I'm giving a talk next week in Copenhagen for a conference organised by Post Danmark on Participation Marketing. I'll be covering a theme familiar to many foks reading this... how the internet, improved educational standards and a general decline in respect for authority combine to change the way organisations should market themselves. How we're moving a more colloquial model of engagement, in which its possible for things like Linux to emerge to challenge the big boys.

Participation takes many forms and I'll use some improv activities as well as a few case studies and things to explore the territory. I thought I'd do a tiny experiment in shallow-end participation in developing my talk by inviting a bit of feedback on a couple of things I'm working on.

A lot of people attending are interested in Direct Marketing, specifically stuff that comes through our letterboxes, and how this is going to change in the future. I don't get a lot of memorable things in my postbox and I'd be fascinated if anyone reading this has some examples of things they've received (or indeed sent) that reflect the new paradigm.

Also, I was going to quote some data I picked up from Steve Yastrow on the Tom Peters' site from a while back, showing that trust in things like advertising declined, but trust in ourselves has remained the same. The only data points I've got are 1987 and 2001 so if anyone has comparative data with an end point nearer to 2006 I would love to hear from you!

What other examples of really engaging marketing have you experienced? I'm especially interested in smaller scale examples, away from the big names.

Any other questions or ideas on the theme would also be most welcome. I'll be happy to share the slides of my presentation when I'm done.