Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices

Reader Steve MacLaughlin (you can visit his blog here) contributed this review of Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices, which sounds like an interesting followup to The Cluetrain Manifesto. Whether micromarketing of this sort really takes off will depend chicken-and-egg-like on whether a few companies escape being annoying and actually get people interested in what they have to offer.

Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices
author	Christopher Locke
pages	256
publisher	Perseus Publishing (2001)
rating	8
reviewer	Steve MacLaughlin
ISBN	0738204080
summary	Leaping through and thrashing about current conceptions of reaching people and making money in an inexorably more-connected world.

Christopher Locke, one of the co-conspirators of the best seller The Cluetrain Manifesto, has again set off to teach companies how to talk, not just offer lip-service, to their customers. In Gonzo Marketing: Winning through Worst Practices, Locke takes on the myths and monuments of marketing armed new ideas and a razor sharp wit. Buckle up. Hold on. Mr. Locke is going to take you on a wild ride to the new world of marketing.

While the book's frenzied style will be compared to that of Hunter S. Thompson, I view the book instead as the first real book written in hyperlink-style. Jumping all over the map and all over the mind in search of gonzo marketing. Scrolling from idea to author to tactic and back again around the horn again.

Locke devotes a portion of the book to a refresher course in The Cluetrain Manifesto?s teachings: Markets are conversations. The Web is a micromarket made up of individuals. Your mass market mind tricks won't work on us. Gonzo Marketing picks up from there with a deeper examination of how companies must understand how micromarkets operate.

Locke accomplishes this by giving readers a detailed examination of the evolution of current marketing thought. The experts and evangelists range from Marshall McLuhan to Noam Chomsky to Sergio Zyman and Seth Godin. I stopped counting books and articles Locke mentions or dissects when it hit 32. Gonzo Marketing is quick to point out when grand ideas, like Godin's "Permission Marketing," were nothing more than underhanded tactics to send us spam.

What Locke pushes forward instead is this notion of gonzo marketing. Gonzo marketing "is marketing from the market's perspective. It is not a set of tricks to be used against us. Instead, it's a set of tools to achieve what we want for a change." No more tricks. No more schemes. No more mass market messages.

Gonzo Marketing also explains the evolution of the micromarket. Mass production created the need for mass markets. But globalization has been cutting the mass market into smaller and smaller pieces for many years now. The rapid proliferation of the Internet has only increased the growth of these micromarkets. While only global giants were once exposed to the power of micromarkets now companies of every shape and size must learn to deal with them.

The bad news for companies is that micromarkets are here to stay. As Locke puts it, "The web is a non-stop planet-spanning celebration. And we ain't goin' back in the box." The good news is that companies can be active participants in these micromarkets. But Locke isn't talking about "hashbrowned or refried databases" but instead "genuinely social social groupings." Micromarkets are "collections of people, communities joined by shared interests." And the big catch is that you need to belong to these groups to have a conversation with them.

This all sounds very 1960s commune-esk. And some readers may quickly label Locke's ideas as being as foolhardy as those he criticizes himself. But the evidence of micromarkets in action are all around. Internet chat rooms allow micromarkets to flourish and communicate like never before. Interested in rare coinage from the ancient world? There's a micromarket and somewhere people are talking about it, and telling people where to buy the best Tiberius Aureus Tribune penny. Online personal Web logs, also called blogs, allow micromarkets to share ideas, discuss new products, and to speak their mind in a way that traditional journalism never allowed for. Think, Oprah Winfrey's Book Club x 50 million and growing. Get the picture

Locke points to companies like Ford Motor Company, Delta Airlines, Intel, and Bertelsmann who are already reaching out to micromarkets. In February 2000 Ford announced that it was giving each of its 350,000 employees a computer and Internet access, and it didn't take long for those other companies to follow suit. Sure, Ford wants to put technology in its people's hands, but "the real deal is that Ford has unleashed 350,000 independent and genuinely intelligent agents to fan out online and listen carefully." First people start listening, then they start talking.

Gonzo Marketing doesn't tell companies they can't market to customers -- but that they need to radically rethink how they communicate. Before the automobile, the transcontinental railroad was the only easy way to get to the west coast. Before the Internet, mass marketing was the only easy way you could communicate on a global scale. And the railroads of old were just as inefficient and costly as the bloated marketing budgets of today.

