Seth suggests that...

"Perhaps the biggest change the new marketing brings is the easiest to overlook, mostly because it's so obvious. Every organization now has the ability (and probably the responsibility) to deal directly with the world. With customers, with prospects and with those impacted by their actions. No middlemen."

He also posits that...

"This direct connection is an asset or a risk, depending on how you look at it. The asset (the only asset, pretty much) that can be built online is permission. The privilege of marketing to people who want to be marketed to. This asset is big enough and valuable enough to build an entire business around (witness Scott Adams and Amazon) and it upsets traditional power structures in just about every industry."

This kind of online asset is what is keeping Mark Cuban, a billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks and Chairman of HDNet, alive on Dancing with the Stars. Mark may be an extraordinary entrepreneur but he's not exactly light on his feet or even as well known as many of the other celebrities on the reality TV show. So, why does he get the votes that keep him coming back week after week?

Because of his blog. And the permission asset he's built with his readers by stripping away the insulation that typically surrounds a business mogul, being radically transparent, and talking directly with and to customers, fans... and detractors. His been writing to these people for years. Now he's asking for their help in voting him back on the show and they're showing up in big numbers.

If these four thought leaders, Seth Godin, Mark Cuban, Scott Adams and Jeff Bezons, all very different people with very different businesses and business models, spend their time online building permission based assets, maybe, just maybe you should too.