World of Ends -- (Cross-posted from my Focused Performance weblog.)

If you're reading this, you're interested in communication about issues of management and leadership. If you're reading this, you're reading it on the Internet. If you spend any amount of time on the Net, it's worth a bit of understanding about the media. This link goes to a recent essay by a couple very influential netizens, known as part of the team responsible for the 95 theses that make up 1999's Cluetrain Manifesto...

The Nutshell
1. The Internet isn't complicated
2. The Internet isn't a thing. It's an agreement.
3. The Internet is stupid.
4. Adding value to the Internet lowers its value.
5. All the Internet's value grows on its edges.
6. Money moves to the suburbs.
7. The end of the world? Nah, the world of ends.
8. The Internet's three virtues:
   a. No one owns it
   b. Everyone can use it
   c. Anyone can improve it
9. If the Internet is so simple, why have so many been so boneheaded about it?
10. Some mistakes we can stop making already

and embedded within the details is..."All we need to do is pay attention to what the Internet really is. It's not hard. The Net isn't rocket science. It isn't even 6th grade science fair, when you get right down to it. We can end the tragedy of Repetitive Mistake Syndrome in our lifetimes and save a few trillion dollars worth of dumb decisions if we can just remember one simple fact: the Net is a world of ends. You're at one end, and everybody and everything else are at the other ends.Sure, thats a feel-good statement about everyone having value on the Net, etc. But its also the basic rock-solid fact about the Net's technical architecture. And the Internets value is founded in its technical architecture. Fortunately, the true nature of Internet isnt hard to understand. In fact, just a fistful of statements stands between Repetitive Mistake Syndrome and Enlightenment ..."There's something about NEA -- No one owns it, Everyone can use it, and Anyone can improve it -- that speaks to me very loudly. It's that kind of thinking that can and should be applied to the use and management of all kinds of human-based systems, even if they are, technically, owned by someone. If that could be translated beyond the Net, then maybe some real meaningful avoidance of the "Repetitive Mistake Syndrome" can be brought about.