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Back in the mid-90s, I worked with Chris Locke, later one of the authors of the seminal book, The Cluetrain Manifesto. All Chris could talk about back then was how the Internet enabled communities to form around almost any subject—communities that would become more powerful than the hackneyed marketing messages that pervaded our public discourse. I could see his logic, but I wasn’t smart enough to see what we should be doing about it at the time.

Later, Chris and his co-authors made “Markets are conversations” the first point of their 95-point manifesto. So why are we still talking about it now? Because it is finally happening.

The Cluetrain folks were visionaries. Back then, this conversational markets phenomenon affected only a few industries. Today, average people are participating in communities in many markets. Soon, rating a product or commenting on a blog will be as common as e-mail. And many more methods of customer participation will arise too.

Chris was absolutely right, of course. He warned you this was coming years ago. Luckily, you still have a chance to do something about it before the vision is totally realized.

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