BzzAgents...Creative Commons...Common Ground?

It's rather sad that the Creative Commons loyalists and word-of-mouth marketing company BzzAgents can't see any common ground. Both are attempts at changing established rules of play.

It's rather sad that a conversation isn't happening. If blogs are a conversational media, I for one sure hope there is more to the conversations than "he said"/"she said" bickering. I've had more constructive dialogue during my divorce forgodsakes. In addition to an I and You, there's always a third unfolding entity in dialogue: We. Couldn't we use conversation to seek common ground and dialectically emerge with the "We" solution?

Both sides seem so quick to judgment (and pre-judgment) that common ground isn't explored. Sometimes a real dialogue means one that's considered. Not that blogging equals journalism, but a teeny bit of due diligence with diverse folks - on the other side of the issue - wouldn't hurt. Sometimes the best thing to do is not to blog first and then see where the chips fall -- but rather talk to a human in realtime and have a good ol' fashioned listening-and-speaking exchange especially when it's emotionally charged. That includes responses, too.

Alas listening is the most crucial part of any conversation - and the most ignored in our haste to influence the other.

When people talk, listen completely. Don't be thinking about what you're going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. - Ernest Hemingway

Here's a good summary of what the Creative Commons loyalists reject:

Their their top 100 agents page highlights someone who interrupts a conversation about politics to talk about what shoes the politicians were wearing. A quote from the person in question: “It’s a Trivial Pursuit fact. Every President since Fillmore has owned Johnston & Murphys. See these shoes I am wearing? These are Johnston & Murphy LiTes. These shoes don’t have shanks either so I don’t have to worry about running around airport security with socks.”

That rings alarm bells, because normal people don’t talk like that. If you’re objection is “sure they do”, my only response is “No, they really don’t.” That’s the reason why traditional advertising doesn’t work anymore: people just don’t talk and the same way in commercials as they do in real life. Advertisers have figured this out, too, and now they’re trying to manufacture word-of-mouth (search engine ranking is actually a bigger deal, worth a ton than ‘word of mouth’, because here are people actively searching for something, meaning if they find it online, they’ll be a lot more likely to pay for it than if it’s advertised somewhere), but there’s no guarantee that this will work. In fact, this is something we can resist. We can tell the people that have ideas we think are good ones—and I think Creative Commons is an idea so good that it is worth spending time explaining without expecting something in return—and we can tell them that they are so good that they don’t require underground marketing campaigns to make them succeed. - Just a Gwai Lo blog

I totally see the CC loyalists point of view that they don't want to denigrate real conversations with real people into stealth sales messages. I definitely don't either. CEO Dave Balter says he definitely doesn't either.  That's more common ground. (The sad state of affairs in marketing is no one trusts us.)

A corps of transparently enthusiastic volunteers declaring their volunteer evangelist status is a good thing. Heck, time is my most valuable resource - anyone that actually volunteers their own precious time to promote something underscores the project's worthiness and lends valuable credence to it. If you believe in it, why hide your affiliation? (In my book, BzzAgent's "rewards" are totally negligible - people do it because they want to. Precisely why they'd want to is a good question.)

(Creative commons, yes, yes sign me up! - but coffeemaker, uggh. That's another question as to why anyone in their right mind would enthusiastically voluntarily evangelize for the coffeemaker or the Johnson Murphies...but if you want to generate organic word-of-mouth you'd best give some thought to that question for your own products. Yes, why would anyone else enthusiastically spread the word? For one angle, I suggest reading the "Abundance" chapter in Dan Pink's new book, A Whole New Mind, for some clues: design/aesthetics, story, meaning, purpose, transcendence will gain importance in developed countries.)

I'm not a BzzAgents groupie. Just encouraging constructive listening-heavy dialogue to happen. Sure I see the flaws in BzzAgent's model. While I wholehearatedly stake my career on CEO Dave Balter's statement below...

The goal is to ensure that the future of marketing is about a two-way dialogue. About listening and engaging with the consumer, instead of targeting and capturing them.

... I don't see how BzzAgent's model is geared up for two-way dialogue on the company and product itself -- not the branding message or campaign (and, if I'm wrong I'd love to know how this feedback gets back to the product managers and how it's handled.)

BzzAgent does serve a valuable niche today in "crossing the chasm" and reaching newbies outside the lunatic fringe and the early adopters part of the diffusion curve. Nowadays, everyone can be a creator not only an elite few.

BTW, I've collected relevant snippets from posts & comments in my brand spanking new grassroots media & marketing linkblog. And I notice Johnnie has his two cents as well.