Where as Cluetrain described the disease in detail, Gonzo Marketing concludes with a cure for companies to begin using. While Locke often sounds anti-big business, he notes that it is these larger companies who have the best advantage in making the early "transition from traditional marketing to more intimate micromarket relationships." They can begin to experiment with gonzo marketing by skimming a little bit off the top of their massive advertising budgets. Companies need to value their employee?s individual interests, and to find ways to nurture those interests. Allow people to go out and be ambassadors for your company, even if their interests have nothing to do with what the company is selling. People are more likely to talk to people with whom they share common interests than to corporate talking heads that share no common ground. Think about it.

Gonzo Marketing makes for great reading because it gets the gears in your mind turning. Everyone says their employees are their best advertisers. What if you really put that kind of attitude into action? Taken individually, micromarkets may seem insignificant, but collectively they have the power to move mountains. Locke concludes Gonzo Marketing with instructions for those pioneers that want to make first contact with micromarkets: "Hook up, connect, co-create, procreate. Redeploy. Foment joy. Brothers in arms, sisters of Avalon, champions of the world get to work."

---

You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.

I wonder if there's a chapter on...

I wonder if there's a chapter on flashing ads. There's a few on Slashdot that really tick me off, like the disk planet or whatever it is, I hate it so much I scroll it off the top as soon as I see it.

Nothing like irritation to inspire me to buy a product, eh?

X-10...get the hint!

From the /. article:

Whether micromarketing of this sort really takes off will depend chicken-and-egg-like on whether a few companies escape being annoying and actually get people interested in what they have to offer.

Wonder if someone at X-10 is reading this...or reading the book?

Confusing blurb

Did you actually write that instroduction to this article?

This sentence, in particular, is rather confusing: Whether micromarketing of this sort really takes off will depend chicken-and-egg-like on whether a few companies escape being annoying and actually get people interested in what they have to offer.

Run-on alert!

Successful marketing.

The best way for marketing to be effective on me as a consumer is to... wait for it... show me products I am actually interested in.

Micro/macro/viral marketing call all suck it as far as I'm concerned. Show me things I have even a remote chance of buying and watch as advertising becomes effective for the first time in it's history.

And do that...

Without profiling you or intruding on your privacy in any way?

Man, you don't want much, do you?

Well, maybe not you per se, but a vocal segment of the slashdot community. There's something fundamental missing for the advertiser. Something simple... maybe he should ask you what you're interested in. That might be a little less annoying than current methods, and allows you to control what information they recieve.

Re:And do that...

I dont quite think that would work though...

Follows is an actual(*) conversation between a marketing agent and an internet user.

Salesman: "Hi, I have bunches of products to sell... but I care, I only want to sell you what you WANT to buy. So. What would you like me to advertise?"

Recipient: "Go away. I dont WANT to be advertised to. I am more than capable of doing my own research."

Salesman: "OOooh now you've done it. I'm going to monitor your favorite websites, and then I'm going to blast 640x480 popups and banner ads specifically targeted at your browsing habits. Watch out for them, they'll make you buy my stuff anyway!"

Recipient: "Why cant you just ASK me what I want, huh?"

(*) Actual conversation made up by myself

Re:Successful marketing.

I would like to point out that in order to find which consumers are interested in a company's product, market research is required. A lot of people around here complain about market research companies harvesting data from people, through cookies and devices like personal video recorders.

Privacy advocates are up in arms about this kind of research, but these people have to get it through their heads that these companies don't give a fuck who you are. To them you're just a number. A number who happens to like programming books, geek shirts, alternative music and donkey porn. And it is through that information that you can get what you want: "show me products I am actually interested in."

- j

Re:Successful marketing.

As the token sleazy marketing guy that reads slashdot, I feel obligated to weigh in there.

First, to correct someone else who commented earlier, the point of marketing is not to convince someone to buy what they don't need. That's nuts; getting someone to buy something they don't need is no way to build a business. There are, however, two points to marketing:

1. Differentiation: explain the value of your products to solve a prospect's problems better than those of your competition.
2. Segmentation: determine what attributes your product has (or needs to have) to solve problems that your prospect is willing to pay to solve. This means either take an existing product to solve the products of different prospects, or start with a market that you're successful in and build something new that solves additional problems.

