Also, people who work for Brands always want to build a nice big bonfire to show how productive they have been. I would love to do lots of smaller projects, each one adding value to a specific community (that’s the basis of what some of us at Nokia call Neighbourhood marketing: http://is.gd/5f7K0) but I find myself unable to argue against the need for at least a Digital/Engagement Hub; the alternative vision of value-adding projects feels a bit random and sparse when compared to the “guarantee” delivered by building a specific website, even if that website brings little additional value.

But, anyways, great post as always

You’ve made lots of great points around the marketing issues with social, and I’m increasingly a believer that the expectation of social doesn’t work wedded to a ‘firework’ style mass production model… or at least rarely works, and even then no-one can really work out why.

I do think the thing ‘in-between’ is actually bonfires that start around the production of the goods/services; change what is being sold to be social, not try and socialise what exists already. But as your final point rightly highlights, there’s a short-termism issue with a lot of clients on that.

Keynes said ‘in the long run we’re all dead’, meaning that it was too far off to worry about. In this age, if we don’t change things in the short run, then in the medium run we’re screwed…