More and more we see the enlightenment of thought leaders pointing to The Emergence of The Relationship Economy.

Doc Searls has said all along, markets are conversations and conversations beget transactions. We're approaching the ten year anniversary of The Cluetrain Manifesto which created the vision of a new economy based on relationships. With the advent of all this "social stuff" the markets are awakening to the new reality.

What is The New Reality?

Jack Meyers writes "Today, even as both large media corporations and emerging entrepreneurial enterprises are challenged to identify revenue-generating strategies that can achieve aggressive investor demands, and lip-service is paid to the demands of changing market conditions, most executives remain committed to outdated and dangerous mass-media-dependent economic models. Media companies today - even the largest digital media companies - are in danger of following the railroad industry model and becoming Industrial Age mass distribution vehicles rather than Relationship Age™ interactive brand and human connectors"

I have been studying relationships among media companies, marketers and agencies for three decades. For most of these years, I've been pointing to the inevitable shift in relationships away from supply/demand market forces that drive commoditized pricing pressures. In my 1997 research study, Media 2005: Connecting to the 21st Century, I wrote: "The challenge for media companies and for marketers is to understand the new realities of the television marketplace. Erosion is not simply a matter of shifting realities. The market is totally and irrevocably altered, with completely new realities replacing the traditional mass media mentality.

Media buyers and media sellers are coping with a market of more than 250 Nielsen recognized networks competing for audiences, and every viewer forming individualized viewing patterns. The challenge is to restructure strategies to complement the restructured market."

Are We In an Era of New Strategies?

Strategic thinking evolves over time and is heavily influenced by new market developments. As new market developments emerge strategies have to be reconfigured to adjust to the new dynamics of the market. In the 70's and 80's the new strategic influence was quality. In the 90's it was technology. Now the primary influence is relationships and subsequently the very nature of strategic thinking has to change in order to see the methods for seizing opportunities of the new market dynamics.

Applying old strategies to a new market only creates a disconnect with the market developing. A disconnect with the emergence of the relationship economy.

What say you?