So looking at that, let's consider your statement:

> The best way for marketing to be effective on me
> as a consumer is to... wait for it... show me
> products I am actually interested in.

that's a concise goal, but it raises additional questions.

> marketing to be effective

What do we mean by "effective"? What do you do? what problems are you having today and you're trying to solve? what buying decisions are you involved in? how much money do you have? How much are you willing to spend to solve the problems you mentioned? How about your ideas of brand loyalty? How long will you keep the product?

> show me
Okay, how? Come to your house? Come to your office? Set up a booth at a trade show? Which ones? Advertise in trade magazines you read? How do I know what you read? Advertise on Slashdot? What if you're blocking ads? How about television ads? What do you watch? Are you using Tivo to skip ads? Do you like billboards? Do you prefer mailing circulars? Is there a more cost effective way of reaching you?

> products I am actually interested in

How do I know what you're interested in? Is it related to what you read on the web? Is it related to your job? How about your hobbies? Do you know what specific products you want? How about product categories? What attributes do you consider important in your buying decision? What attributes does your boss force you to have, but you don't think you really need?

My point is your statement makes perfect sense, but it leads to a lot of other questions as well, which is what complicates the issue. And just like with anything, there are good approaches to it, and bad ones (for the web these would include annoying popup ads, email harvesting, spam, telemarketers, etc.). Just like you, I hate the annoying approaches, but remember, hearing someone say they hate marketing is like when you hear someone say they hate computers. They don't really hate *computers*, they hate the experiences they've had with certain computers (or software programs, or whatever) so far.

I don't know...

but it seems like only Disney could market Gonzo--don't they own the Muppets?

Wakka wakka wakka!

Damn.

I thought "finally, a way to market myself!"

Then I read the fine print. and I was all excited too...

Course, if you also realize that 'gonzo' also is a method of filming low-budget porno, this book takes on a whole new meaning.

Marketing and control

Earlier marketing models and research have been devoted to controlling the market. This has been done using the very best methods using the best techniques that modern psychology has to offer. This is where the vast majority of the marketing money has gone.

Yes, If you want to be paranoid, you can call this mind control. Or you can give some other politically correct name and feel better about it.

But in any case what has happened with the internet is that the monkeys have escaped from their cages, so to speak. This is what the concept of micromarketing has tapped into, but it is more global than that.

This is because marketing is not just for business. It is also used for political agendas.

Marketing tries to aggregate people into masses. This is because it is easier to deal with the demographics of large groups of people. Also, large masses of people are easier to manipulate with images and emotions such as fear, sex, etc.

If you cut the visceral reactions to various images out of the loop, then there is a problem. Then you end up with dealing with individuals with individual thoughts and ideas and experiences. It is far easier to market to a million people as a mass market that to market to a million independent thinking individuals.

Micromarketing not that bad.

Micromarketing does a much better job than mass marketing. If an ad company sees that I am looking around for car prices, then hell, let them show me ads for cars. If they collect the data from my web surfing, and see that I am in the market for a new PC, then by golly, show me prices and products! Personally, I would much rather see MegaUltraSuperComputerWorld's prices on new CPU's than a "new herbal cure for arthritis". We're not going to get rid of marketing, so why not settle for targeted marketing? Any ad agencies reading? My interests are BMW's and BWM accessories, Linux, and PC hardware. Let the ads come!

let me be your friend

Perhaps I don't fully understand "Gonzo Marketing" (advertisers are so cutting edge and wacky) but from what I understand of micromarketing it is what the scum of the earth will use to get you to own worthless crap(as Deltron says "Flame on, baby, flame on").

