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Yesterday I disparagingly linked this manifesto.
Julian Sanchez didn't like it either:
A handful of genuinely innovative business practices--for certain purposes, at any rate--are planted in horseshit, watered with marketing jargon, and voila, Capitalism 2.0 springs forth and blossoms. There are vague hints that this will somehow produce well-functioning capital markets that aren't as susceptible to bubbles and crashes, but if there's an actual model for enterprises above the scale of the village fruit stand, I'm missing it. But of course, that's not Havas' wheelhouse--their job is to bundle and peddle those elements of true novelty as a kind of meta lifestyle brand, with which to sell their clients to you, and themselves to new clients. And it's a hell of a pitch: Why settle for making consumers crave the self-image you're selling when you can make them dependent on you for Authentic Community?Bonus points for chutzpah: If you point out that they're not actually, you know, saying anything, these shameless con artists will accuse you of cynicism. I'm hard-pressed to come up with anything more cynical than gussying up the 21st century equivalent of the Burger King Kids Club as a "movement," but I'm funny like that.
That actually might do a disservice to the Burger King Kids Club. Paper crowns? How bad could it be?
Comments (1)
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hi,
i can see you don't like the manifesto. that's fine. however, neither you nor julian have offered any real criticism of it - simply questioned my motives through personal attacks.
i think my body of work speaks for itself. so i'd like to invite everyone to read it and make their own minds up. my blog (which discusses the issues above in deeper detail than either you suggest) is at the link above, and there's plenty more here:
http://www.bubblegeneration.com
ps - i responded on julian's blog, but you failed to note my response (as you've failed to contextualize the manifesto for your readers). was this deliberate, and do you have a personal issue with me - or is this just a lazy post?
cheers,
umair