Cluetrain Manifesto Themed Questions

I just read a great post over at AdaptiveBlue that provides 10 tips on blogging. The post was inspired by Allen Stern's post about product blogs.

One of the tips in the post recommended that blogger engage their readers and colleagues. Even writing posts to people with questions that don't necessarily reference posts. This type of post is probably very familiar to most bloggers; you write a list of questions, usually personal, and ping the bloggers you want to ask your questions in the post and tags. Instead of asking a bunch of personal questions, I wanted to learn what people thought about an idea I recently wrote about in critiquing the cluetrain manifesto. I was thinking about the upcoming 10th anniversary of the manifesto and thought a revisit of the manifesto's ideas would push the conversation about the manifesto forward.

I’ve put a list of five questions together and ask the bloggers who I ping to answer the questions on their blog, and pass the same questions or better questions onto their own group of bloggers

Here are my five questions; I'd like Phil Gomes, Shel Israel, Susan Getgood, Richard Binhammer, and Kami Huyse.

Five questions about the cluetrain manifesto

1) What does the cluetrain manifesto mean to you? How has the book and theses influenced or not influenced you?

2) Which companies have best implemented the cluetrain manifesto in your opinion and how were they effective?

3) In thesis 57, the cluetrain manifesto states, "smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner." In light of that thesis, is encouraging employees to use social media and blogging a good idea? Is it really effective, when an employee is encouraged but not directed?

4) How can a company encourage employees to use social media, and empower them to answer customer questions and learn from customers?

5) Do all employees want to talk with customers? If not what percentage want to internetwork and converse?