Seriously though, I am assuming this is a wider version of target marketing which basically says that you advertise certain products to certain markets based on things such as where you live (ie certain zipcodes are broken down into more or less "Trucks and Guns," "Ferraris and Hottubs" etc) so that those money isn't wasted on those who aren't considered part of the intended audience. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this in theory. The problem comes, I think, on more subtle planes. MacLaughlin writes But globalization has been cutting the mass market into smaller and smaller pieces for many years now. This is true and this is where target marketing comes in. It takes those small slices and feeds them only the type of items that they as a group are expected to want. Sure, this is pure theory, but what certain folks like Joseph Turow [uchicago.edu] argue in his book Breaking Up America explicate, in a manner much more lucid than this, is that target marketing just further divides Americans into small non-interchangeable sections that have images as ideals that are only created for them (to bastardize his arguement).

So, Gonzo marketing. Ford is giving its employees computers to go out into the web community, watch them and figure out what they like, what they want, how they talk, how they communicate. But what is the goal? The goal is to create images that reflect what small segments of the population want. Life becomes less of a search and more of a pick and choose. Employees become employees around the clock, walking viral marketers. Citizenship takes a backseat to selling and we all become full time spies for our companies. Great.

Anyhow, personally I don't like it.

viral^H^H^H^H^Hmicro marketing

All these principles make sense and on paper work great. However, it's been tried before - it was called viral marketing (and don't tell me that employees of .com-s in 98-early '00 were not enthusiastic about their jobs and true embassadors, I was living in the bay area at the time and could feel it from every friend I had). Most companies found that in order for the "viral" part to work they had to give away a service/product that costs them money for free. Later, they started charging for it and that's when the real test came and in many cases the virally added consumers that came for the freebies left. The only viral service I can think of that I still use now that it isn't operating on a loss is Snapfish [snapfish.com]. I like their processing and posting (good for overseas parents) and this way I don't have to remember to pick up my photos. Still, if I found out that they were way more expensive than other alternatives I'd drop them in a heartbeat. Lucky for me they're priced well.

micromarkets

... are basically a return to the idea of mom & pop. We all find blanket marketing annoying, but we have friends who 'advertise' whatever they are interested in to us, every day, and it doesn't bother us. It's perception. If we feel that the carrier of the message has alot to gain from you being receptive, we're more likely to 'rebel'. Much of this subject centers around the perceived gain of communication .. ie, some employee/salesperson posting on a board or hosting a community or whathave you. Since the messanger isn't "CORP X" but "Joe who works for CORP X", we tend to think less about putting more money in the pocket of the company and more about Joe probably saying what he's saying because he /believes/ in it. He's not going to win a zillion dollars if the communication results in a sale (hell, the company has no way of really tying you back to him), nor is he going to lose his job (unless he truely is a salesperson) if you subsequently decide not to purchase, or do so from a competitor.

So, we had: people at company -> communication/marketing dept -> you

And the dream is: people at company -> marketing dept -> people at company -> you

Which is best for all of us, as it puts social responsibility and accountibility back in the hands of a community (ie, community of exployees) rather than the all-or-nothing super-hygenic communication that comes out of board-meeting-inspired mass ad campaigns. Note that I am not saying that the form and message of that communication won't still go through the marketing dept and PR-sanitizers, but for the most part, humans want to talk to humans; not answering machines, billboards, or any other one-to-many communication platform.

I mean, at the end of the day, we all work for companies, and I don't believe we're all evil. We are just capable of intrusive or annoying behaviour far better when our names and individuality is 'trimmed' from the communication. People are very very cynical today about advertising, but we have to understand that we all, to some extent, depend on it. The goal is to balance the needs of the consumer (to allow them to distinguish between marketing and personal communication) while bringing marketing more inline with the types of communication that we actually enjoy and participate in every day.

Any actual effect from "Cluetrain"?

There was a lot of excitement around "The Cluetrain Manifesto" when it was first published.

Personally, I found it to be similar in many ways to "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People": a couple of useful observations and good ideas, wrapped up in many pages of useless blather, pseudo-religion, annoying condescension, and obviousity.

Has anyone seen any effect, anywhere in the world or the world's economy, resulting from the publication of "Cluetrain"? From the perspective of late 2001, that is, with all the dotbombs now fully buried, not 1999.

sPh

Please track my personal habits!

I would LOVE for my PVR to track my viewing habits for the networks/ cable syndicates. I would love for my grocery store to have a profile of how I buy my groceries. In return it would be nice if I could get a discount for allowing by personal habits to be tracked, but I'd settle for just not haveing the information linked to me personally.

