Pinko and Attention Trust

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of sitting down for coffee with Ed Batista of Attention Trust. We had a great discussion of AT and PM and how, in marketing terms, Pinko was trying to achieve the same thing as Attention Trust was trying to achieve online. Ed blogged about our discussion here.

Attention, or more aptly Intention, is tricky for people to wrap their minds around. We live in a noisy noisy world. I think the best description I've heard is from Doc:

The Intention Economy grows around buyers, not sellers. It leverages the simple fact that buyers are the first source of money, and that they come ready-made. You don't need advertising to make them.

The Intention Economy is about markets, not marketing. You don't need marketing to make Intention Markets.

...In The Intention Economy, the buyer notifies the market of the intent to buy, and sellers compete for the buyer's purchase. Simple as that.

The Intention Economy is built around more than transactions. Conversations matter. So do relationships. So do reputation, authority and respect. Those virtues, however, are earned by sellers (as well as buyers) and not just "branded" by sellers on the minds of buyers like the symbols of ranchers burned on the hides of cattle.

The Intention Economy is about buyers finding sellers, not sellers finding (or "capturing") buyers.

And this is by-and-large, what Pinko Marketing addresses. I speak about 5 basic principles of Pinko Marketing:

1. Focus on Inbound, rather than outbound messages
   
   
2. Be a community advocate (not a corporate evangelist)
   
   ...you are part of the community you serve or you aren't pinko
   
   
3. No less than 100% authenticity and ethics
   
   
4. Serve niche markets
   
   ...don't go for the mass
   ...be patient
   
   
5. Use open source thinking
   
   ...operate with utter transparency, develop your product openly, care about community first, consider open sourcing

The manifesto, started by me, but augmented by a community of over 150 Pinko Marketers, is a continuation of this, too.

I am delighted, then to announce that I will be talking about Pinko and Attention during next week's Attention Trust Meetup discussion at CNET.

Speaking of Attention, though, I'm not too fond of Meetup, so I've listed the event at Upcoming as well.