophy is embodied in four criteria Rogers and Pepper identify that any marketing communication must meet before it can be considered to be a dialogue with individual consumers:

1. All parties to a dialogue must be able to participate in it. — Each party must have the means to communicate with the other.
2. All parties to a dialogue must want to participate in it. — In most cases, this means that the subject of a 1:1 dialogue must be of interest to both parties in the conversation.
3. Dialogues can be controlled by anyone in the exchange. — Monologues are totally controlled by one party-the speaker, so a dialogue cannot be totally controlled by either party.
4. Your dialogue with an individual customer will change your behavior toward that single individual, and change that individual’s behavior toward you. — You can only be engaging in a genuine dialogue with an individual customer if you alter your future course of action in some way as a result of the exchange

I believe that the power of this sentiment extends to many other scenarios of our lives. How many conversations are you having that are monologues and how many are dialogues? Our lives are dominated by monologues that leave us feeling un-actualized, un-empowered, and vulnerable. No wonder why we seem un-enthusiastic, de-motivated, and without passion. Think about it…