thinking/critical

Websites, social media, blogging, and other forms of interactive marketing have greatly enhanced the marketing potential of most organizations. But beware the temptation to believe that these are all you need, or that any of them are actually “free!”

The 24-hour news cycle requires 24-hour news content. The news world looks to itself for reportage. The competition to produce stories leads to little – or rushed – thought and analysis. News consumers dislike ambiguity and crave comfort, so the news media spoon-feeds us certainty and pre-approved bias. The result? Very few people understand the current economy, economic history, or the potential pitfalls and promise of various solutions.

Without the support of wild growth based on expansion, we must return to offering things of inherent, comparative value. Relationships are once again essential to business success. Relationships within the business, and relationships with the customers, vendors, and communities the business depends on. But has our understanding of relationship become superficial?

Remember the book – and the saying – the medium is the message? Marshall McLuhan, author of the saying and of the 1964 book of the same name, theorized that every message is not only influenced, but defined, by the medium by which the message is delivered. McLuhan died in 1980, before any of these new digital marketing mediums were possible, let alone conceived of. Yet his work is as relevant today as it was back when he was worried about the ultimate social impact of the television. McLuhan argued that at the intelligent, rational levels of perception, human beings take a message and consider its content carefully. However, at the empirical – experiential – level of consciousness, the medium itself is the message.