My book title

One of the most important and fundamental shifts in the marketing "communications" space is exactly that...the shift from communication to that of conversation.

Back in the day, 2000/1 to be exact, when I was Director of Interactive Media at TBWA\Chiat\Day in New York, we were (like all other interactive folk) talking about the shift from one-way monologue to two-way dialogue. In fact, with an innovative client like ABSOLUT, we pioneered what we called involvement advertising i.e. an evolution or progression from interactive advertising, which not only used consumer involvement, but indeed was predicated/contingent on the consumer participating in order to resolve/play out.

Put differently...expanding banners does not a conversation make.

So here we are, at the dawn of 2007. In some respects, we've come a long way and in others we have even left the starting blocks.

When I thought about my next book, I weighed up the options of LA30 Part Deux - The Sequal versus a completely different path. I think I found a happy medium and today, I'm proud to announce the title of the book:

Join the Conversation

How to engage marketing-weary consumers through the power of community, dialogue and partnership

Thank you for all your suggestions/comments thus far. I will be integrating much of your feedback throughout the writing process. There will be a few interesting twists along the way and I hope to announce a few of them later this week...

Time to go and write!