As I noodle around with a number of presentations** I’ve got coming up (I’ve finally figured out Keynote for the Mac), I want to take a stand.
It’s the end of marketing, advertising and corporate communications “as usual”
It’s not enough to say that blogging is important or that social media tools are going mainstream.
Here’s my little manifesto
I’m still noodling with it. Feel free to jump in and add something, help me clarify my thoughts or tell me to stuff it:
The Inflection Point of Corporate Blogging
– Blogs and other social media tools are here to stay
– Blogs are just next-generation Web sites
– Social media tools (RSS, blogs, podcasts, video, wikis, etc.) can be used by any company, large or small, B2C or B2B
– They symbolize community, conversation, mutual respect between users and an ethos of sharing
– These tools are more powerful at informing/influencing/persuading than traditional forms of marketing, advertising and corporate communications
– They help you get found online
– If you can’t be found, you don’t exist
Conclusion: This isn’t optional
You gotta start using blogs, podcasts, online video (social media) today!
Defining an inflection point
Google’s acquisition of YouTube yesterday for $1.65 billion is extremely significant. (Watch the CNN video with the announcement.)
Yes, it’s a lot of money. Yes it’s eerily like the dot com boom days when companies with no revenue were perceived to be hugely valuable.
But I see it as more than that. It’s a tipping point (thanks to Malcolm Gladwell). Or an inflection point.
Intel’s Andy Grove popularized “inflection point” as a business term. It’s really a mathematical expression meaning a point on a curve at which the tangent crosses the curve itself. I don’t pretend to understand calculus so don’t ask me to explain.
Translated into business, it means something new is happening and there’s no going back. No more “business as usual.”
Read Andy’s explanation here. It’s an excerpt from his 1996 book, Only the Paranoid Survive:
“Strategic inflection points can be caused by technological change but
they are more than technological change… They are
full-scale changes in the way business is conducted, so that simply
adopting new technology or fighting the competition as you used to may
be insufficient. They build up force so insidiously that you may have a
hard time even putting a finger on what has changed, yet you know that
something has. Let’s not mince words: A strategic inflection point can
be deadly when unattended to.” – Andy Grove, founder of Intel
** I’m speaking at a bunch of different venues over the next two weeks – both here in the U.S. and also in London (Oct. 18th and Oct. 25th) and at a private event in Paris! (Que j’adore Paris!)