Over the last seven years or so I’ve read the Cluetrain Manifesto maybe five times, cover to cover. By that you could probably figure out that I like the book. A bit.
During that time, it’s been my privilege to get to know three of the four authors pretty well, and to count them as my friends: Chris Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger. In fact as chance would have it I have met and spent time with different cluetrainers in 4 different countries.
Yet, in all that time, I’ve never been able to meet all three at the same time. Until today:
It was really good to see Chris, I hadn’t seen him for a few years. We share many interests and attitudes, including of all things a birthday. I turn 50 in less than a week; Chris, in typical larger-than-life form, has to go and outdo that and make 60 on the same day. Oh well. Incidentally, completely serendipitously, Doc has a family birthday on the same day. As does Neil Young, one of my favourite artists, who happens to be playing in Denver today.
I couldn’t get tickets for the Neil Young concert, but I did get something else I’d been waiting a long time for: a triple-signed first-edition Cluetrain (yes, I’m crazy enough to have carried one around waiting for just this opportunity!). The Sign of Three.