I remember a time when word of mouth used to be this highly esoteric thing everybody feared and nobody could really describe.

Not any longer.

According to this new version of the “Did you know” video, social media is the connection between word of mouth and real money.

25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content. 34% of consumers trust peer recommendations, while only 14% trust advertising!

In the future we will no longer search for products and services…. they will find us through social media, similarly to what is already happening to news.

And if you still have doubts about the power of online word of mouth… check out this wisdom from the # 1 internet content creator in the world (China!).

It is June and it’s time to leave for San Francisco again.

At the end of the week, I will be attending  IABC’s international executive board meeting.

I am thrilled that my friend Mark Schumann is taking over as chairman. Mark has a great sense of humour. And we will probably need it in the years to come…

One of the issues we are discussing in California is the direction in which the communication profession is going and where it will be in 10 years from now.

At the moment, it feels like walking through a maze at a summer fair. You can only go forward. You can’t turn back. There is nothing to go back to.

Journalism, as we used to know it, is no more.

And the power of social media is chipping away at corporate communication’s old command-and-control culture.

The more I work with organisations to introduce Web 2.0, the more I realise that it is mostly about relinquishing fear. I believe communicators can play a major role in removing resistance and developing what Kevin Roberts calls “emotional connectivity”.

Now and again, I still meet people convinced that blogging and Twitter are only used for weirdoes who want to upload their frustrations on the internet.

So, it was refreshing to read an interview with Queen Rania of Jordan in which she calls social media “a catalyst for the advancement of everyone’s rights…It’s where people can find and fight for a cause, global or local, popular of specialised, even when there are hundreds of miles between them.”

Who needs to know how to exit the maze?! I just love the “attraction economy”.

I did not know that women use 20,000 words every day, while men use only 7,000.

But I did know that half a billion women worldwide are still illiterate and 41 million girls are shut out of school gates because of poverty and prejudices.

I have blogged before about Queen Rania’s YouTube channel. I am a great fan.

This video makes a strong point about the advantages of female education in the developing world.

Educating girls is important and makes a lot of sense in both economic and geopolitical terms. Is the solution to the problem of female illiteracy going to come from governments? Or is social entrepreneurship going to provide the answer?

This week, I will be following the live video streaming of the Skoll World Forum on Social Enterpreneurship broadcasted from Oxford and I’ll be looking for ideas.