Beyond the age of conversation

Last year, the creation and publication of collaborative business book The Age of Conversation (buy it) was probably one of the blogosphere's most interesting experiments. 

What began as a dare between two bloggers, turned into new marketing success story and a testament to what a community can do when it works together toward a common goal.  AOC raised more than $10,000 for Variety the Children's Charity and was listed among Advertising Age's "Books You Should Have Read in 2007."

If you aren't already familiar with AOC, you can get the official story here or check out my previous posts.

So how do you top The Age of Conversation?  How about with a sequel, if you will.  A bigger, badder book fueled by the power of collaboration and the wisdom of crowds.  That's right -- another anthology collecting the thoughts of more than one hundred authors.

And how do you take the spirit of collaboration one step further?  You let the community determine this year's theme.  Drew and Gavin have narrowed down a short list of proposed topics (Marketing Manifesto, Why They Don't Get It, and My Marketing Tragedy) -- and now the community can weigh in and vote for the one they'd most like to see as this year's unifying theme.

See Drew's official announcement here. 

I plan to contribute and you can too -- just email Drew and let him know that you want in.  But even if you don't plan to write for the book, you can still get involved by voting for the topic.  Complete the survey here (deadline: January 31) and stay tuned to see which wins.

Keep an eye out for the winning topic, list of authors and other news, as the new book becomes a reality.