Shirking the dialog, Beaming the enigma

Jon Husband emailed a pointer to this new blog seemingly by Clay Shirky (no author identified on the blog) and having something to do with his new book, Here Comes Everybody. Jon and I had mentioned the book in prior emails, but the blog was new to us.

The current post: What businesses need to know about social media... addressed the question by citing an email that Shirky had sent to Penguin books. In that, Shirky says, in part:

There is both opportunity and threat in this environment. The opportunity is getting these groups to amplify your message or help improve your product.

Something here bothered me, so I tried to post a comment. Shirky's WordPress blog refused to accept the comment, telling me to register. It might be helpful to clue people in on this requirement ahead of their spending time trying to comment. (Like, socially aware software.)

So I registered, was promised a password, which I'm still waiting for. Let's assume Clay is busy with his book appearances and he's not exactly focused on his book blog.

Anyway, what I had in mind to say, quite briefly, because I couldn't quite put my finger on what was bothering me, was this (I saved my comment because this experience with blog condoms was not my first):

I'm not yet "courant" on the new book, which of course interests me, but I'm a tad disappointed to find your reflection on biz effects to be content with "amplify your message." Hasn't it already for some time been time to stop believing that a corporation should even exist via "message?"

"Improve product," fine - tho' how? But if it's about amplification of pre-packaged media unsense, let's hear it for diminution. Or better: dialogue, enhanced articulation, the like.

A few minutes later, I happened to visit BMO's blog, where -- and this has happened before -- I found his latest post to more or less be reading not so much my mind, as the unthought thing it was stuck on:

And so, to answer the question: can corporations manage the migration to social media?

No.

And who fucking cares really.

For about a dozen good reasons, which I’ll get into as we move along here. But number one: corporations - or more accurately, those that work for corporations - hate their customers, even when and if they acknowledge them. That’s not about to change, and it’s not about to change any time soon. And it bears repeating over and over again. HATE.

Now we're getting somewhere: The whole thing.
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