I love the idea of easly aggregated data. Maybe then someone will figure out that there are untapped "micro" markets outside the mainstream.

I don't buy most of the crap that is sold and most of the crap that is sold isn't aimed at me. But that doesn't mean that there aren't 100K just like me out there (maybe more!) And I'm sure there is someone out there that would love to provide the services I am interested in so I'll part with my cash!

don't need marketing

What happened to the time when companies would start small and then grow? In the "internet age" people want to get rich quick, which doesn't work unless you're in a tech bubble (pop!)

There are definately good internet businesses out there. My favorite is DreamHost [dreamhost.com]. All Debian, hosting 30,000 domains now, handled my site getting slashdotted last month, and no annoying money-making-schemes. It's a place that's run by programmers, for programmers, and therefore it is excellent for people wanting php, mysql, perl, shell, encryption, etc etc etc.

The only companies that need agressive marketing are the ones that people would not normally buy products from.

Travis

WTF is this??

Gonzo Marketing doesn't tell companies they can't market to customers -- but that they need to radically rethink how they communicate. Before the automobile, the transcontinental railroad was the only easy way to get to the west coast. Before the Internet, mass marketing was the only easy way you could communicate on a global scale. And the railroads of old were just as inefficient and costly as the bloated marketing budgets of today.

What kind of stupid analogy is this?? 'railroads inefficient and costly'? WTF planet are you on? The auto is a fantastically inefficient vehicle compared to a rail system. The auto generally expends, minimum, 3 times the fuel that a train expends when transporting proportional masses. There's a reason trains, rather than sedans, are used for freight. MacLauglin is spouting some kind of stupid American 'my car is god' fetishism. It's getting in the way.

There are real economic trends that support "Gonzo Marketing". Much of it will come true. But this kind of bad writing isn't helping. One trend is that everyone is this future will be a writing. Hopefully MacLaughlin takes some time between now and then to learn how to write effectively.

Constrasting view?

Locke wrote the book, but I want to hear Demosthenes take on the book and subject before I buy it.

Experts

The experts and evangelists range from Marshall McLuhan to Noam Chomsky to Sergio Zyman and Seth Godin

Which makes it just as useful as Slashdot!

thought experiment

If an unqualified publicist with no experience in computer programming or project management wrote a book saying that all previous models of software development were wrong, providing no quantitative evidence for his thesis but insulting everyone who didn't sgree with him for not having a "clue", then how seriously would you expect him to be taken?

Oh yeh, I forgot, Eric Raymond. Well, carry on then I guess.

does the book include...

a chapter on buzzwords? trying to use language that sounds "hip" or "cool" or "cutting edge" to entice people? like "gonzo marketing"?

marketer: "gonzo marketing"? what the hell is that? wow, this guy must be some kind of "guru" on the "bleeding edge". i want to be sure i'm up to speed on the latest techniques in this "new economy" world. gosh, maybe us marketing guys will finally have an impressive array of lingo and abbreviations like the programmers do. woo hoo!

Theory of Marketing

* You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You go up to her and say, "Hi, I'm great in bed, how about it?".
That's Direct Marketing.

* You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You give your friend a $10. She goes up and says "Hi, my friend over there is great in bed, how about it?".
That's Advertising.

* You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You somehow mop up her mobile number. You call, talk to her a while and then say "I am great in bed, how about it?"
That's Tele-Marketing.

* You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You recognize her. You walk up to her, refresh her memory and get her to laugh and giggle and then suggest, "I am great in bed, how about it?".
That's Customer Relationship Management.

* You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You walk around playing Mr. Busy. You put on your best smile and walk around being Mr. Congenial. You stand straight, you talk soft and smooth, you open the door for the ladies, you smile like a dream, you set an aura around you playing the Mr. Gentleman and then you move up to the girl and say, "Hi, I am great in bed, how about it?".
That's Hard Selling.

* You go to a party, you see an attractive girl across the room. SHE COMES OVER and says, "Hi, I hear you're great in bed, how about it?"
Now THAT is the power of Branding.

First book in hypertext on paper? Not really...

