If you make your living communicating, you need to read and absorb the 95 Theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto. You don't have to agree with them, but you do need to read them and think about them.

Many real estate public relations people, and the writers and editors who pass on (in more ways than one) their messages, don't seem to have understood these (or any other) Cluetrain theses:

1. Markets are conversations.

3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

4. Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.

6. The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

16. Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone.

19. Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance.

20. Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.

21. Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor.

25. Companies need to come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships.

26. Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.

27. By speaking in language that is distant, uninviting, arrogant, they build walls to keep markets at bay.

Most housing news releases fray the nerves of anyone who has to read a few of them.

We're posting the Cluetrain theses on the door of this blog to start a conversation about how to make those releases speak in a human voice.

Warning: I often lapse into a non-human voice. My excuse is that I'm a "recovering lawyer" and haven't fully regained my ability to speak or write English. Writing the way I do is part of the price I have to pay for 3 years of law school and 5 years of practice.