When the web is at the center of your go to market strategy and is a reasoned part of every link in the value chain an organization may be considered a Web Centric Organization (WCO). These organizations are very adaptable and they have to be because there are no job descriptions for these web centric roles. At best they are borrowed from the Information Technology organization that is only slightly more mature in it’s development as a profession. Remember the web has only been around even as a concept for 20 years and as a sustainable businessmodel for maybe 3-5 years. Some would say even fewer. The best is yet to come.
The benefits of being a web centric organization are numerous and multi-dimensional. Customers have constant low cost interaction with your brand. The customer is in control and chooses the time of the interaction. And most importantly the interaction is rich and gratifying as the customer designs and customizes an endless variety of products and services that are unique to the constituent such as automobiles, clothing, computers, phones, furniture, and almost anything you can imagine.
Marketing will need to adapt quickly as the web 2.0 constituent won’t be as influenced by what they are told. Rather they will be delighted by creating their own version. All of this to say that the term “Web Master” that is often thrown about although less frequently is officially out of a job. To their credit they once could create a web site and push a brochure out to the world and were quite adept in the myriad roles.
The Web Master today is replaced with product development, interactive media, product management, and product marketing just to name a few of the roles that the once omnipotent “Web Master” could perform. In addition, the user generated content now eclipses the marketing content by 10 times or more.
The end of the Web Master is really just the beginning of the transformational effect the Internet is having on commerce and communications signaling the tipping point is near. That is to say that the web is an integral part of the beginning, middle and end of almost everything we do today.
There’s a large and growing group of individualsmaking their living working with the Internet full time and plan on having careers coupled tightly to the Internet. Many were at SXSW last week learning web fusion, the art of taking offline assets and moving them online. Many of the more gifted are learning how to create online content that is uniquely for online and the online demographic. It’s very exciting time and the best is yet to come.
