Re-reading Cluetrain this morning, thesis 23 leapt out at me:

On the surface, this request is simply reinforcing the cluetrain imperative: be real, be human, talk to your market. Like many of the 95 theses, I've always read right through number 23 as so much connective tissue, supporting the major points but not stopping my eye. This morning, 23 stopped me cold. I put the book down, stared a while at the ceiling, and started this post.

With still scrambled thoughts, I'll start by saying that Cluetrain's one of those rare "green lights up the avenue" sort of books, at least for me. I've long believed in the need for a human voice in business, as my customers and readers of this blog can hopefully affirm. (Here's a post from 1992.)

Just now, I realized where Cluetrain falls short for me, and where most of the blogerati fall short too. They're just fingerpointing. They're saying "get real" to the less real, but I hear only opinions, not heart.

Implicit in 23's plea is a very human fear, and the follow through required. To truly take a human stand, to talk with realness, to sound human, one must dig past the artifice of what's acceptable and take a fearful human chance at something that can flat out fail.

Cluetrain did its job well. It took a hefty swipe at the staggering hubris of dot-com self-congratulation, even before the whole thing imploded. The blogerati do their daily job too, writing their alternative to the mind-numbing mass media.

But we can go deeper, folks. We can write with our own blood. We can put our stilts away and turn those pointed fingers back to ourselves. And no, not in a hip endearing way all too common on its way to something else, but with a realness that makes your insides clench when you click Publish.

Realness is more than irreverance. It needs kindness, and frailty, and sadness, and fear. Realness shows up in goofy enthusiasm and muddled meandering. Realness requires uncertainty, or it's just more posturing.

At least that's how it seems to me today.