Rage Boy Speaks.

• Author: PETERSON, ERIC

AUTHOR, CONSULTANT, PUBLISHER, INTERNET SEER, BOULDER'S CHRISTOPHER LOCKE HAS A NEW BEST SELLER THAT EXPLAINS WHY BUSINESSES JUST DON'T GET THE NET

Meckler Web Corp. IBM MCI WorldCom. Forbes Information Week.

Christopher Locke's resume -- eight pages on the Web -- lists a who's who of big names in business and technology. More recently he's worked as a consultant and as publisher of a webzine. Entropy Gradient Reversals (www.rageboy.com), where be often wents and rants under the influence of his online alter ego RageBoy.

Now Locke has emerged as co author of the decidedly different. The Cluetrain Manifestor. The end of Business as Usual. The book evolved from www.cluetrain.com, a web site created by the quarter of Locke. David Wenberger Rick Levine and Doc Searls Both website and declare that the Net will kill domg business as usual". The Cluetram Manifesto recently zoomed to No. 3 on Amazon.com is business bestseller list. For more see - where else - www.cluetrain.com.

The "Cluetrain" moniker comes from an unnamed executive for a fading Fortune 500 company who remarked that "The cluetrain stopped there from times a day every day for 10 years and no one ever took delivery." The authors registered the word as a domam name in early 1999, followed by oodles of press coverage and the publication of the book last month.

The Cluetrain Manifesto argues that. "A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet people are discovering and mventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed, As a direct result markers are getting smarter - and getting smatter faster than most companies."

To avoid being clobbered by the new Net economy companies must tear down "corporate firewalls," and open up to "the most exciting conversation business has ever engaged in."

Whether clueless or dead on. The Cluetrain Manifesto has generated lots of notice including a full-blown parody website (see www.gluemain.com).

What does it all mean? ColoradoBiz asked Locke.

CBiz: The Cluetrain Manifesto says, "Markets are conversations." What does that mean?

Locke: In the first chapter, I talk about ancient markets in a rather poetic description of trade routes and their confluence somewhere in Mesopotamia or wherever. The marketplace was the lifeblood of the community. It was not just a place to buy and sell things, it was a place where there was social exchange.

Closer to the present, especially in the Industrial Era, there's been a huge chasm...