Less than 100 years after Paul Revere’s famous ride, cementing the American capacity for—and success with—the power of the network, the nation’s eastern half had swelled to the outskirts of Missouri—St. Joseph, Missouri to be exact—then considered the very outpost of civilization.

Between the hinterlands of St. Joseph and the booming economy of San Francisco lay a vast dead zone, thousands of miles of nothing but wilderness and hostile forces. Any communication at all would take an arduous, indeed perilous journey of 20 days or more to get through. Can we even imagine waiting 20 days for the results of a presidential election or news of the Civil War?

Indeed not!

I caught an interesting documentary the other day suggesting that one of the key factors of success for the American Revolution was our networking ability. One thing the British hadn’t counted on: America’s ability to move information through the colonies at astonishing speed.

America, it seems, has been deeply networked since day one. Even with our colonial wings of communal will radically clipped living under British law, Americans consistently, methodically, routinely organize in groups. Powerless groups, really, who have little authority over anything—not British law, not taxes. Yet convene they do. To discuss “the concerns of the day”. To communicate, to network.

Since the first Representative Assembly in 1619 Jamestown to the first Committee of Safety in 1774 Massachusetts, America grew in tight networks—local committees who elect regional representatives who attend colonial assemblies. Veritably powerless under British law, but here, there and everywhere. Hugely connected.

The New York Times recently asks, do elite thinkers matter anymore? Big commentator analyses of current events today drown in a sea of collective voices blogging and tweeting real-time thoughts, as they occur. By the time Obama’s first White House address was over, public opinion was already formed. No need for a week or so of fallout, reviews or media analysis to tell us what we should think. We already think.

The rise of social media has undeniably diluted influence, changed the way conventional wisdom is formed and freed culture from reliance upon the elite few for getting things done. That Obama won the white house by going straight to the masses online while Hilary cozied-up to the Democratic establishment to no avail is testament to the dramatic dilution and decentralization of our political system.

The Social Media Examiner recently published a post, 7 Social Media Truths You Can Ignore and still be Successful. In it, Rich Brooks deftly points out that Claim #1: Social Media Has Changed Everything is nothing more than hooey.

I thought I was the last one with a copy of Dale Carnegie’s seminal How to Win Friends and Influence People on my shelf, but apparently, Rich has one too. He reminds us that anyone who feels disappointed with their Twitter ROI is well to be reminded that Twitter is just social network—just like the one Dale cultivated way back in the 1930s—and that it’s purpose is to win friends and influence people, not change everything. Granted, online social networks operate at lightening speed. But fundamentally, what we call social media—Twitter, Facebook, forums, user groups and review sites—are just plain old social networks that happen to live online.

Those of us making a living in search marketing have long been aware of the pitfalls of doing business with Google which were outlined in a comprehensive look at the search behemoth in this morning's NYT: Sure, It's Big. But Is That Bad? Blatant self-interest, sudden unannounced changes in search algorithms and volatile ad rates have kept us on our toes, constantly having to keep up with whichever way the Google wind blows.

I’ve long been interested in ideas about the future workplace and how it will one day look dramatically different than what we’ve known. Those of us making a living in digital services and technologies may already be experiencing it. Our work teams can easily be made up of half employees, half contractors and consultants and nearly always include at least one party who we’ve only met on conference calls because he lives in Idaho.

Having made my living as a freelancing contractor for the better part (and the worst part) of the past four years, I can only attest to its many, many benefits for both the employer and the employed alike and express a fervent hope that it truly becomes more common. It saves time, energy and money (no transportation costs! no commute!) and in my experience, contributes to a more agile marketing practice and helps companies stay nimble.

It’s difficult to find a development team that hasn’t embraced the agile method—an iterative approach to software design focused on smaller projects, shorter cycle times and lots of testing and learning. The fundamental assumption of the agile method is that project requirements change on a daily basis so being nimble matters. The old waterfall method of gathering requirements, designing, writing code, testing and releasing looks cumbersome, slow, and outdated by comparison. Not to mention more expensive and less effective.

Yet time and again, when technology-driven companies go to market, they often fail to translate their highly effective agile mindset to their marketing practice. Oddly enough, when it comes to marketing, they tend to over-think. As if they have one chance and one chance only to get it right. Their marketing practice becomes slow and cumbersome, more expensive than they’d like, and the results disappoint.

Most marketers agree that a social media presence is a must have in today’s online marketplace, but they still struggle with how to define social media ROI. We continue to ask what a Facebook presence can do for the organization and, more importantly, our customers.

Social media marketing still is—and may perhaps be for some time yet—an emerging discipline. Yet our customers are only spending more and more time on Facebook and Twitter. Even if we haven’t got our arms around the social media landscape, it’s becoming increasingly important to be there now, today—reaching out to our customers through the social networks they care about and trust.

A great point in this latest post on building community from Twist Image is that building value through social media requires more of a mind-shift than anything else.

Organizational culture is often the biggest roadblock to getting leverage out of any new media or technology. Fiefdoms exist, silos exist. Although many companies claim to be strongly “matrixed” organizations, there is still sorrowfully little sense of community in our own diverse workplace—how can we expect to build communities across the incredibly enormous and disparate world of blogging and social networking online?

Came across this interesting take on the value of traffic brought in by a mention in a popular blog like TechCrunch. Apparently, social media consultants Simply Zesty don’t think the over 400 referrals, 70 new RSS subscribers or 30 new Facebook friends was terribly impressive after their TechCrunch mention the other day.

But for many web-properties—especially B2B companies—those numbers are very real and quite actionable. How long would it take your biz dev guy to run down all those 30 Facebook profiles and what do you bet he’ll uncover a few sales prospects?

The thing about those 70 RSS subscribers is that they aren’t just hits, they’re new additions to your marketing database. Every repeat visit is another touchpoint, another chance to build a customer relationship.