My History

Hi. My name is Tara Hunt...but I have gone by the moniker 'Miss Rogue' since I had my own company, Rogue Strategies (now forwards to my blog, Horsepigcow). I've been in marketing for just over 7 years. I've been a "consumer" all of my life.

WAY before Pinko came The Cluetrain, a text that changed my life. It opened my eyes and made me think very differently about the world. I was a fledgling marketing brat at the time and, to this day, I think it saved my life.

There are 95 Theses that include such ground shaking statements as:

1. Markets are conversations.
2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.
4. Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.
5. People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice.
6. The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.
7. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.
8. In both internetworked markets and among intranetworked employees, people are speaking to each other in a powerful new way.
9. These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.
10. As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.

93. We're both inside companies and outside them. The boundaries that separate our converstions look like the Berlin Wall today, but they're really just an annoyance. We know they're coming down. We're going to work from both sides to take them down.

94. To traditional corporations, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing. But we are organizing faster than they are. We have better tools, more new ideas, no rules to slow us down.

95. We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.

You should really read the whole book...it's available for free online. I buy it for everyone I love ('cause friends don't let friends do old school marketing).

Seven years went by with me squawking here and there about why the 'old ways' don't work. Why we have to stop talking to or at people and start discussing with people. I continued to buy the Cluetrain for everyone I worked with...clients and employers...very few actually read the stuff. I felt I was alone.

Hugh Macleod asked the question a little while ago, What comes after the Cluetrain? Well, I didn't really know at the time. I was still struggling to get my clients, bosses and coworkers to understand why we should stop spamming people with stupid messages about stupid stuff they don't give a damn about. The Cluetrain hadn't arrived.

All of that changed, though, when I moved to San Francisco and started working for an amazing start-up company and for an amazing boss who really 'gets it' (or at least has enough faith in me to let me go for it). What happened is that I got to apply the Cluetrain to my entire marketing plan...I turned theory into reality. 100%. And, through it, I achieved amazing results. Uber amazing.

Now....because I was given such free reign with my Cluetrain-esque style, I had the chance to start going even further with the theory...I had the freedom to wander even further down the ethereal path of 'letting go' of the old ways. I was freed of my shackles, breathed through my own apprehensions and stopped worrying about numbers and ROI and accountability at all.

Whoa! You say. Whoa! No accountability? Well, it was experimental. When I didn't see 'results', I could panic and go back to the old ways, or I could keep moving where my gut instinct led me...where my intuition was unraveling a beautiful yarn.

And what I found was the most bloody incredible thing ever...I found community.

No longer was I merely having a conversation in a human voice with other humans, I became a mere bystander, being continually fascinated and awed by a brilliant community of people who really, really, really wanted to see us succeed. Irrational? Maybe? I mean, what the hell do they get out of it?

Then I started thinking about all of the communities out there and how they are formed. I started thinking about the cult of Mac enthusiasts (iPod, too) and the Open Source community (hell bent on spreading OS - many have openly professed they would die for the cause...). I started working with BarCamp and Microformats and getting involved with The Creative Commons. I watched this wild Web 2.0 world around me, people passionate about connecting, creating and changing the world. I saw them called Marxists and knew instantly the author was right, but the sentiment wasn't negative.

I observed Threadless and 37 Signals and Firefox and Wikipedia and the blogging community grow, not merely because of a strong community, but AS a strong community.

And it dawned on me...

Marketing isn't about you anymore. It's about everyone.

And when I found Riya fans defending us tool and nail (before launching, mind you) in comment sections of blogs who put us down, I wanted to cry with joy. I planted seeds, but then I just stepped off. Their messages were stronger, purer and more amazing than I could ever ever ever respond with.

This is Pinko Marketing. Marketing of the people. The commons. The community. People choose what should be supported, spread and how it should be talked about. It is the marketing manager's job now to support them in their endeavours.

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