No, WOM is not a dreaded disease. It's short for Word of Mouth.

More likely, you don't know if you have it or not, and that can be a source of dis-ease! Or, alternatively, you could have it, not know it, and you have a very bad case of it… i.e., word is travelling without your knowledge among people who are saying your product or service isn't so hot. A lot of people use stronger language than that, of course.

Want to find out if your organization is getting WOM and whether it is good or bad? On some level that's easy. Go to Google, click on More, click on Blogs, click on Advanced Search, and plug in your company's name, brand, product name, service offering or leadership team names.

Nothing there? That would mean all the time and money you're spending now on traditional, establishment messaging is falling into a black hole. Nobody's interested enough to be talking about you at all. Luckily it's a big hole. Fortunately, you'll have a lot of company.

Don't want to know? That's fine, too. Eventually if you're getting WOM, good or bad, word will get around to you one way or another, sooner or later. Unfortunately, by that time, bad WOM can have achieved a lethal stage of development.

Got a good case of WOM? Great. I invite you to tell us about it, how you achieved it, and whether or not you think it is making a difference in your marketing.

Want to know more about some WOM success stories? Here is a press release from an agency in Pennsylvania that has just added WOM to its strategic offerings. Here's the part of it I like the most:

Just one commercial for the iPhone appeared between January and June, 2007. During the interim, buzz for the product built to such a fever pitch that even the mayor of Philadelphia was in line at dawn to get his hands on one.

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Here's a story that talks about, and totals up, all the recent money being invested by venture capitalists in new companies all over the world building solutions around Web 2.0 and social media technologies. By Bill Hartzer, who manages the Search Engine Marketing division of MarketNet, Inc., a leading full-service interactive design and development firm in Dallas, Texas, the bottom line is: venture investments in Web 2.0 and social media are on the increase and a snapshot of investments in the first half of 2007 shows New England taking in the biggest haul.

That whole California vs. New England or Massachusetts technology and investment thing has been going on for years. I think it is a sport: fun to watch, but rather meaningless. It's like the Boston Red Sox, the home team, which is comprised of very few people who are actually from Boston or New England. Still, it's possible that New England's edge, if it has one, is due in part to the tons of great and varied universities here filled up with born and bred Web 2.0 and social media types. Just a theory. California has lots of great schools, too. I've lived and worked in both places.

My biggest takeaway from this news is a question or two: Do these venture capitalists know something about the future of social media others don't? Are they writing checks this size in pursuit of a mere fad? My own experience with VCs over the years tells me they often pick a fair number of start-up losers, but in the end they almost always pick the right categories. They may not be clairvoyant all the time about which company will be huge, but they know a lucrative new trend and new set of technologies when they see one. What do you think?

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