I got many congratulatory messages on my inaugural BusinessWeek column, Needed: A National Innovation Agenda.  What surprised me was how many of the well-wishers asked what advertising or public relations firm helped me land the gig.  I immediately responded, none, I don’t have one, and I am pretty sure that if I did the odds of being asked to write a regular column for BusinessWeek would have been lower.  Today all you need is a point of view, confidence, and access to social media tools. The truth is that the column resulted from being a twittering fool.

I believe the marketing model of companies deploying large internal teams of marketing specialists supported by even larger external advertising and public relations firms is dead.   Watching the series Mad Men reminds me of how little the advertising and communications industry has changed from a model that is clearly being disrupted by the new world of social media.

As a dinosaur the only way for me to learn about social media was to dive right in.  The good news is the Millennials thrive in this new environment.  It is a natural act for them.  I cut a deal with my kids to stay out of their digital domain on Facebook and set out to tackle the social media learning curve on Twitter.

The curve has been steep but rewarding.  It is exciting to be a participant in the seismic shift away from the old models of mass marketing and communication. The days of the big campaign developed behind closed doors followed by a grand unveiling comprised of orchestrated media placements and road show whistle-stops are behind us.  Now the message is developed and honed every day.  You don’t need an army of specialists to tell you what the message is.  You just need to put your genuine ideas out in public every day where a community of interest can provide you with immediate feedback, help you to improve, and share your ideas with their networks if they like them.

No intermediaries required.  Being genuine is valued above all else.  No need to assign the task of sharing your perspective, idea, or message to a third party.  Share them yourself.

This shift must be driving traditional marketing types and communications firms crazy.   The industry was built on a foundation of “controlling the message” and secret sauce that only the experts possessed to unlock access to big media outlets. Imagine the horror when huge campaigns are ripped apart within 24 hours of release by the viral unknown masses or when an undiscovered talent like Susan Boyle can become an overnight global sensation.

We have no marketing department, advertising agency, or PR firm and have spent the last eight months openly sharing a point of view that is a work in process on the importance of business model and systems level innovation.  Both the message and the platforms are a big trial and error experiment.  The work is never done.  I put ideas out on my blog, Linked-In, Twitter, and the Business Innovation Factory site to see what resonates.  I am fortunate to have an expanding network of interested individuals who humor me and keep egging me on.  They provide immediate feedback on what works and what doesn’t, what is of interest and what isn’t, and what is funny and not so much.  I listen a lot and try to improve the narrative.  Not preparing for some big launch date but every single day.

Helen Walters, Innovation and Design Editor at BusinessWeek, and I have been following each other on Twitter for a while.  We share a common passion for the role of design and design thinking in the innovation process.  We have never met but occasionally have responded to interesting tweets from one another.  Helen recently sent a direct Twitter message asking if I would be interested in writing a regular column for BusinessWeek.  After falling off my chair I couldn’t help but think that we are in a new marketing and communications era.  To all that say social media is just a passing fad I say ignore it at your peril.  This dinosaur is proud to be a twittering fool.