Background

Christopher Locke was born on the 12th of November, 1947 in Newton, Massachusetts, United States.

Education

Christopher Locke attended the University of Rochester and Bard College.

Career

Christopher Locke has an impressive resume that cites nearly twenty years of experience in the marketing and technical fields. Some of his areas of expertise include business development, management consulting, and the Internet and World Wide Web systems.

Christopher began to work for a number of organizations in Tokyo, Japan, including Fujitsu International Engineering (now Fujitsu Ltd.), Ricoh Software Research Center (now Ricoh Company, Ltd.), North-Holland/Elsevier Science Publishers, and Institute for New Generation Computer Technology where he held the post of a technical editor from 1983 to 1985.

In 1985, Locke came back to the United States. He became director of corporate communications at Carnegie Group in Pittsburgh, the post he held until 1991. During that time, he was also vice president of corporate communications at the Intelligent Technology Group in Pittsburgh and director of industrial relations at Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh.

In 1991, Christopher Locke moved to Chicago, where he received the post at CIMLINC as its director of corporate communications. Between 1992 and 1993, he was vice president of business development at Avalanche Development in Boulder. He then became the founding editor of Internet Business Report for CMP Publications in Manhasset. The next year, he accepted the post of president at MecklerWeb Corporation in Westport. In 1995, he took the position of editor and publisher for internetMCI in Reston. When he left internetMCI, he was made program director of online community development for IBM in White Plains in 1995-96. Then, he was vice president of business development at Displaytech in Boulder for a year.

In 1996, Christopher became president for Entropy Web Consulting in Boulder. The same year, he was appointed editor and publisher of a webzine called Entropy Gradient Reversals, where he introduced his alter ego, RageBoy. Years 1999 - 2000 saw him as editor-in-chief for personalization.com in Boulder. Four years later, he received the position of a consultant and Chief Blogging Officer for HighBeam Research.

Christopher Locke is the author of three books concerned with business practices and the Internet, The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual, that was written in collaboration with Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger in 2000, Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices that came out in 2001, and The Bombast Transcripts: Rants and Screeds of RageBoy published in 2002. He is also a contributor to periodicals.

Achievements

• Christopher Locke is an outstanding business analyst and consultant, as well as a prolific author of books. His books, The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual and Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices are bestsellers. He was named by the Financial Times as one of the world's Top 50 Management Thinkers in 2001.
  
  Locke is a noted speaker and has been invited to ad­dress conferences in states from New York to California. In 1997, Entropy Gradient Reversals was rated as one of the top one hundred Web sites in Colorado by Rocky’ Mountain News.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Bombast Transcripts: Rants and Screeds of Rage Boy

    (A part scathing send-up of commercial techno-fetishism, p...)

    2002
  • Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices

    (Gonzo Marketing shows how companies that support and prom...)

    2001
  • The Cluetrain Manifesto 2000

Views

Quotations: "Best practices usually aren't."

"We die. You will never hear those words spoken in a television ad. Yet this central fact of human existence colors our world and how we perceive ourselves within it."

"It's still a lean back, enjoy or a lean forward, be involved, enjoy the medium. It's real engagement, real emotion."

"TV has the longest recall. You remember what you've seen for longer, it has engagement and emotion. It's the most talked about."

"Life is too short because we die."

"People finally have permission to be human in the context of their work. That's the real Internet story."

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "Chris Locke is a Force of Nature, who gives the word 'energy' new meaning. Who else would get all his friends and well-wishers to put it on the line like this, or on the air, or on the net? He knows what the Internet is for and how to use it, and has the energy and confidence to have thoughts that are preposterous, outrageous, scary, and true." - John Gehl
  
  "Chris is a unique web talent. He got the Net early and he still gets it early. At the pace the Net is evolving, when you find a guy who sees the next move and will tell you about it with no BS, you grab hold." - Scott Kurnit
  
  "You immediately realize that Chris calls it as he sees it. Whether you agree with him or not, he'll definitely stretch your thinking. He's often seen as 'out there,' but that's just because the rest of the world hasn't caught up with him yet. Once it does, he'll be off another five years into the future. In terms of long-term planning and strategy, you'll want to absorb what Chris has to say." - Robert Seidman
  
  "Chris Locke has just about as smart and innovative a take on the web as anyone I've met. Over the years he's given us at Feed many mind-opening ideas about how we can better use the medium, all delivered with great flair and levity to boot. If you want your company to really rock the web, and not just roll with it, Chris is your man." - Steven Johnson
  
  "Chris pulls no punches. While I've known him for only a short while, I've been impressed with his insight, razor-sharp perspective, and knowledge of what works and doesn't work on the Internet. Anyone who shapes strategy and tactics in this medium should find his words and thoughts worth reflecting upon." - John Funk
  
  "When I think of Chris Locke, the word authentic comes to mind. As in, original, genuine, the Real McCoy. Chris had the scene covered long before the parade of Internet experts began. I suspect one reason Chris still gets it better than most is that he lives it. Before the business plan, the market analysis, the design, the code, and the test, success on the Internet depends on a gut understanding of what works in an environment with few rules and not much history. Chris thrives here." - Robert Kost
  
  "Chris is one of the few people who can honestly lay claim to the term pioneer. His vision for the ways in which companies would make use of the Internet was groundbreaking when first promulgated in 1993 and 1994 and remains compelling today." - Jerry Colonna
  
  "Chris Locke does what companies seldom can do for themselves, break down boundaries. He'll ignite your company's creativity, tatter your carefully tailored but counterproductive edges, and generally open your team to the humane skills that make a great Web company." - Mitch Ratcliffe
  
  "The first time I met Chris, his personality overpowered me, took me to the ground, and wrested from me my honest opinion about the project he was working on. Chris puts the Oy! in RageBoy, and that's a good thing." - Lawrence Nyveen

Connections

Christopher Locke is married and has a daughter, Selene.

Daughter:

Selene Locke