The NEW List: A BETTER set of best practices.

The NEW List is a set of relevant, rich practices for today's marketers. Why a list? Because navigating this new environment is much easier with a roadmap. While I've compiled this list, I'm hardly taking credit for it: some of the ideas are mine, most are not. A collective effort, each entry gives credit to the person who inspired it. A few disclaimers before I dive in:

• old meets new: You may run across some "old" practices on this list of new. That's intentional. Just because it's a new world we shouldn't abandon the old one's best teachings.
• many types of teachers: You may also see credit given to people who don't hold the title of marketer (e.g. bloggers, podcasters). Let's face it, we marketers are hardly the only ones with marketing savvy.
• it's alive!: This is a living document. A forever-in-progress post. New practices are founded all the time, so I'll do my best to keep up. If I've missed any please contact me so I can include them.

Here we go:

• Blogging isn't about blogs, it's about people. So simple and yet, so easily forgotten that it tops the list. Credit: Naked Conversations' authors Shel Israel and Robert Scoble.
• Markets are conversations. This goes without saying. But this list could not go without giving credit to the tremendous manifesto of Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls and David Weinberger (read and commit to all 95 theses).
• Your best sales force is FREE. Citizen marketers will champion your message better than any hired gun. The cost? Respect, responsiveness and authenticity. Credit: inspired by two sources, customer evangelists' Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell and the blogger behind Hacking Netflix.
• The new marketing paradigm is to insert your company into the slice of the user's mind that's reserved for valuable information. Credit: This new model was articulated by Paul Gillin.
• Post frequency should be driven by quality, not quantity. Quality not quantity should drive the number and nature of blog posts. Credit: Eric Kintz masterfully explains this here.
• Marketing is about listening. I say this a lot, because the majority of us don't listen to what our markets are telling us. So vital a practice, it drives my blog's mantra.
• The best marketers are storytellers. Successful marketers don't push features, they unleash authentic, dynamic stories. Credit: Master storyteller Seth Godin elaborates in his "All Marketers are Liars" book.
• Contribution is the new economy's new cost-of-entry. Be it software, smarts, technologies, tools, methodologies or models, all hail--and must contribute to--this contribution-driven era. I've been building a case for this one since last year, but I need to credit Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat, for inspiring the idea.
• Convergence is cool, but divergence is the driver of all innovation. I'll be debating divergence's virtues (and getting laughed out of many boardrooms!) until the day I die for this one. But hey, Al Gore is finally getting credit for his "illusions" on the global warming crisis so maybe marketers will start listening to what Al and Laura Ries have been saying for decades: here's an interview I held with Al on this very subject.
• We overestimate what happens in the short term, underestimate what happens in the long term. We're always disappointed by what doesn't take off in 18 months...and then dumbfounded by what we slept through in 5 years' time. Don't miss out on opportunities that take a little bit longer to develop, they're the difference between trends and fads--and your relevance. Credit: it was either Malcolm Gladwell or the authors of Freakonomics that said this (I'll get my facts straight soon but if you've not read both these books, then the double plug is warranted).
• When marketers abuse new media they inspire opportunity--opportunities for other people.I learned this in my interview with VideoSift--and it shouldn't go without saying that I learned it from a guy who was still in college at the time (that little whippersnapper!).
• The new PR is not about controlling the message's circulation, it's about facilitating the flow of information. If you want to build brand and promote your product, share news in a respectful way with popular bloggers. Respond to any member of citizen media with as much alacrity and care you would the mainstream media. Neil Vineberg articulates this here.
• Top-down marketing is imploding, and irrelevant. Now customers are driving your products, programs and messages so embrace bottom-up mentality. While this is obvious (I know, duh) it belongs on this list...though I don't know to whom I should be giving credit.
• Big names matter, big IDEAS matter more. Incredible what all you learn when you listen to people based on their ideas, not their search-engine rankings. This is why I interview all sorts and sizes of businesses.
• Marketers never had control, but social media gives us more control than ever before. Marketers thought they had control in the past, but all they had was the illusion that if they articulated a certain message to a certain group of people, then a predictable percentage of them would respond. That's no control, it's myopia. Social media allows you to interact directly with your markets. Paul Gillin discussed this in our interview. 
• Dialog trumps Monologue. Our new call-to-arms is to influence conversations not deliver talking points. Many have advised this, here's a post where I speak to this.
• Migrate from the traditional mindset of serving markets to the proactive strategy of creating them. When you serve a market that already exists, you are automatically a follower because some other company created that market. But when you create a new market you are automatically the leader. Al and Laura Ries discussed this leadership practice in our interview.
• The "new integration": left brain meet right brain. We marketers frequently jockey between left-brain analytical solutions and right-brain creative strategies but we need to be doing so as rule, not exception. Success doesn't rest on how well we integrate media platforms, but how adeptly we integrate logic + reasoning with imagination + creativity. Credit goes to Ted Mininni's article.
• Citizen media spans far more than "civilian" media. We often think of citizen media as a democratic platform for consumers, small businesses and enthusiasts but it's far broader, much deeper. I learned this in my interview with Sergeant Salmons, a soldier who blogs from Baghdad.
• Want Power? Then Give it Away (empower others). When Fiskars (developer of scrapbooking tools) ceded control to a group of scrapbooking enthusiasts, the customers became brand ambassadors who aptly named themselves "The Fiskateers" and host a lively blog and events schedule. While these enthusiasts previously existed, this community did not. 

That's the list...for now. But with all the change in this changing landscape, I've certainly missed some. So please notify me on what I've missed and to whom I should be giving credit (thanks!).