Marketers and agencies that focus on the platform will need to reinvent as our online behavior matures and shifts.  Smart marketers, agencies and brands are not focusing on platforms or current opportunities, they are looking at the behavior driving users and consumers to, within and around these platforms.  Today's tactic has to become tomorrow's strategy.  And tomorrow's strategy cannot be about a shifting platform, it has to be about the one constant - human needs.

The technology will shift.  Human behavior will evolve.  Human needs won't.

For all the marketing lessons we have learned over the past 100 years of industrial marketing, we have learned far more about the invented industries we have created (for example, media) than the users we have been engaging.

The marketer of tomorrow will not be a technologist, but they will understand the implications of technology.  The marketer of tomorrow will act more like a savvy religious leader than a snake oil salesperson, or economist.  They will learn that human needs and behaviors do not exist in a vacuum, and that the wisdom of the crowds and recommendations of peers is a stronger driver than marketing messaging.

We have only begun to understand human behavior, let alone communal behavior.  We aren't even close to mapping individual or communal behavior models to economic models, be they sales or media.  The evangelicals of social have brought us some a number of wonderful theories, but I do not believe we have are close to market maturation. 

Social is in it's infancy.  Our forward progress will not come from technology progress alone.  We are on the cusp of gaining unparalleled insights into what makes people and communities tick.  We likely will not know what to do with some of these insights at first.  But I can tell you that the answer won't come from an algorithm alone.  It's time to start studying our numbers as the people they are.

While social pundits have long been advocating the need for full transparency and self-imposed ethics, disclosure statements often feel disruptive within the context of the conversation.  As a result, an alarming number of social participants fail to properly disclose their relationship with brands.  This includes not only celebrities and mommy bloggers, but agency social leads, social consultants and brand marketers. 

We need a better, comprehensive way to disclose both our relationships and the nature of these relationships without disrupting the conversation.  In the near-term, I would like to suggest that this can best be accomplished by establishing a set of short-form disclosure statements that can easily be included in a tweet, Facebook message, blog title or blog post, without distracting from the conversation.

About a month ago I emailed a handful of friends in the space, asking for their feedback on an initial short-form guidelines document.  After taking in their feedback, I would like to share the following set of guidelines.  Please share, comment and critique.  Let's get the conversation going!

When there is scarcity, Free is a blessing. 

It's 1999, you're in college and you want music.  You're tight on cash and you want an mp3, so you hop onto Napster.  Sure, the first three files you downloaded sounded horrible, but the fourth was the perfect rip.  You waded through the junk to get to gold.  Because there was a scarcity.

When there is perceived freedom, Free is an expectation. 

We expect pretty much all of our online content to be Free, especially text content.  A couple of years ago, we laughed at the Wall Street Journal for maintaining their subscription model, even (shudder) online.  We lived in the age of freedom, and equated free expression and virtually free distribution with free content.  I'm still not convinced a production model to create great content exists in the truly Free model, but time will tell.

When there is something on the line, Free is a burden. 

When your client wants to launch on Twitter and there is a hiccup in the system, there is no number to call.  When you are using GMail for your small business and the mail goes down, there is nothing you can do.  When you are counting on a buddy to fix your car and the fix doesn't quite work as promised, there is nothing you can do.

Free is great.  Free is relatively democratized.  Free is nice to have.  But if you are doing anything of importance, don't count on free.

Just because it's there, doesn't mean it's right for every occasion.  If the right choice is Free, proceed strategically and with caution.  You rarely own or control Free.  More often than not, Free is a borrowed platform.  Plan accordingly.

The writing is on the wall.  Interruptive advertising is in decline.  Content can earn People trust and listen to their peers.  Brands can now be like peers.  So we should learn to market like people, right?

Forward looking execs look up from the table and read the wall, they invest in growth opportunities.  They don't just experiment in tactics, they invest in strategies for tomorrow.  But until measurement gets sexier and more serious, social will continue to be an experiment for a majority of marketers.

The writing may be on the wall, but it's going to take a new crop of marketers to get it onto the balance sheet.

For many, this is a day to sit through long services, get dressed up and eat hearty meals.  But the real value to me, is in taking stock, celebrating what we have and setting goals, both religious and in life overall for the coming year.

The past year has been a tough one for all of us.  If we didn't lose a job, a close friend or family member did.  One of my good friends lost his wife, and another close friend and mother of four was diagnosed with MS.  While money is tight, nearly every non-profit I have ever supported fell on hard times.  For the first time in my life, I have had to structure my ma'aser (tithes to charities) in installments to accommodate the many needs of the institutions close to me and my family.

On the other hand, my sister celebrated her Bat Mitzvah and my son turned two.  My role at Digitas grew exponentially, my wife passed her nursing exams and got a great job.  It's been a year of ups and downs.

Looking back at one year ago today, we are in a far better place.  Last year, the financial scare of the crash of Lehman Brothers (one year ago to the day on the Jewish calendar) powered an urgency in our prayers.  The sky was falling.  I think we can agree that the crash wasn't quite as harsh as we had feared.

Jewish belief states that on Rosh Hashannah (New Years) our fate is written, and one week later on Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement) our fate is sealed.  This isn't to say that we can't change who we are and thereby change our fate throughout the year, but our trajectory is set over the next week.  For the past few years I was privileged participate in prayers led by my friend who just lost his wife 6 months ago.  I will never forget hearing him break down in tears year after year as he sang the words "who for life and who for death" while his wife battled cancer.  This year she sits in heaven, praying for her three year old daughter and husband.

There is a portion in the prayers where it says "who (will be chosen) for life and who for death, who for health and who for sickness, who for wealth and who for poor fortune, who for peace of spirit and who for turmoil..."  This gets me every time.  We have had a tough year.  The focus of my prayers for this year is to be granted the vision to focus on the positive and to help others focus on the positive in their lives. 

Life isn't always easy.  We can't change the financial climate or cure cancer by snapping our fingers.  The real test isn't how well we succeed in amassing wealth, but the perspective we bring to our reality.

Shannah Tovah.