Can The World Come Out To Play?

I was going to write today about why I am unsettled when I upload a new posting and hear nothing back from the void: no comment on the site, no "reply" email, nada. But no matter how hard I tried, the result came off as a whiny "please... somebody comment!" and that is just so pathetic that I have given up. Don't comment. In fact, I have shut off the ability for anyone to comment until I figure you all (all 11 of you) will have forgotten this posting.

However, the reason I was heading in that direction was as a result of reading just a few chapters into an epiphanal book, The Cluetrain Manifest: The End of Business as Usual. (BTW, that link will allow you to read the entire book online, for free, which is itself a clue as to why this is such an important book. If you are in business and care about staying there, read it.)

The book is about the social implications of the Web and how it, at a most fundamental level, is re-introducing the concept of the conversation at the public market and why it is so important to businesses today. This really resonates with me, since I have been talking to women in my circles for the past twenty years about how isolating it is that we no longer have to visit a village well for daily water, and how women in particular have suffered from the loss of community that necessity used to bring. (And yes, I am very grateful to have running water in my house. Living with conflicting emotions is one of my core competencies.)

The book extends that "village well" idea to include men and women as previous frequenters of the public market, and of the impact the Web has had on re-introducing the idea of "conversation between individuals" to the marketplace.

"Though corporations insist on seeing it as one, the new marketplace is not necessarily a market at all. To its inhabitants, it is primarily a place in which all participants are audience to each other. The entertainment is not packaged; it is intrinsic. Unlike the lockstep conformity imposed by television, advertising, and corporate propaganda, the Net has given new legitimacy -- and free rein -- to play. Many of those drawn into this world find themselves exploring a freedom never before imagined: to indulge their curiosity, to debate, to disagree, to laugh at themselves, to compare visions, to learn, to create new art, new knowledge."

To play, to debate, to disagree, to laugh at themselves, to compare visions, to learn... That's why I am unsettled when no one comments: it feels like I called, but no one came out to play.