So, about 'compelling' which you mention. If the leverage is from without, I think that qualifies as coercion, and at the very least cajolling, but what about being compelled from within?

That's the 'compelling' I'm interested in, the groundswell around ideas that are just too irresistible to not want to get up and dance to them, the inner complusions we have a right to connect with that are self actualizing. When companies can respond to that it turns everything all around. That's what Visceral Business is all about.

I completely agree with your final points, very well made, and thanks a great deal for the input.

Howard Rheingold has written about the new 'literacies' that people need to thrive in a world of pervasive access to information, but since you seem to be focusing on the productivity of advertising and PR, I'll focus my own comments in that area. First, I want to single out the word “compelling” – people in agencies are always talking about “compelling content” , but people do not want to be compelled. The mindset from broadcast TV, that the greatest communications skill is stopping the audience from changing the channel, has got to go. Second, there needs to be more listening; people talk back, and among the messages brands can pick up (if they listen) is who's in the mood to buy, and who isn't, and why.

Thirdly, you have to respect people's right to filter your messages; the flip-side of filtering is that people are integrating you and what they know about you into their hierarchy of needs. (Fingers crossed, you fit.) Fourthly, advertising and PR don't have to be a waste of people's time, but we are culturally conditioned to see them that way. But as Jeff Bezos said, that's the price you pay for having an unremarkable product.

Thanks for pointing out Theory U to me – I'll have a good read to get my mind around it

I'll frame this in terms of relationships vs transcations, or cursory vs committed types of interactions, and say each have advantages and disadvantages based on fitness of purpose against the intended outcome.

As an erstwhile marketer to my mind the smart intention has got to be to engender enduring relationships instead of transient ones, and increasingly so as the idea of social memberships become more prevalent.

Social connectivity affords a greater, more pervasive sense of group identities, Seth Godin's Tribes concept if you will, that will increasingly and intrinsically supplement individual identities. What generates community identity, connections that matter to people, a sense of belonging, all come via transformative relationships and formative experiences, deep understandings, and journeys traveled together.

There's both an art and a science to that as well as spiritual and pragmatic angles. The graph is inspired as I've mentioned by the work of Otto C. Sharmer, Theory U which came originally out of MIT and work being done by Otto within The Presencing Institute which he runs. I'm a part of that community. The productivity overlay has been added by me and Mike Bladwin to challenge the existing terms of reference surrounding productivity, and a preoccupation with factory thinking, as systemically it is arguably an outmoded frame of reference and it precludes all of the above.

Your ideas of social productivity is very interesting, and one that I am already exploring with some businesses I'm involved in. I'd like, however, to hear more on this, as I don't feel I have grasp of it after just this post.

I'm intrigued by this graph – is there anyway you make a clearer explanation of what it's about?

All the trends and indications point to ever more volumes of data and information coming at people, and so the real solutions are inevitably going to be around those generators of content that provide engagement, enjoyment and satisfaction at a personal level, rather than just broadcasting out, and expecting the masses to flock at their broadcasts.

It'll be interesting to see how this dynamic in the UK emerges, as I have a feeling the social media eco-system here is a little more evolved than in the US.. or is that just my biased view?