Real-time customer information and the ability to listen to what the online world is saying are becoming critical business requirements, as information technology moves to the very front of the firm. In response, companies are being asked to master a whole new set of previously arcane IT skills such as data analytics, search engine optimization, social media conversations and location awareness.

Explosions of industrial creativity rarely follow the invention or discovery of a technology, but instead its commoditization – that is, it wasn't the discovery of electricity, but Edison's introduction of utility services for electricity that produced the creative boom that led to recorded music, modern movies, consumer electronics and even Silicon Valley. However, utility provision of electricity did more than just create a new world – it disrupted existing industries (both directly and through reduced barriers of entry). It also allowed for new practices and methods of working to emerge, and even resulted in new economic forms – such as Henry Ford's Fordism.

In America, the combination of high unemployment and the start of the presidential election process has sparked a great deal of debate about how jobs are created, and lost. Nothing new there. Similar academic and populist debates have been part of every modern recession, as society seeks both strategies – legislation, fiscal and monetary policies – and scapegoats – corporations, machines, trade, foreigners, etc.

I have had the great opportunity to spend the past two months interviewing many of the top CIOs and CMOs in the world. The purpose of each interview was to develop a cross-perception analysis of how each felt about the other's organization as related to marketing technology initiatives. In essence, to what extent is marketing poaching the sexy stuff from IT and setting up their own technology organization? While very cordial about their personal feelings about their respective 'C-peer', an organizational anxiety clearly exists. This raises some interesting questions about the pace of co-evolution of marketing and IT as marketing deliverables become almost entirely technology driven.