2009 marks the 10th anniversary of the first publishing of the Cluetrain Manifesto:  The End of Business as Usual, the irreverent yet completely invaluable book written by four fixtures of the 1999 high-tech business establishment — Sun Microsystems engineer Chris Locke, technology business consultant Rick Levine, Silicon Valley publicist Doc Searls and high-tech marketer and NPR contributor David Weinberger.

You might be thinking: “A book written in 1999 — that’s so last century.”  Well, think again.

Over the weekend, I was reminded by a friend and fellow marketer about the buzz Cluetrain created when it appeared in bookstores — as the first sequel to a Website.  About its basic idea — that business is fundamentally human,  That natural, human conversation is the real “language of commerce.”  That companies work best when people on the inside have the most contact possible with those on the outside.

Cluetrain tells us that markets are nothing more than conversations.  The first markets were — well, markets.  Places for exchange.  Places where people came to buy what others had to sell — and to talk. Social conversation.  Based on “intersecting interests.”  Then came the Industrial Revolution and all this conversation was interrupted.  Author Alvin Toffler wrote in The Third Wave that the rise of industry “drove a wedge between production and consumption.”  Customers became consumers and “market” became a verb — something you do to your customers.

Cluetrain maintains that the long silence — the industrial interruption of the human conversation — was just coming to an end in the late 90s as the Internet was helping markets get more connected and more vocal every day.  These markets want to talk, just as they did for the thousands of years that passed before they once again found their voices on the Web.

And this is where the Cluetrain Manifesto becomes more relevant — and actionable — today than it was a decade ago.  Especially to me.  Especially right now.  Ten years ago I worked for a marketing communications agency that hadn’t gone beyond creating Websites for businesses to “market to customers.”   Broadcasting messages about products and services.

Today, I work for a strategic interaction agency that helps businesses create and sustain conversations with their customers.  Reaching out and asking to join conversations.  Earning the right to speak with them Gaining their respect and loyalty.  An agency that consciously or unconsciously became the future of business in 1999.

Glad I’m here. What do you have to sell?  Talk to me.

If you can’t find your voice, read the entire text of the Cluetrain Manifesto at www.cluetrain.com/book/index.html and come back again for a conversation.