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It's not difficult to imagine a time when the most important marketing asset a company has is its community of customers. 

What that community thinks of the company, its products, its management and its systems will be the number one defining factor in the company's reputation and brand.  Marketeers will be interested in systems, ideas, and techniques that can help them improve relationships with their community. 

There will be a range of metrics used to assess community satisfaction and there will be a clear financial relationship between the community's health and the company's wealth. 

Those metrics may even appear on the balance sheet as goodwill does today.  The word-of-mouth created by these communities will be the most powerful driver of sales.  Companies will spend considerable budgets trying to recruit people to their communities and will try and poach individuals who are active within competitors' communities. There won't be such a thing as a standard community. 

Every company and brand will be able to create a version to suit the needs of its own customers and products. Moving from command-and-control to community values will involve some very painful reorganisation.

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