Having spent the first 10 years of my career working in Direct Marketing, I am well versed in the idea of marketing as a campaign. 

The process is:

1. Client briefs agency “we need to sell 2,000 mortgages this quarter”
2. Creative staff work on the design and data planners work back from that 2,000 figure (with expected response rates and conversion rates) to identify how many prospects need to be contacted/exposed to the ad.  If they are more sophisticated, they will have data (triggers, profiles and predictive models) to help them identify the best prospects.
3. Campaign is launched and after a period of time, the number of new mortgages is calculated
4. The agency can calculate the ROI from the campaign and then rest easy with a G&T at the nearest swanky bar

ReadWriteWeb's Guide to Online Community Management... is an interesting mashup of news, views and resources on the emerging role of Community Manager. Unfortunately not a free (open source) offering but interesting nonetheless.

I figure Community Management is one role worth keeping tabs on - afterall, we are the "least connected we will ever be" - as Don Peppers reminded several of us recently.