My husband and I are in vehement competition for the mayorship of our home. While I'm the current proud holder of that little Foursquare crown, he'll have the perfect opportunity to steal an advance when I'm at Forrester's Consumer Forum in Chicago all next week. A sad defeat. You see, in our house, the Mayor doesn't take out the trash. 

That's what I love about mobile, the ability to link together the virtual and real worlds. But that's not the only thing mobile is good for. 

In my recently published research, "Mobile Adds New Appeal To Your Brand Experience," I challenge CMOs to think of mobile as an opportunity to raise the bar on the brand experience, by adopting or reinforcing three key characteristics of life on the go: immediacy, intimacy, and context.

• Immediacy is, of course, about speed and time: Does the brand give a consumer what she needs — right now?
• Intimacy means connecting with an individual: How does the brand change when its carried in his pocket? 
• Context acknowledges that life has no commercial breaks: How does the brand stay relevant depending on where the consumer is and what she's doing? 

Last night, I hosted my first Tweet-up to talk about how senior marketers should approach social. Thanks to the team at Aspect and to the many lively tweeters and bloggers who were there. We'll do it again soon. Maybe we'll even get a 'real' French-speaking analyst, like my collegue Thomas Husson, to play along next time. 

So what did we talk about? 

In my just-published research "CMOs Must Orchestrate Social Initiatives" I call for marketing leaders to lead social. But when I say lead, I don't mean 'own'. The CMO, as the steward of the brand experience, must connect the dots of the company's social efforts around the consumer. 

The marketing leader has to help make sense of it all - not do it all. Indeed, every department has a role to play. I've outlined two distinct roles for the CMO to play: driving or shepherding, depending on the objective set for social. In both cases, these roles beg CMOs (and marketing staff) to act transversally, across different departments. 

This is a posture of sharing control - just like we talk about with consumers - which also must happen internally. Ideally, it should happen first internally . . .