You can have the best actors, the coolest set on earth, the most awarded screenplay writer in the world, but still it's not sure your movie will be any good. Please put your examples here.

You can have great musicians, extraordinary instruments and an extremely talented agent, but it's not sure your next EP will be a success. Please put your examples here.

You can have plenty money, the most experienced marketing manager and a lot of customers, but you can't be sure your new campaign will increase sales. Yes, put your examples here.

In all of this cases (and in almost every possible case in life) what you need is an idea. One of the way that work best for me to be inspired is reading. Especially blogs. Today is BlogDay, so let me share 5 of the plenty of blogs I read everyday. Not because they're more inspiring than others, just because they're an example of inspiring digital places that can be a sparkle for your own ideas.

So, if you aren't reading them yet, please meet:

• 20thfog.com (Italian) - As Ottavio says "A blog about stuff". Everyday life meets marketing and social media;
• Lucadelladora.com (Italian) - Luca's blog. He's a geolocation lover and specialist. Read this for good social media suggestions;
• Davidspinks.com - David's blog is a good source of insights and thinking about social media and its impact on communication and everyday life;
• Conversationagent.com - I'd be surprised if you don't know Valeria's blog. Anyway, if you don't, read about marketing, from a sociological point of view, with a focus on business;
• Brasstackthinking.com - Amber and Tamsen talk about how to develop motivation, strategies, tools and tactics to - like they say - "make things happen". Very interesting;
• Buzzes.eu (Mostly Italian) - Enrico Giubertoni's blog, at the intersection between technology and marketing, with a strond focus on digital and social media;

It's not just about "ingredients" sometimes you need inspirations to build the best recipes and cook the best dishes.

Advertising Age published this interesting interview to Dennis Crowley (for the few who don't know, he's the founder of Foursquare), where he discusses how the experience on Foursquare is different from the one on Facebook Places and how the future will develop for both social networks.



Dennis Crowley says we will have to wait to see if the relationship between Facebook and Forusquare grows over time. Nothing seems to be precisely defined right now. He is positive about the trend of sharing Foursquare update through Facebook and highlights how this activity is more intimate and felt deeply by the user. The social graph on Foursquare is very tight and much more personal.

Foursquare is rolling out new mobile App. The user experience will change and get easier (probably to make it more "mainstream"). It also looks like the experience will get much more beyond checkins. It will offer more possibility to share places with people. Foursquare will also offer many possibilities for companies and brands: in the future there will be a good choice of tactics, that go beyond advertising.

This interview doesn't unveil future strategies, but gives an idea of how things might evolve in the geolocation space.

What do you think about Crowley's thinking?

What's the reason behind marketing? It's something that you probably - since you're a reader of this blog - have to deal with every single day, but what's marketing's most true nature?

If you look at Wikipedia, "marketing" is defined as "the process by which companies create consumer interest in products and services"?.

Is it just that?

Let me tell you a story. Tammy and Logan used to live in a big apartment, huge actually, compared to their needs. They had much and they earned well. They came to a conclusion (Tammy did, actually): they weren't happy because they felt they were working just to spend what they get, being caught in a treadmill.

Tammy and Logan changed things and moved to house that's right for their needs, they don't have any unneeded objects anymore and they have no debt anymore. They changed their lifestyle and now they feel much happier. They feel consumption makes them happy until a certain level, then happiness decreases.

Tammy and Logan are real and you can read their story here on the New York Times. There, you can also see this statement, by Marshal Cohen "We're moving from a conspicuous consumption - which is 'buy without refard' - to a calculated consumption". You'll read how researches have found that spending money for an experience "produces longer lasting satisfaction than spending money on plain old stuff".

Let's get back to the definition of marketing. Don't you feel that calling it "The process by which companies create consumer interest in products and services" just goes in the direction of conspicuous consumption, accumulation and "plain old stuff"?

What if the role of marketing really is creating experiences that produce longer lasting satisfaction? Do we really feel that a marketer's role is just getting people to buy a product or service? Of course, this part is fundamental, but useless if provided on its own: after the act of consumption there is nothing more both for consumer and company. It's totally different if we look at marketing as a way to build value. If marketing creates experiences (before, during and after the purchase), after the "consumption" act, both company and consumer end up with a relationship and the remembering of a great experience. Which is the best ground to start a new consumption act.

In conclusion, the new approach of "calculated consumption" while replacing "conspicuous consumption" or integrating with it, demands for a new approach to marketing, not just creating interest and driving sales, but building something of value: relationship and experiences.

A few days ago I did this interview with Augie Ray from Forrester Research. It was very interesting: Augie is such an insightful person, and I like his approach to the social web. We discussed Foursquare, Facebook fans and the future of social media in general.

Here, on the We Are Social blog, you can see the video and the post.



BONUS: "Behind the scenes" - Music explodes out of my MacBook Pro during the interview. Problem is: I don't know what music it was or how it started.

Comments, as usual are very welcome.

I saw this recent press release referring to a research about the cost of social media in terms of productivity in the UK. Very nicely crafted and calculated, it estimated how much time people "waste" on social media at their workplace and matched this with the cost of work, obtaining a huge number, very interesting to read in press releases.

If we dig a little deeper, it's important to ask: is it really all of that time "wasted"? Social media is the biggest focus group, the biggest gathering of intelligence in the world and the biggest cooperation machine you can think of. Of course, there are still double rainbows and lolcats, but they're not all that people do on social web (and surely not the main things). I'm sure some of the time on social media is relax and fun, but take that time out and people would find other ways to waste it: fortunately we're not machines.

So: don't you think calculating the cost of time spent on social media is a bit like calculating the cost of electricity we use during a meeting? Or the time "wasted" on phone calls or the time spent usino spreadsheets?

Let's differentiate waste from investment. Social media is evolving for many: it's becoming an investment in terms of time, rather than a waste. In both personal and professional life.

Do you waste or invest time on social media? What do you think about productivity stats related to social media?