I won’t lie: it hasn’t been easy. Each introduction of an emerging technology requires the marketer to a) become educated and understand the technology enough to grasp its value, b) understand where it is on the adoption curve and how it’s creating value right now, and c) understand where it’s going and its long-term implications for the brand and for society as a whole. Failing at any one of these leads to wasted time, effort and money at best, and leaves a brand vulnerable (or extinct) at worst.
Generally, a given technology starts by creating value “out of view” somewhere—in some space that isn’t called marketing. It grows in adoption and starts to change culture: how people communicate, how people create, how they connect. And then, much later, it bubbles up as a buzzword in the marketing world, and suddenly, we’re all talking about it. Is it a fad? Does it generate enough volume? Does my brand really need “friends?” (A factual quote from the early days of Facebook.) And thus the process of education, evaluation and experimentation begins.