Last week, Dave Bedwood, one of the founders of Lean Mean Fighting Machine, walked into the office grinning and waving his university dissertation. He stopped half way through the office. “I’ve found it!” A small crowd of three people gathered. In his hands was a 10,000 word essay entitled “How Is The Internet Changing Advertising?”

Click on this link and read the first page: http://www.leanmeanfightingmachine.co.uk/blog/2009/03/daves-dissertation/ 

Apart from reminding us how left-handed art directors struggled before spellcheck went mainstream, it is remarkable by virtue of the fact it was written in 1998 by a student who had never been on the internet. Not once.  Yet the questions posed in this abstract aren’t a million miles away from those asked in any number of industry articles, conferences and blogs in 2009.

Let’s face it, the digital marketing fraternity loves nothing more than a jolly good discussion about the whys and wherefores of the digital haves and have-nots. In a poetic twist that will escape only the two of you, this discussion is usually conducted across the very platforms in question. Hurrah!

Well, here’s my challenge to you. Less chat, more action. Digital might well be the most exciting way to sell things to people that there has ever been, and yes, there is a lot to talk about. But all the chatter will be buried in vainglory unless we act on it, and put it into practice.

I know. I’m waging this micro-war courtesy of a blog on Revolution’s new site. It doesn’t sit brilliantly with me either. Now I will stop tapping, and get on with something else instead.