I view the book instead as the first real book written in hyperlink-style

James Burke has already done that sort of thing, in The Pinball Effect and The Knowledge Web -- any time a subject in the book (histories of technology, effectively the companion books to TLC's Connections 2 and Connections 3 series respectively) has references in other parts of the book, he provides the page number and an id for that reference in the margin, so you can switch gears and see where the same invention or event had other effects described in the book instead of just following the text in order or having to check the index to cross-reference the subject.

Missing the point

Several people here are saying that the "don't show me things I don't want" mentality is wrong because then you don't know about any products. I'm sorry, but the "how can you learn about my products if I don't show them to you" argument is idiotic.

This is 2001. If I want a product, I will go to my favorite search engine (which I probably found by friend saying he or she liked it and it didn't have annoying ads), and I will search for the product category I want. I will then read what's available. If your product is in that category, I'll see a link to your website, and I'll decide whether to click on it and learn about your specific product. I will also read competitors web pages, and reviews of your products and theirs.

Or, alternately, I'll go to a store (again, probably one recommended by a friend), and see what products they have in that category. I will ignore flashy packaging and prominent displays, and will make my decision based on my ability to figure out if your product will actually do what I want.

This involves no advertising at all. It only involves learning what people I trust do when they need to product (and I don't trust you or your corporate shills), and doing a little bit of research, only when I feel like it. If people actually did this, product quality would be significantly higher than it is today, as people wouldn't recommend crap to friends.

-D

Ford giveth, then taketh away...

Locke points to companies like Ford Motor Company, Delta Airlines, Intel, and Bertelsmann who are already reaching out to micromarkets. In February 2000 Ford announced that it was giving each of its 350,000 employees a computer and Internet access

Which is great, except that I know a guy that does ISP support for the company (PeoplePC) that they operate from, and the Model E program has now been canned.

Marketing

Leave it to marketing to lie about the product (misrepresent, confuse or mislead), sell using FUD, and generally attempt to mess with the design process w/o regard to small things like "details."

Oh yeah, and they can draw pretty pictures that are supposed to grab your (the consumer's) attention.

Why don't they just do like Sony and keep everything a "secret," limit supply, and fix prices so people will want it even more? (e.g.,
PS2)

Or you can buy things sold by spam or go to the store you know you hate (Fry's Electronics), because it might be $0.01 cheaper, wait 10hrs in line, and have to spend another 40 hours returning it. They're not hurting, their marketing people can't even proof read their own ads! Some time in 1993-1994. "OS/2 WRAP" (sic) (WARP) in 200 pt font; I'm not joking, 4"(9cm)-high font, full page color, San Jose Mercury News. ... and still people shop there.
It's kind of like M$FT windoze in a way...

Anyhow, that's my take.

This may apply to Ansett Airlines (of Australia)..

An airline that let its planes get old, very old... runs out of $$$'s... gets bought by New Zealand Air (which -also- runs out of money...)
etc.

So, now - in the midst of the federal elections - Australia's Labor Party promises to keep this turkey flying, no matter how much it may cost!

So, good businesses -don't- get gov't support (since, of course, they don't need it...), but lousey ones do!

Your tax dollars at work... (i.e. if you're Australia-based).

Recent calls from the administrator of the failed company (after a handful of Ansett planes were brought out of mothballs and sent up again) sounded like:

Fly Ansett, we need your custom!

Virgin Blue (a new kid on the Australian block) had earlier come on-line with NEW jets...

So, where would -you- buy your tickets... from an airline that hasn't bothered to keep its fleet up-to-date?

Or a new player (here) that brings new ones in?

As always, the choice is yours...

Oh, Qantas is still alive, & trying to compete with Virgin Blue...

Eight Miles High

How perfect is Locke's analogy of the dancing hamster (pg 23) when exploring how organizations 'predict' what will sell? Instead of reaching the conclusion, "Oh my God, we know nothing," they infer quite illogically that maybe they should rush Web services into developing an animated GIF of a dancing gerbil, or dancing frog--oh yes, or a dancing iguana--to display proudly on their homepage (assuming the magic must have something to do with animals small enough to fit in a glass fish tank). Can't see the forest for the trees. It's not an equation; it's an experience, stupid.

Re:How is this News for Nerds?

