Over the years, companies like salesforce.com and InfoStreet have been re-imaging the software AND services landscape for small businesses and entrepreneurs, essentially leading the way as larger firms turned a critical eye on them. Those same big companies are now playing catch-up.

At the risk of dating myself, here’s a story I’d like to share:

When I was about 13 years old, I begged my mom to take me to see David Bowie in Ziggy Stardust—The Motion Picture. The rock-n-roll pic fed my fascination, nay, obsession with all things Bowie. As I gazed in rapture at the screen, my mom recoiled in shock at the twisting, gyrating, androgynous Ziggy’s antics. In that moment, had I been asked why I was so enraptured by Bowie, I would have been hard-pressed, in my tweenage brain, to find a coherent answer. Needless to say, mom had a long talk with me that night (this was the woman, by the way, who alternated my bedtime readings with the Psalms, Revelations, and The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler).

Over the years, I have nurtured a strange fascination with and admiration for the artist who, beginning life as David Jones, created more identities than Sybil and has managed to reinvent himself to relevance for nearly 40 years: from Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke to the Berlin Era, and from “Let’s Dance” Bowie to collaborations with Queen and Tin Machine (with a little Luther Vandross in the mix) and roles in film and on Broadway, it’s safe to say that Bowie has challenged our conception of the static identity as the only way to succeed.

He pushed our notions about identity even further when in 1997, he listed himself on the New York Stock Exchange as a corporate entity. The only thing that has remained constant is Bowie’s ability to recognize shifts in the creative and business landscape—and reinvent himself as that landscape has altered. At times, he has been responsible for those alterations. Change, then, is the Bowie brand. At the core, Bowie is the same talented artist he was when I first started listening (although some would argue that “Laughing Gnome” isn’t necessarily the best expression of that talent). But he has kept me listening and watching by proving not just talent, but versatility, while keeping the integrity of his identity.

My guess is that what we are now seeing in social media are small landscape shifts that are moving some businesses toward greater relevance. Companies that can recognize what they have—strong customer base, solid readership, great product offerings, and so on—and correctly and effectively engage new media to help them make that transition to greater relevance, with integrity intact—will reap the benefits of change. If not, I’ll let Bowie tell you what will happen:

“I watch the ripples change their size

But never leave the stream

Of warm impermanence

So the days float through my eyes

But still the days seem the same.” (From "Changes," By David Bowie. Lyrics courtesy of www.lyricsfreak.com)

1. Accept that social media is not a fad, and that we are on the cusp of a fundamental change in the way we communicate, access and acquire information, and connect to a larger, global community. Web 2.0 isn't the end, but a promising beginning.

2. Stop seeing social media as the enemy. Too often, companies see the web space as competition: for advertising dollars, eyeballs, and mindshare. This view has to change. Social media tools can be valuable assets to print publications, allowing them to reconnect with current audience in more meaningful ways and tap into "aspirational" readership as well. For an established publication, this could be a younger market or a niche segment of your existing readership, say, those in a certain income bracket. Want to see an analysis of how well this works? Head to Barack 2.0, developed by Brent Leary and David Bullock. They closely tracked the movement of Obama's web strategy and break it down in valuable and digestible portions. Enjoy.

3. Use the print publication as a complement to the web source offerings–and vice versa. When done well, a company's web presence can serve the critical function of augmenting the publication's offering.

4. This is my favorite: Move beyond the mid-century factory mindset. The fact is, most companies are still run on the 9-to-5 model (Dolly Parton's song and images of a bound Dabney Coleman are painfully etched in my brain). Workers clock in, assume their positions and stations (i.e., cubicles), and produce "work"/"work product." Changes, if any, occur in a chain-of-command style that stifles creativity and hinders a company's ability to move quickly and wisely. Old-school media prides itself on "tradition"–old models and tenets of journalism that are still valuable but must adapt to the changing world. Blogs effectively changed the news/information gathering and sharing experience for a generation of readers, and we must adjust our way of communication–style, tone, and on occasion, grammar, to the new environment. Language has to be engaging and fluid. It must not dictate but offer and guide. Let me point out, though, that as an old-schooler myself, the basics of great journalism still apply: fairness, accuracy, ethics, and responsibility.

Traditional media still has lots to teach new media, should traditional publications decide to play to their strengths in this new economy.

5. Share. The days of the news "scoop" are receding. These days, information moves quickly. Additionally, news subjects have become more savvy about the process, adopting for example the art of the "slow leak" or "selective leak" and closely monitoring the news cycle and releasing big but controversial news on "slow" days.

6. Train employees. A frequently overlooked aspect of new media is the fact that most employees really do not know how to use the technology. They are not educated about the tools beyond the basic PC and handset (cell phone or smart phone). And if they aren't educated and engaged, they probably won't understand the significance of social media–and thus its impact on what they do. Companies have to invest in their employees' education and tech resources and should encourage them to engage in social networking–responsibly, of course.

7. Reduce and lose the overwhelming dependence on advertising revenue. Consider licensing, custom marketing, custom printing—look to nontraditional revenue generating partnerships, such as the education space, for example.

Now, I'm sure that I am not the first to many, if not all, of these things. Frankly, I probably will not be the last. But as someone who has been in print and new media for more than 20 years, I've seen many a print publication go the way of the dinosaur. So until and unless print media chooses to use the tools at their disposal, that loud noise at their backs might very well be a meteorite announcing extinction.