The blur between our work life and our home life can be a little frightening in the 21st century. It started with the cell phone interrupting dinner dates in the late 90s. The next step was employees using instant messaging on their laptops in the middle of business meetings. The ability to invade your personal life from a business standpoint and the idea of getting personal under the radar with instant messaging at a business meeting was off and running.

The Blackberry took it to new heights. Go to a dinner with the Secretary General of the United Nations giving a speech and one table over from the podium, a young lady is sending a text message to either her friend or colleagues. I know this is true because I was there just last week in New York City. If she is willing to text under the dinner table while the Secretary General of the United Nations is making a speech about climate change, I think it’s safe to say she’ll text anywhere at anytime. Move this to a discussion about the millennial generation who grew up with laptops, Xbox and PDAs and you can see where this is going. We are accelerating toward a totally digital culture that is redefining social mores.

Time is no longer something we even hope to control on a 9 to 5 basis. From a marketing standpoint, time is managed by the buyer on their terms. A buyer wakes up in Singapore because she can’t sleep and decides to search for solutions. Your marketing and sales team back in the states has ended their day. They are now unavailable. Can you economically address her needs and start the buyer conversion process or are you still depending on 20th century marketing strategies?