Our panel at last week’s SxSW Interactive conference was by far the best panel I have ever had the pleasure to join.  Self Replicating Awesomeness: The Marketing of No Marketing included Deb Schultz, Jeremiah Owyang, Tara Hunt, Hugh Macleod and David Parmet who are each absolutely brilliant in their own way, and some of my favorite peers in this field.  You really should listen to the audio (where is it?) and I really should do a better recap post then just linking to the Google Search Results, but a few things have been bouncing around in my head for the past few days I wanted to share with you now.

First, several people are attributing to me something I quoted from the CEO of iProspect, Fredrick Marckini, who said “The brands with the best storytellers win.”  I wish I could take credit for that awesome insight, but Fredrick deserves the credit.  More people should set the story straight when they are standing on the shoulders of our peers - it is a shame so many seemingly smart people quietly sit by and take credit for the work of others, but that is a separate story.

Most importantly, there are three major thoughts about marketing that I have been thinking about deeply that I want to share with you now.  The first is my definition of marketing, the second is about marketing’s place in the product lifecycle and the third is about marketings interaction with markets.

1. Marketing is the work we do to match a company’s product or service with the people or companies who will get the most value and/or satisfaction from it.
2. The best marketing is done during the product development process, where the needs and desires of those who will use the product or service are considered and designed into the product or service with an understanding of the broader marketplace in which they will be sold.  You can’t easily market a product that was not well made, but the iPhone sells itself.
3. Marketing is not the transactional process with which it has become associated despite its close proximity. If markets are indeed conversations, then marketing is a series of conversations intended to serve the better interests of the market. (David Weinberger has famously said ’somewhere along the way marketing became what we did TO people’)

Of course, all of this is moot if you don’t remember and live the original golden rule DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU.  In short, don’t sell people crap, don’t try to pretend that people need your crap and don’t, by any means, try to pretend your crap is not crap - because everyone knows crap when they smell it.

So this is my first draft to attempt to redefine how we think of marketing, or rather how marketing is perceived and presented.  What do you think the new golden rules of marketing should be?

Once again, it is speaking season, or rather, it’s conference season and I am grateful to be speaking in a few different cities here stateside (still looking for some European opportunities so I might be able to give my wife a working honeymoon – just kidding honey, no work on the honey moon

Thanks to my good friend, and fellow “air-man� Shel Israel, I am on a panel tomorrow talking about Blogging’s impact on the corporation at Frost & Sullivan’s Sales and Marketing MindXchange. I will be in Phoenix for two days, Monday and Tuesday Jan 14 & 15 but unfortunately no time to meet any of my friends from Social Media Club Phoenix…

On Monday February 4 I will be joining my brothers in arms at the Customer Service is the New Marketing conference. During lunch I will be one of several people (including good friends Jeremiah Owyang and Deborah Schultz) leading workshops on how companies can build closer relationships with their customers. My workshop will be based on how to move beyond the transaction to satisfaction – using knowledge to empower customers and turning customer support from a cost into an investment across the customer experience lifecycle. In short, I will be walking folks through my methodology for marketing after the sale – how to better educate customers so they get the most enjoyment and satisfaction from a company’s products or services.

Two days later, on Wednesday February 6, I will be leading a short interactive exercise at the ALI Conference on the use of Social Media for Internal Communications. The folks at ALI put on a great event I had the pleasure of participating in during December in New York – very glad to be participating again. There are so few good professional education / conference companies out there, it is nice to be working with a good one. Social Media Club members get a $200 discount by mentioning Social Media Club when registering.

I am really excited to announce that I have been invited to do the keynote at SoCON08 on Saturday February 9 just north of Atlanta, GA. Thanks to Sherry Heyl, one of the organizers, for inviting me down after seeing my ‘closing keynote’ at Josh Hallet’s BlogOrlando. I plan to go deeper into some thoughts I have had over the last few months that extend on my “Business is Personal (again)� presentation. Interestingly, a Wired article I read recently mentioning The Conversation Group’s Peter Hirshberg addressed this same issue. In the Wired article, Clive Thomson wrote “corporations are getting humanized and humans are getting corporatized�. Let’s hope and work for more of the former rather than the latter…

Unfortunately I missed the speaker submission deadline for Danny Sullivan’s Search Marketing Expo, but Social Media Club is proud to be a media sponsor of this great new event series. The next event is being held in Santa Clara from February 26-28, and if the prior event in New York is any indicator, this is a must attend event for any digital marketer. While I am unfortunately going to be out of town, friends of Social Media Club will receive 10% off the registration using discount code SMX10SMC. If you are in Silicon Valley or able to get there, you should make time for this event.

Whew… time for some rest so I can get some more client work done in the morning and some more writing for the book done…

Wow - can’t believe how long this has been in draft mode - I am all over the place over the coming months - hopefully we can catch up at some point in person and chat over some chai tea perhaps?

Today and Tomorrow, I am in San Diego on a social networking panel with Geoff Livingston, author of Now is Gone. We are doing a podcast from my room overlooking the ocean very shortly… the panel is tomorrow morning for the CEA Industry Forum.

Next week I am in New York City from October 22-24. On Tuesday night (October 23) I am doing a Social Media Club talk on “Business is Personal (Again)” with Howard Greenstein and on Wednesday I am doing a short interactive session at the Social Media Summit. This is going to be one heckuva trip east. I will also be heading out to New York again the following week for a little networking shindig we are doing on Monday October 29 and will be available in the afternoon/evening for some quick meetings on Tuesday October 30.

I am also going to be down in Austin on November 5 & 6. We will be hosting a Social Media Club conversation on Monday November 5 and then hosting a paid Social Media Workshop all day on Tuesday November 6 sponsored by the great folks from Dell. If you are interested in attending the workshop, use my promo code CHRIS so that I can prove to the other great workshop leaders (Shel Israel, Connie Reece and Kami Huyse) that people actually read my blog! From Austin, I need to leave a few minutes early and head to the airport for an early morning speech with Marshall Kirkpatrick at BlogWorld & New Media Expo on November 7.

I am then attending the Society for New Communications Research Annual Symposium in Boston on December 5-6… Heading into next year, thanks to a recommendation from our good friend Shel Israel, I am speaking at Frost & Sullivan’s Sales and Marketing Mind Exchange.