Here’s a couple of thoughts as we head into the New Year.

1. Talking with David Sweeney, a Channel Signal Analyst, and he brought up a great point. Now we hear that the sponsors of Tiger Woods have lost over 12 billion in collective stock value since Tiger’s trysts were uncovered. We wonder what would have happened if that money had been invested in new media?
What if they would have collected a powerful army of Influencers out there every day delivering messages, content and having conversations about Accenture, AT&T, Nike, Buick, etc.

Thousands of pieces of content would have been circulating. And they would have been retweeted and virally turned into millions of impressions.

Instead, what we have is the implosion of one personality that all of these sponsors banked on.

Man, do I long for the future. Maybe in 2010.

2. The Boomerang Effect. (Devaki Murch’s phrase). This means that every message that is placed into the marketplace should come back to the company in some form…either positive or negative.

This input would keep that message fresh, would allow it to morph and be adopted by different groups. That message would be repurposed, perhaps a hundred times.

But here’s the problem in 2009. Companies are geared to broadcast. They throw these messages out into the ocean and have no real way to gauge the response.

Man, do I long for the future.

One where companies communicate by delivering content …and then listening. And then engaging.

And a future where human-beings aren’t looking for gods here on earth. Because…they just aren’t here.

Peace.