I was talking to a prospect recently about an innovative social media program we've been delivering with great success for one of our clients."That'll never fly here," he said, without even getting past the opening line. Why? "The VP who controls the budget is tired of hearing about 'social'. Can you call it something else?"

I'm a big fan of Marshall Kirkpatrick (@marshallk). He's one of the best voices behind ReadWriteWeb, and one of the few people that delivers consistently good reporting and analysis on social media technology. But Marshall's recent piece on the supposed death of Social Media ROI really deserves a crushing response. Not only is social media ROI decidedly undead, its death shouldn't be longed for by marketers in the first place.