In honor of the new baseball season, here is another edition of Wild Pitches, the semiannual feature featuring publicists and other corporate communicators who probably have flesh and blood, but nonetheless behave like mindless bots clogging the inboxes of journalists the world over.

The occasion was the launch of 'Can't Buy Me Like,' in which Doug Levy and I outline sweeping changes in commerce that will yield a more open, more humane, more purposeful business world and society at large. The gist is this: four forces are converged to render obsolete the opaque, high-handed practices of commerce we've grown grudgingly accustomed to.

Purpose is not a campaign or a gimmick or PR window dressing. It is not positioning. It does not aim to be differentiating. Purposefulness is an ethic. A worldview. A mentality. And it is not merely the right way for brands -- and all institutions -- to operate in a digitally connected world. It is the only way.

No matter how righteous your argument -- or no matter how efficacious your brand -- success in the Relationship Era does not accrue to those who broadcast, nor even to those who assiduously narrowcast, a unilateral message. It belongs to those who share.