The rise of digital technology put marketers in a bind. No longer a captive audience, consumers were splitting their time across devices, social networks and websites.

I was 20 years old, working as a roofer and a telemarketer and driving a taxi, just barely getting by. A friend of a friend suggested I try acting. I was like, 'Why? What am I going to do? Community theater?' But I took a class, and the teacher thought that I had potential, so I moved to Vancouver and started auditioning.

Madam Walker was a master marketer. But her brilliance was in taking it to another level by training women, by traveling, by making very motivational speeches and by providing independent income for women who otherwise would have to be maids and sharecroppers.

Social enables word of mouth at an unprecedented scale. Its most powerful effect, through reviews and recommendations, is to put product quality and value for money as the key to success in commerce. Social brings a level of transparency that prevents marketers from advertising their way to success without underlying product quality.

Without doubt there is a higher energy that is always leading us and guiding us. The popular idea of God though is a human invention. It has been created by the creators and marketers of religion to control a large mass of people easily. Which is why we are always raised to be God-fearing. But why would the creator want to scare us? Creation is benevolent, compassionate, loving and empathetic. Every aspect of creation oozes and personifies these qualities. So, treating your God as your friend is a great approach. At the end of the day, the higher energy powering the Universe is also powering us and keeping us alive. Being friends with that energy, trusting that energy to lead you, guide you, is a simple, uncomplicated, way to live.

Find the human in the technology. The currency marketers trade in has not changed even if the methods have. Emotion is what we exchange.

I was 20 years old working as a roofer and a telemarketer and driving a taxi just barely getting by. A friend of a friend suggested I try acting. I was like 'Why? What am I going to do? Community theater?' But I took a class and the teacher thought that I had potential so I moved to Vancouver and started auditioning.

Recently I have come to assume that any call to my landline is from a telemarketer or an automated call from Terminex letting me know that our regularly scheduled pest-extermination service will occur on its regular schedule. So I usually ignore my home phone.

Brands must empower their community to be change agents in their own right. To that end they need to take on a mentoring role. This means the brand provides the tools techniques and strategies for their customers to become more effective marketers in achieving their own goals.

As a speaker business leader or marketer of any type the onus is now on each of us to become equally capable of communicating very personally with a seemingly endless number of people connected by social technologies.