Marketing and management by oozing

I was trying the other day to explain to nonprofit communications and marketing people why blogs, wikis, feeds, conversations and the like will be important in future. Everyone gets the importance of word of mouth ... schmoozing as sociable chat ... so maybe it is a small jump to marketing as oozing. Johnnie Moore has made it in Objects of sociality and ooze reporting a talk he gave:

Basically, I suggested that one thing good marketing does is create these objects - physical things, or maybe just ideas, around which conversations and play take place that engage the audience. The ipod is an object of sociability, so are lots of successful products and a few promotional ideas.

As per the post I just referenced, I then played the idea of objects of sociability into the acronym OOS and then into the word "ooze". Maybe this muddles things, but I like the idea of ooze too. Consider this picture:

This kid, like all kids, loves the slimy ooze. Ooze is a bit chaotic, it can't be completely controlled, it has a life of its own. I think it makes a good metaphor for what marketing, indeed organsiations in general, are really like. They don't really conform to the idealised diagrams, spreadsheets and flowcharts. Managing ooze is managing complexity, requires flexibility and give and take. Marketing can't be seen as the disciplined imposition on the target audience of the marketing department's dogmas. It needs to be more playful than that. Mentos and Coke probably have detailed marketing plans, but neither could have predicted the spate of videos that arose when people discovered what happened when you combined them. Mentos responded playfully, Coke was a bit straitlaced. Mentos said Yes, And to the customers, Coke said No. But.

The people I was talking to were social entrepreneurs, committed to doing good stuff of public benefit by innovative means. I think they might be up for some oozing. But will their funders and sponsors get it? At least Johnnie is giving us some good reference.