Of course we're all talking about the user moving from passive to active to control, about the whole web 2.0 'thing' and how the very bedrock that ad land is built upon now looks more like sand than granite.
One of the things I've learnt is how critical it is to make your strategy actionable, it's absolutley about Bringing Strategy to Life. If you don't, then it's pretty much all hot air.
As David Armano quite rightly says in his wonderful piece in Business Week - 'It's the Conversation Economy, Stupid'...
"We designers should stop talking and start designing conversations".
And for the agencies I'm engaging with, that's where they're at - we're trying to figure out what the Conversation Economy actually looks like. From over here, it looks like there could be a transformational component with new people, new skills (relationship designers?), prototyping new ways of working and devising new revenue streams.
In order to do all that, and move from strategy to action, just one of the many things that might be very useful are Design Principles. Interesting to see that none other than Microsoft has made an attempt at defining a few at top level in their Digital Advertising Solutions Social Networking Research (!) report.
It's a very exciting challenge, the stakes are high and so too are the rewards.
So let's start designing.