The really scary parts of marketing are that:

We (geeks) are good at it.

It's fun !

Occasionally I've got involved in marketing (I can handle it, honest, I've just got a bit of a cold at the moment). The surprising ease of it and the ease by which it's possible to not only do it, but to get it right , makes me even more convinced that Scott Adam's view is right (marketing people are those who can't play piano well enough for a brothel). If you're going to play ball with consumerism, then you need to look at marketing. The fact that the field is full of extremely stupid people without the brains of a HR droid shouldn't put you off making your own marketing work right.

#ob_karma_whore
Paco Underhill's book Why We Buy [amazon.co.uk], is a great intro to common sense applied to retail marketing. Much off it works for e-comm sites too.

Re:Rate your mate!

The link is missing, where is the rite answers at?

Re:Rate your mate!

Where the hell is the Garammar Nazi?

Principal of a loan, not principle.

Good day!

GTRacer
- Doesn't make anywhere near the "-4" income...

Re:Rate your mate!

10. We rafted down the grand mountain river.

What's wrong with that one? Grand is an adjective.

15. He paid all the interest on the principle.

This is correct? If we assume a loan, then the correct word is principal. Otherwise, we must assume that the principle (fundamental idea) was interesting, and somehow he applied a payment to it. That's a real stretch.

I wouldn't call this a test of grammar, but rather a test of grammar and appropriate word choice. I also wonder what kind of teacher is confortable promoting deception ("...the test was fabricated").

Re:Rate your mate! (Give credit)

this is ripped (poorly) from:
http://www.uakron.edu/noden/strats/strats9/strat91 .html [uakron.edu]

Re:Rate your mate!

This is really two topics in one post -- sorry.

1) The point of grammar-based prejudice is a good one! I think online communications (email, message boards, chat rooms, IM, multiplayer games, etc) actually exacerbate the situation. Since text is often the only clue we have about other people, I end up making a lot of assumptions about others by their writing style. Assumptions about age and education, primarily. The fact that my assumptions prove correct more often than not strengthens this instinct. But is this another form of prejudice?

2) While I enjoyed the test, it always aggravates me when people equate salary with success/prestige. I've just finished my Ph.D. in physics, and am looking at jobs now. There appears to be a major fork in the road, where I need to decide to go into industry or acadamia. I could be challenged and happy either way, but it's a difficult decision. My feeling is to stay in academics, because I feel a strong affinity with the whole academic process of teaching, research, and open sharing of knowledge. But jobs in the industry typically pay two to three times more than academic jobs, just starting out. And later on the academic salaries quickly asymptote while salaries in the industry have practically no limit. From a purely financial perspective, the decision is absurdly obvious.

So my future salary is not determined by my grammar, grades, or whatever. It's determined by my priorities. I would say "greed/ethics ratio", but that's too smug. So I won't say that. ;)

I also aggravates me when people talk about intelligence like it is some kind of metric. I personally don't think that intelligence can be measured in any meaningful way. Grammar, intelligence, and salaries are not like inches, centimeters, and cubits. They are related more like sweetness, color, and temperature of food are.

Whew! done ranting. That felt good.

Low score ? Don't worry !

-19 or more ?

President of the USA !

Re:Why Slashdot Sucks

Obviously someone didn't read my comment before moderating.

This test is BS, on several levels.

I took the test, and three of my answers were incorrect according to the answer key. However, based on my knowledge of grammar and the reasons underlying my decisions, in each case I overruled the answer key. I presumes this means I may eventually out-earn whoever wrote the test. ;-)

I agree with the writer who objected to earning capacity as a measure of self-worth. Nobody likes a rich, stupid guy. On the other hand, a strong command of grammar is an intrinsically worthwhile skill.

The score-to-income correlation table is ludicrous. Few of the engineers with whom I work could achieve a score better than -12, yet as far as I know, none earns less than $25,000 per annum. My SO, on the other hand, would have earned a perfect score, yet earns less than $25000/yr.

Finally, I want to know what the writers of the test were smoking and if they brought enough for everyone. They think key personnel earn $90K and upper management $150K. Ha! Maybe they do on Lanulos, in the Andromeda galaxy, but no executive in my neighborhood would work for so little. :-P