I asked a fellow Ryzer, a PR veteran, what he thought of the ideas behind Rageboy's Gonzo Marketing book. "Frankly, I thought Cluetrain Manifesto was a waste of trees.... They guy sounded like a cranky hippie, not a real marketing consultant." 

Here's my description of Gonzo Marketing.

Lots of garbled rhetoric, a few gems here and there. This was Locke applying Clueful thinking to a practical business problem.

Key observations:

• Orgs communicate poorly, impersonally
• For every marketing or PR person with an axe to spin, a firm has dozens or thousands of employees, each with their own voice
• Authentic voices connect with customers in ways that are real, deeper, and longer lasting [sounds like a breath mint!]
• Organization boundaries aren't firm, fixed borders; they are open and porous since workers have outside lives and interests and minds of their own.

So:

• Sponsor tools, like bulletin boards, weblogs and listservs, so that everyone in your company can publish to the web. To the public web. Separate places for internal use too.
• Don't put restrictions on content beyond "be legal". You want to encourage people to blog about their interests and work, so their passions come through and they find their voices.

One example he gave: Enough folks working at General Motors were interested in gardening to create a vibrant community. They branded themselves but GM had a quiet and clear "sponsored by" logo. They drew others interested in landscaping and gardening. The discussion fora produced suggestions about improving the design of the pickup to better haul the bags of mulch etc. that these homeowners often do. New features, better sales. Side effect: within this community you got to know people through their online personality. So you felt safe asking them questions about your car or truck. And people did; person to person, outside of the usual channels. And GM workers were pleased to represent their firm, answered questions without scripts, and became agents of GM customers trying to find their way through the bland polished exterior corporate wall.

In the world of journalism, the idea is that out of 200,000 employees you should be able to find a handful that have deep knowledge on exactly whatever you want to talk about. Someone is the expert on tire wear in mountainous country for your Denver Post article. PR teams are usually experienced as a barrier (delaying but usually ineffective) to sources. The gonzo marketer (gonzo referring to authentic, personal voice) embraces this: exposes and acknowledges the diverse humanity of his firm.

Macromedia is trying something almost along these lines, a pilot I think. Each of their product ombudsmen (5 I think) started public blogs, writing about updates, new releases, common problems, competitors, most of it triggered externally by readers and and other bloggers. No draft-edit-review cycle; straight to web. (Sean Carton article)

Also the notion that when bloggers from your firm start hanging out online with the public, you create opportunities for new partnerships and alliances with the employers and friends of all those people. Might lead to joint ventures, communities of practice, sales, who knows.

My take:

Not intellectually rigorous or proven by evidence/experience. But the model appeals to me.

So is it hogwash? [I shudder to think where that term comes from.] Or clueful?