Does Social Media Need Communicators At All? -- OR -- OMFG Marketers Are Killing Everything!

After several conversations this week with fellow marketers about our changing roles within the Social Biosphere, I’ve come to the conclusion it may be time for us to step aside, find honest work and help save the World in the process.

Is it too soon to throw out this curveball; in a true Social Biosphere , social operating environment (SOE) or socialized business environment, if you prefer, what is the real need for marketing of any type, in fact in such an environment isn’t marketing exposed for damage it does?

Here’s what I mean, in the Social Biosphere our consumers' needs and wants should be more transparent, as should any stakeholder interactions with organizations.  With all this openness and honesty floating around it begs the question, why do we need to market?

It seems we’ve come to accept, without question, our present supply-side business model even though it cannot be sustained and even though it’s killing everything including us and our World.

So, leveraging a group of technologies that, in theory at least, allow for open and transparent communications between all stakeholders should allow us to produce only what is actually needed and wanted by consumers or to put it a more MBA-esque sort of way, foster a demand-side business environment, which by definition is a much more sustainable World business model.

In short the Social Biosphere, if left alone by marketers, could help change our entire business / economic model from a World-Killing, supply-side to a Holy-Crap-Our-Kids-Might-Actually-Have-A-Shot-At-Life, demand-side one and save us all and our planet in the bargain.

Or we, as marketers, can figure out how best to leverage social media technologies to ensure we continue to produce billions of tons of useless garbage each and every month and figure out how to push this crap on to consumers who don’t need it or want it.

Kinda makes you think about our role in the big picture, n’est pas?

Now, I understand this assertion requires a bit of an academic detachment as well as a philosophical leap of faith from our current brainwashing, Matrix-like supply-side thinking and, it’s nearly impossible for us to completely escape our cultural bias towards a pro-marketing worldview.  Not to mention it’s tough to think of ourselves, as mild-mannered marketers, as being fundamental to the World-Killing process but here we sit at a nexus point in history, fully aware and fully conscious of the choices we make.

When I think of all the creative power I’ve dedicated to pushing products on consumers over the years it almost makes me laugh, if it wasn’t such a sad waste of energy.

Here’s a few examples of products I believe illustrate what I’m saying, or to put it another way, are or were produced and then push-marketed to create demand among consumers.

PCs, Barbie Dolls, Cigarettes, SUVs, Yachts, Golf Carts, Fast Food, Mini-Vans, anything that begins with a lower case “i” and is followed by an existing noun, disposable pens, cordless phones, Joysticks, Xbox, anything made by Microsoft, any one or all of the 6Tb backup drives sitting on my desk, wireless routers, Webcams, TVs, DVDs, BluRay discs and players, halogen lamps, wingback chairs, teak bookshelves, staplers, 7 hole punches, leather bound portfolios and briefcases, cross-trainers, running shoes, biking shoes, court shoes, basketball shoes, turf shoes, cleats, footballs, field hockey sticks, Gator Aid, 25 year-old scotch, cranberry vodka, honestly I could go on all day.

For me the question really is, what products are not supply-side-market push garbage. 

I’m not arguing that some of these products don’t bring pleasure or joy to humans; I’m just saying they’re not manufactured based on existing market needs or any real need at all.  They were manufactured to fill that “gaping-void” within, which no product or service can ultimately fill.