Mitch Joel , digital marketing visionary (he's the guy Google taps to explain online marketing to the world's top brands) and President of Twist Image, told the standing room crowd at the CUNY Graduate Center last week that we are living in a Brave New World where everyone is connected and where businesses need to be connected to everyone.  He exhorted the audience to "burn the ships" -- alluding to Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez's dramatic action in the Yucatan in 1519 to ensure success.  In Mitch's words:

"There was no going back.  The only direction to go was forward.  The old ways of doing things were about to be rethought.  In fact, there were no more 'old ways of doing things'; a new way had to be defined."

In promoting his to-be released book, Six Pixels of Separation, Joel noted that marketers are faced with a similar challenge as Cortez:  the world has changed and the old ways of doing things are obsolete.  We live in an era where the internet allows anyone -- and everyone -- to be connected, where information is democratized, geography obsolete and traditional media disintermediated.

This era has ushered marketers out of the passive broadcast based model where brands push messages out to passive, receiving consumers and into a loud, and at times, messy participatory model where everyone has the right and access to contribute.  To prove his point, Joel shared a video he created riffing on Apple's Air, replacing the Air with a Sony Vaio.

But, in a refreshing departure from most new media experts, Joel doesn't believe that brands or marketers have no control or that the fundamentals of marketing -- i.e., delivering the right message to the right people at the right time in the right medium to foster real interactions between people and brands -- have become obsolete.  In fact, Joel argues that brands have control in this Brave New World -- but they have to earn it:  they need to join in the conversations, provide meaningful, high quality content in the places that their consumers frequent and to be in the conversation for the long haul.  Only then will brands have earned the "right to get their consumer out of lurker mode."

His advice is spot on -- whether you're a marketer, an agency or a publisher.  If the "ship" is about one-way broadcasts, it is time to burn it.  It's time to connect, engage and participate in a conversation for the long haul.