The Power of Ideas and Collaboration, and a Brief History of Social Media Marketing

I recently had the honor of being interviewed by Bill Sobel for CMS Wire, where I shared some thoughts on ideas and collaboration, but also on how past experiences laid the groundwork for the present state of marketing. For instance, I shared a few thoughts on the evolution of search and social:

It was, at the time, a Herculean effort for marketers to shift from focusing on their reputation in Google to their actual reputation. Google was almost a distraction. It's as if marketers cared so much about sweeping the sidewalk in front of their store that they weren&39;t paying attention to the people shopping there.

Another big change is that media companies didn&39;t have any great ways for brands to reach people via social channels. Facebook in its fairly early days was tapping Microsoft to sell banner ads on its site. Meanwhile, MySpace let advertisers somehow make its site even uglier than it was before. It’s as if every ad was designed by Michael Bay. Marketers could also connect with bloggers, but even the word "blog" sounded like a noise people make once they realized they got food poisoning. Marketers weren’t in a rush to change tactics.

Read the full interview and let me know what you think.&0160;