It’s happening faster than we think. A fundamental transformation of the marketing communications and advertising industries is well underway.

In fact all business is changing. Power is giving way to ethics and any company operating without genuine care for customers, staff, community or planet will soon be struggling for business.

Thanks to the deep web, brands must operate morally. With every conversation and interaction now essentially recorded and searchable, what is said about your business can no longer be controlled.

And that’s a good thing.

In the past, when a product did not live up to expectations, people would quietly stop buying. Now they tell their friends and their friends tell the world.

When a multi million dollar campaign can be upended by a single influential blogger, when a viral video of someone dancing like a numpty can be seen by more people in a day than have been born in Australia and when a server can be crashed after one little tweet, well it’s time to rethink the way we communicate.

But wait, let’s add, mobile content, user created content, location aware applications, crowdsourcing and social networking. Suddenly we’re adrift in a rising sea of infoporn and algorithms have become just as important as imagination.

And why would you be hearing this from the founder of an “old school” advertising agency billing millions producing traditional work?

The full story is here, suffice to say, he noticed these trends as they emerged and has taken them very seriously.

You’re astute. You know experienced multi-disciplined communication professionals are rare. But you wouldn’t want to deal with someone until you had some decent background.

So, who is this Ben Hale?

He is a writer first and foremost. He knows that this page is way overwritten for online and less than 10% of you who started this column are still reading. (congrats on being in that top ten by the way). In 1993 he made the transition from writer to business owner starting Adpower, a Cairns based mainstream advertising agency that operated until late 2007.

It was regional Australia’s largest with 29 full time staff and clients in every mainland state of Australia. An online division, Adpower Interactive opened in 2003 and a sister mainstream media buying agency, Mediapower was opened in 2004.

Combined, the companies billed just over $7 million in FY 2007.

After declining to re-pitch for a major client’s business, in May 07 Ben wound down Adpower, sold his share in Mediapower, and took a kitesurfing tour of the East coast from Cairns to Melbourne before relocating permanently to the Sunshine Coast.

He is skilled in agency/client contract negotiations, staff performance management, campaign planning, strategic marketing and change management, but to be honest, that’s not what gets him really excited.

He does, however, love running teams and creating great communications for forward thinking, aware companies.

If you think he can make a contribution to your organisation, browse through the CV look at some of the TV or Radio work, and if you like it, email or call to chat.