Seditious Internet

I came across the cluetrain manifesto today. Very interesting reading and I have only read some of Chapter 1 so far.

"...companies don't like us humans. They leverage our longing for their own ends." Fits with the thinking and learning I have been doing a lot of this year. We always seem to think of companies as an independant living entity. But any organisation only exists because it is made up of people. Yet there is a contradiction there, because organisations do develop a life of their own. Inertia keeps the place going - either up and up or further into a rut. Read Agryris on double loop learning and organisational learning. Double loop learning lets the valuable learned knowledge of individuals transfer into "the organisation", modifying norm, strategies, culture. So my question is: is it "the company" that decides I need the latest gizmo, who actually decided? Was it really "the company" (the entity), was it a strange growth from a collective consciousness, or is there one maniac individual inventing crap that no one wants or needs (until its in-your-face helps you to realise that of course you need it and how could you have ever lived without it!) and this one maniac individual has enough power over others in the organisation to make them go along?

"The Internet is inherently seditious."

We can only hope.