Continuing the series begun here

Step 1: Recognize that the Game has changed. Permanently.

To understand where we are now, we need to step back and look at where we were and how we got here. Sounds cliché, but it is true.

Only through an investigation of the historical marketing context and the understanding that comes with it, can we lay the foundation for accomplishing the first of our two goals.

Your team knows many of these forces, so our interactive review may be cursory. The baseline, however, will be critical to our moving forward in unison.

Some of the forces at play include:

1. The changing role of Marketing from “matches” to “gasoline”
2. When a lone blogger can be a more powerful voice than any Fortune 500 company (see here)
3. How the “story” is the central element of marketing in a WOM world.
4. Permission is the most valuable asset…
5. …and Attention is right behind that
6. There are 6 Billion Channels…and counting

For our team, this step is education, discussion, dialogue and investigation. It is also about preparing all of us for the mental fortitude required of the next few steps.

As innovation leaders, your team is going to have to go out on a limb a bit and be prepared to serve as internal change agents for the new marketing reality. It will be uncomfortable and scary, but the alternative is far worse…irrelevance.

Continued here