Like many of the phrases and bits of poetry I toss around, the title refers to the work of Van Morrison. I found myself dwelling on the guru, method and teacher references over the weekend, while pondering self-appointed industry experts. I'm talking about those among us industrious enough to go out on a limb and position themselves as thought leaders and educators. Once again as we launch a new year with seasonal vigor, I have been on the receiving end of marketing or missives from these folk that just make me cringe, laugh and cry in equal parts.

The purveyors of eReaders have forgotten an essential element: specifically, that books are social objects, that a successful replacement of a physical book will not only look and feel like a real book, but will allow you to lend it to your friends, to swap it out at an honesty library, or to donate it to your local community center. Jeff Bezos, I hope you are listening, because I'm not suggesting that the Kindle can never replace books; I'm offering you an opportunity to take your current commanding lead of the eReader market and blow it out of the water, …

During Gridley & Company's IDEA conference, Kevin Ryan, CEO of Gilt Groupe, declared that Apple could be the world's first trillion-dollar company I think Kevin is right. Here's why:

Wow! Every day I read through my Twitter feed and see another posting that "so-and-so" predicts 2011 will be a year of continued growth for online advertising. I love reading this news, but the thing I find funny is that after 17 years of building the business, it's still difficult to predict what the business will look like in 10 years!

Most people in media or advertising would agree that good marketing strategy is developed by starting from a position of being channel-agnostic. That is, you should decide what the best channels are after you've developed goals and strategy -- not the other way around.

ndustry circles have been frothing and preoccupied for the past week or so with this bit: Web discovery service StumbleUpon has just overtaken Facebook as the No. 1 source for social media traffic in the United States. According to Statcounter, the popular platform accounted for about 43% of the U.S. social media traffic in early January, casting Facebook only slightly in its shadow at 38%. Facebook watchers among us got loopy over this stat. But, why? StumbleUpon and Facebook are barely kindred platforms within the social media scope.

Once again, the rain has rolled in, over the mountains, down the valley, and across the lake that has been our holiday home for the past two weeks. The water, which was at drought level prior to Christmas, is now dangerously high, submerging bike paths and lapping at the edges of the main street. Store owners are nervous. No insurance company in their right mind would write a policy to cover a lakefront shop against flood, and having to wade through an impromptu river to access the premises tends to put a damper on foot traffic. This is the great …

I was going to make this my prediction column for digital marketing and media for 2011, but since I'm in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show, I want to write about the show as well. So, I'm going to combine them, which is easy since everything that CES is about is what digital media and marketing are about. They are becoming inextricable.

The most important thing I ever learned I learned in kindergarten: Treat people as you would like to be treated, and good things will happen. 2011 is hyping itself as a year of really good things for our business. All the research companies are predicting online advertising to continue to grow, and the economic indicators seem to point to more M&A activity for our industry. I have high hopes for all of these predictions to be realized, but I also hope we maintain a climate of personal integrity in our business as it continues to grow.

I find myself zooming in on some hopes and operating principles for the new year. Leaving aside themes related to collaborative client work, contracts and shared client accounting -- where lessons were heartily learned -- some of these are community requests and some of them are personal promises. But, they are all about keeping it real and taking connection to our business and to each other as seriously as we should.