Day 45 of 100 blogs in 100 days

Day 45 of visiting 100 blogs in 100 days...

Communities Dominate Brands is a blog by Tomi Ahonen for all interested in marketing and how the influence of digitally connected communities will upset the current models of marketing.

Tomi Ahonen along with Alan Moore recently coauthored the book -"Communities Dominate Brands" - here's a review from Future Text - Communities Dominate Brands: Business and marketing challenges for the 21st century is a book about how the new phenomenon of digitally connected communities are emerging as a force to counterbalance the power of the big brands and advertising.

The book explores the problems faced by branding, marketing and advertising facing multiple radical changes in this decade. Communities Dominate Brands discusses how disruptive effects of digitalisation and connectedness introduce threats and opportunities. The authors compellingly illustrate how modern consumers are forming communities and peer-groups to pool their power resulting in a dramatic revolution of how businesses interact with their customers. The book provides practical guidance of how to move from obsolete interruptive advertising to interactive engagement marketing and community based communications, with dozens of real business examples from around the world.

I met Tomi Ahonen back in July in North Carolina when we had an engaging discussion about MTV - Tomi is an author and independent consultant in the emerging areas of next generation wireless, with expertise in the business application, services, partnering and marketing of wireless technologies.

Tomi is a forward thinker and writes some compelling blog postings - such as:

[The] i-Pod has been a great success for Apple, and quite rightly so, the IT industry likes to show off i-Pod success in what innovation is possible. Thats all good and well. And 2005 has been the year for i-Pod.

But 2006 will be the year when i-Pod is rather unceremoniously shifted into the dust bin of technology history. Why? Because in 2006 the mobile phone business will take over the MP3 music player market. The i-Pod will not die suddenly, and the fanatical music fans will hang onto their white earphones for years, but make no mistake, the signs are crystal-clear that the days of the i-Pod are numbered." link

If you're a marketing fan and tired of the same old same old that corporations that talk about innovation, but always resort to (as Stephen Jones pens in the book's forward), "...bureaucratic values of safety, efficiency and control.... [ but you desire to be part of] interdependent values of sharing, listening, equity rights, global harmony and synergy..." then this book and certainly this blog is for you - Check it out... slowly and carefully. Very visionary stuff!