In an increasingly complex world of demographic, psychographic and ethnographic research, it’s no longer safe to assume that companies actually know their customers. Harnessing the power of persona or a representative profile, which summarizes a key demographic target is a powerful means of figuring out the customer today. Mark Kingdon, formerly CEO of Organic, a digital marketing agency, spoke with Jennifer Jones at the Forrester Marketing Conference in Los Angeles in mid-April 2008 about personas and other key marketing trends today. Kingdon is now CEO of Second Life.

Everyone has the power to participate in communication today through blogs and community groups. Many bloggers have become powerful, given the popularity of their blogs. Some have become citizen journalists – citizens who play “an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news.” But with millions reading their words through a medium that seems to give equal weight to traditional journalism, what does this mean for journalism, and for the code of ethics that journalists traditionally understand? Jennifer McClure is the founder and executive director of the Society for New Communications Research, a nonprofit think tank focused on the study of advanced communication tools. She spoke with Marketing Voices host Jennifer Jones about the status of citizen journalism today.

Brian Haven, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research talks to Marketing Voices at the Forrester Marketing Forum in Los Angeles about the latest thinking about brand engagement today. Haven tells Jennifer Jones that although social marketing is taking off and many corporations are engaging in conversations with their customers, the science of brand engagement is far from complete. Haven mentions Nike and its use of social marketing as one fine standout example today.

In this podcast, John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, and Mike Moritz, of Sequoia Capital, talk openly about themselves and their lives in venture capital. The keynote session was recorded live at the National Venture Capital Association May 2008 annual meeting. Doerr and Moritz are among the most successful venture capitalists practicing today.

Worldwide mobile content revenues are expected to surpass $44 billion by 2011, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that mobile entertainment and campaigns are growing annually by leaps and bounds, with marketers beginning to investigate mobile opportunities seriously. Marketing Voices spoke with the head of Phluant Mobile, David Breckling, to find out what the trends and challenges are in executing innovative mobile marketing campaigns.