Scott Brinker

"Starting in 2013, after the CMO realizes that he/she does not have the skill sets in place for data analytics proficiency, 50% of new marketing hires will have technical backgrounds."

That is prediction #5 on IDC's Top 10 CMO Predictions for 2013, released last week by analysts Rich Vancil and Kathleen Schaub.

I dream about bold declarations like that from mainstream analysts, validating the central hypothesis of this blog: marketing is now a technology-powered discipline, and therefore marketing organizations must infuse technical talent into their DNA. According to my wife, I even talk about this in my sleep, which is an entirely different context for "disruptive" innovation....

Great article in The New York Times this past weekend, Can Social Media Sell Soap?, sheds some light on the war in marketing between the "humanists" of Don Draper's world and the "quants" of the digital marketing revolution.

The essence of the story: data-driven marketing is incredibly promising, but it is not all-powerful. Those who polarize themselves into one camp or the other, rather than seeking the best of both worlds, find themselves on precarious footing.

Here is an excerpt that I found particularly compelling (emphasis added is my own):

While the rise of search battered the humanists, it also laid a trap that the quants are falling into now. It led to the belief that with enough data, all of advertising could turn into quantifiable science.

This came with a punishing...

Here's a parting story from 2012 that I think sets the stage for a major theme of 2013: data has power.

Last week a newspaper in New York published an interactive map of gun permit owners in Westchester and Rockland counties. It made it effortless for anyone to see who has a gun permit in their neighborhood, with names and addresses.

While this is not the first time such information has been put online, this particular incarnation was a perfect storm with an easy interface (thank you, Google Maps), distribution with an emotional accompanying story, and a viral...

One of my favorite marketers in the Boston area is Frank Days. He's super smart, speaks his mind, and is a great champion of innovation in the marketing department. He was one of the early pioneers of agile marketing, implementing it at Novell several years ago and sharing his experience with others.

So I was excited to finally catch up with him for an interview on some of his current thinking about agile marketing. You can also read more of his thoughts on agile marketing at the Agile Marketing Blog, on his own blog tangyslice, and on his Twitter stream.

Start by telling us a little bit about your background and your current work. What are you passionate about in marketing?