• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, February 28, 2011

No, it's not Jack Klues. The VivaKi chief has been one of our bosses for some time now, of course. But that is the title of his opening keynote here at OMMA Global in San Francisco. And just to prove it, we cued those lyrics from the Who's "Don't Get Fooled Again," as Klues took the stage.

"I'm not the new boss," Klues demurred, adding that he is, however, a Who fan.

"I think you know who the new boss is," he said, showing a screen image of the multitude of consumers who now populate the social graph.

"These people develop content for some of the most important clients in the world," Klues noted, adding that they "create brand messages" and "decide how to distribute them."

In fact, Klues said that they are now Madison Avenue's "newest co-workers." And there are 2 billion of them around the world.

Best of all – or worst, depending on your perspective – "they work for free."

The emergence of the social graph, Klues suggested, is a bigger, more fundamental change than any Madison Avenue has ever seen, because it has shifted the core model from so-called "paid" media – the kind that agencies "buy" on behalf of their clients – to "owned and earned," which Klues said is actually "more vital" now than the traditional advertising business.

"Owned and earned are sleeping together in our bed," Klues said, striking an especially intimate metaphor.