In the Validation Era, intimacy is in and publicness may be out - or at least on the decline. Quality is the new black. What this means that both individuals and businesses will need to increasingly work harder to earn their way in and remain in our stakeholders' circle of trust.

Read this interesting article by Steve Rubel where he describes that the democratization of content creation has resulted in information overload. And as a consequence, that we are entering a new era where more intimate connections and true expertise will be valued much higher.

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The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad.

Howard Gossage

The real fact of the matter is that nobody talks about brands. People talk about what interests them. Sometimes it's a brand.

Howard Gossage remixed by Gustav von Sydow

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“We don’t assign metrics to it. It’s really just about our unwavering belief that making the customer happier is going to win in the long run.”

Tony Hsieh - CEO of Zappos - on the fact that he isn’t measuring, not even looking for a ROI of all the time and effort the company is spending on offering true customer service and interaction, mainly through social media.

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We’ve moved from the transaction to the interaction with customers, though we haven’t eliminated the transaction – or the data associated with it… Social CRM focuses on engaging the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment. Social CRM is the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.

Paul Greenberg

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