Our Blogger of the Week Johnathan Salem Baskin didn't earn the title "Chief Heretic" of the marketing world. Following the advice of Frank Costello, the character played by Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese's Oscar winning film "The Departed," he just took it and ran with it. Â
"Heresy needs to be revealed in order to be prosecutable, says the Chicago-based Baskin, taking the spirit of the Improv to heart. "So in that sense social media has helped me to more freely share my sins," he says. You can follow those pecadillos (or, more likely, his account of those of others) on our sister sites MyVenturepad and The Customer Collective, where he is the second most read blogger for 2008.
Baskin started experimenting with his "Dim Bulb" blog four years ago and got enough positive feedback to start posting daily.
"Blogging evidences a primal desire to be recognized and known," he says. "I'm fascinated less by its newness, and more by how it fits into an ongoing,
and mostly consistent understanding of culture."Â
As for social media itself, Basking thinks the jury is still out.  "One of the happy, glib conceits of the Greek chorus pushing social media is that consumers want to dialogue on every aspect of company performance, or that companies need to prompt that involvement in order to create and sell the right products," he says.
"I really don't want to tell my doctor how to treat me, however empowering that might feel in the short-term. No technology fantasy of mine can hold a candle to the invention of actual engineers. And the wisdom of crowds? Sorry, but that's an oxymoron, unless we want our every fractions reduced to the lowest possible denominators."
"At the same time, social media has enabled me to learn and invent quicker" Baskin adds. "It hasn't helped me become a chief heretic but it's made me become a better one." The popularity of Baskin's recent book "Branding Is For Cattle" attests to that.Â
The Chief Heretic is an early adopter who during the 1970s started using a pioneering internet system called Plato at the University of Illinois (birthplace of the Mosaic browser that started it all), migrating to The WELL in the 1980s while a student at Colby College. From there, it was up, up and away. Five years at Grey Advertising. Branding and corporate advertising manager for Nissan North America. Director of Communications for The Limited, and VP of Corporate Relations for Blockbuster. If you guessed that start your own consulting business comes next, you're right.
Last September, Baskin stopped being president of his own marketing consulting firm, Baskin & Associates, and segued over to the book and lecture circuit. "I was driven by 25 years of frustration that otherwise intelligent business people couldn't grasp the cosmic importance of branding," Baskin says. "I hope non-marketers and brand people alike to join in the journey and find a new definition and hope for brands."