Connecting Ideas and People is Next

My friend David Armano asked a question I've asked here on several occasions: what is beyond the conversation? Mike Gotta talked about a similar question in a different format a year ago. He talks about it in terms of personas. When we talked about Potable Marketing in the future of advertising, we touched upon the concept of persona.

I asked the question because I never for a moment thought it was about the conversation itself, for the sake of it. It was always about the outcomes of the conversation - connections, better projects and ROI, bigger ideas and greater executions, etc. Plus, when was the last time you were able to search for how someone was feeling?

It is about the realization of where those points of connection are and what we can do with that information. The business rules flexibility comment by Livia Labate is spot on - systems adaptability is necessary even now. When we say that technology changes, we forget that business rules and systems are also a technology - just a different kind of technology. What are the new user requirements there?

Steve Bridger says:

social networks = what's in it for me
internal communities = what's in it for us
external web properties = what's in it for them (value to customers / advertisers / etc.)

Now let's take a broader view, a step back, and think what's in it for the planet - that is social, internal (connects with our values), and external (helps connect with others). Now we are talking about bigger than just business. Yet, as Naisbitt wrote in 1994, the more universal we become, the more tribal we act.

What I'm saying here is that while technologies are great enablers - including business rules, etc. - it is the people that put those technologies to use that change the story of what is possible. The answer to how is yes - these tools will relate to each other when the individuals who use them connect the dots. I don't know about you, in this context I am thinking that there is very little redundancy, if any. (Look at what happened to Bloomberg and Steve Jobs almost being made redundant two days ago.)

The most flexible and adaptable system is that of the human kind. We are also the most complex. Our relationships and connections are multidimensional in addition to being multimedia. There is depth in links, there is greater depth where an individual truly reaches and touches another. 

This forum has allowed us to talk about ideas, stories, and executions. What is beyond this conversation are the actual connections with people - connections that in many instances have already changed at least one life: mine.

Next week and the following one, together with my reports from Europe, you will have the good fortune of connecting with a selection of professionals from the communications and marketing discipline on this blog. Some you may know already, some will be writing a post for the first time here.

You will discover how their thinking relates to the connections we have made here. I promise you it will be an amazing conversation that will go beyond mere words to what's next. My home will be their home for a day or more, I hope you will help them feel welcome, dear readers. You have been contributors all along.

[image of connecting devices by Clemson]

Comments

[Marc Meyer]

Valeria, you raised a great talking point."Our relationships and connections are multidimensional in addition to being multimedia". The key is multidimensional, we move in and out of many types of social circles and in each the realtionships and conversations are different, and have various degrees of interaction on our part.We collectively have a tendency to underestimate them and their value.

[Valeria Maltoni]

That is the reason why the conversations need us as part of the technology. We are the best filters and connectors out there.