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Pedal to the metal – that’s the speed of marketing change over the last five years. Anyone in marketing, who doesn’t spend a considerable amount of time each day, week, and month learning and applying how marketing is changing, is planning an exit strategy whether they know it or not.

Marketing used to be easier. In the past, if you learned the basics and amplified those basics through experience, you might be set in your job and career for decades. No more. Marketing is changing much faster than the marketing curricula at universities. It may be argued in today’s environment that considerable marketing experience is a liability rather than an asset – it’s difficult to be “set in your ways” when the tumultuous marketing environment requires almost consistent reevaluation.

Being effective in marketing today means having a voracious and constant appetite for learning. This isn’t the take-a-few-credits-at-night-school variety. It means learning each and every day by reading blogs, Twitter posts, absorbing knowledge through RSS feeds, social networking with others, meetings with team members at work, devouring books, subscribing and assimilating feeds from experts (MarketingProfs, Forrester, etc.). Of course additional formal education can help, but the main benefit of that type of education is that it puts you in a learning frame of mind and it gets you connected and conversing with others about topics that are vital to personal and career growth.

Having marketing or technology partners who can help you manage the execution of marketing plans for your company is still critical. You can’t do it all or know it all. However, companies that just rely on what they have done in the past and are slow to adapt to the marketing acceleration curve will soon be lapped by more progressive and nimble firms that are willing to tap into a new way of doing things.

An article in Forbes recently by Lisa Arthur highlighted this fact. To paraphrase what she states: being a CMO today is more about managing change than managing marketing. How true! Being a CMO today requires a much wider foundational knowledge base. And, that base better include a basic understanding of the technologies that are today so intertwined with marketing as to be inseparable. Sure great ideas are still important – always have been; always will be. The key in today’s environment is how to use new tools to effectively communicate those ideas.

There’s a new world order for CMOs. To stay relevant and help your company and career grow, it will require much more of a commitment to continual learning. The good news is that if you commit to this learning, there has never been a more exciting or rewarding time to be in the marketing field. The possibilities are almost endless, and herein lies both the challenge and the opportunity.