First screen shot shows the new giant left nav.  Woah.  That’s a lot of left nav when you expand it.  I already had ability to click “image” from the top nav.  Now it’s on the left.  Advantage…? 

My only concern here is I liked Google mixing results from video, images, blogs etc because I don’t always know how i want my results and if I do (i.e. if I want an image) i just go to Google Images.  My assumption is by putting this in the left nav they feel it will be much more used??

Next Screen Shot:  I’ll take my stolen images, medium sized with some red and black please!

Like you, I use iStock photo or Flickr Common license photos when I need to borrow something.  But did Google ever just make it easy for people who want that perfect image to steal (uh…go license it).

Of course there is currently no advertiser so I’m only saving myself from an empty grey box right now. 

Trying to think of sites that I love who’s ads I hate…tough one.  If their ads were so intrusive I’d have found a substitute, right?  OR…..

New Plan:  Build up loyal audience.  Start annoying them with crazy ads.  Offer them a way to stop the pain that I have inflicted upon them.   Genius.    

Hmmm…then again….back to the drawing board.

Day Flew By:  8/10
Shwag:  1/10
Speakers:  8/10
Food & Drink:  3/10
Unintentional Comedy: 9/10

For an actual replay you’ll need to go elsewhere.  These are some thoughts and ideas

My Scattered thoughts Include Such Points As:

 -In Europe I’m Normal
-Twittering at Conferences – huge potential
-Shared Interests
-They’re flipping.  They’re flopping.  TV people are all over the place!

Twitter as @Moderator

-My first live Tweetfest.  Woah, a lot of action
-Opportunity:  There are people Tweeting to the External world from the conference.  Value to me:  zero.  They say it.  I hear it.  You type it.  I read it again.
-Internal Tweets on the other hand have tremendous value.  Getting a sense of how the people in the audience are receiving the information is more than simply fascinating.  This provides huge opp to create a more lively debate (re: dialogue) as inherently people seem more likely to compliment a presenter (or ask a rudimentary question) rather than challenge them and pull out more value.  The elephant in the room is now Twitter.  During the Boob Tube to You Tube, what I was thinking was “wow, are they serious”.  Turns out I wasn’t alone.  Moderator let them off the hook.  Twitter didn’t.  Twitter as moderator’s assistant?

Get Gutsy – It’s Digital Day – Stream it!

Why not stream live Twitter chatter? At least for one of the sessions.  It’s digital day!  Even if it was a total debacle it would be a great chance for people to learn by doing and certainly would lead to conversation.

Sure, publishing my comments to a live wall might end up moderating my opinion slightly,  but maybe that’s a good thing.  People who were thinking of asking an obvious question (or a dumb one – and yes, I actually do believe there are dumb questions) would have it answered in advance.  Sure, you might have someone try to hijack the conversation.  But I think as people found their groove the crowd might sort it all out.  Would it work?  Yup.  Would it be a disaster at the same time?  Likely.  Would it pan people in real time who were off base doing a sales pitch?  Guaranteed.  Next year:  1 session!

Lunch
-Not for serious presentations in a room for 1,000 eating.  Keep it light.  Opportunity to peddle the ads.  If you serve a bland lunch…that’ll be on Twitter too.

Mobile, Mobile, Mobile
Google thinks you should bet the farm on Mobile.  Repeat:  Google says bet the farm on it.  I feel like this might be obvious, but when Google bets the farm…..

In Europe I’m Normal!
-Some Euro countries have 115% penetration in mobile.  That means my Mobile Mullet (iPhone stacked on top of Bberry) is normal!  In Europe.  But still….

Digital Media – There is clearly not a single definition that the Canadian marketing world understands.  Sure you might say it’s just semantics but if we can’t even figure out this term, we are in trouble.  Wikipedia is no better.

ROI by Proximity - I would say this won the presentation that tried the most to give you something you could use / think about / apply.  Didn’t tell me how to build my structure but showed elements and a basic way to think about setting up a framework for social programs.  Also these folks came up for ways to measure impact of fans and tweets / twitterers.  Putting a number (ROI!) on the social crowd has to be done.  Put a stake in the ground.  Kudos for doing something.  We all get asked the question.  Collin was the presenter:  http://www.radicaltrust.ca/ and many have asked him for his presentation.

Shared Interests.  So Hot This Season.  Shared Interests. :  I need to date someone who understands / is excited about the stuff I’m working on (Social Mobile Game) and the world it’s in (Insanity).  The crowd at marketing week reminded me what it would be like to have conversations about things I’m passionate about with someone who has an informed opinion.  Shared interests are hot this season.

National Post - Google nor I will tell you to be the farm on them.  If I’m about to go out of business I do one thing and I do it well.  I don’t try to push 20 things fwd.  Just saying.

Shwag – if you are giving out Shwag might as well have something good.  Or at least something that I can figure out what it is.  Seriously, what is that thing?  My bus partner was at the Paypal conference a couple weeks ago (cost $100 or maybe even $50) and they all got netbooks.  Shwag is the last thing I care about at a conference but a Netbook?   Woah.

TV Guys - Also, really?  The internet can’t take you over cause of bandwidth?  PVRs aka recording shows you can watch later without hiccups of streaming is not going to catch on?  Really?  Premium t.v. is the way to go, not all the innovations we are seeing out of new content, moving people between mediums, finding more opportunities to sell (Heroes, Gossip Girl etc)?  Although there was talk of leading little evidence was presented this is the case.  Another non farm bet.

Pitching vs. Presenting vs. Discussing
-Being talked to is okay, being discussed with is great BUT pitching is depressing.  Every presenter should have the first 1-2 minutes to pitch what they do.  Standard.  Done.  Move on.  Use your clients as case studies by all means, but around a point other than what you want to sell me.   It’s painfully obvious.

You Tube Video Personalities.  Great point.  Why are so many people trying to build a presence instead of using these folks like popular bloggers?  Clearly depends on what you are selling but seems there should be an entire agent submarket here, representing these personalities.  Who’s hot with the X crowd by demo, location etc.

OBAMA examples are great but…
Obama really did something special.  But let’s be honest, Obama was something special going into it.  He came in with hype like you’ve never seen.  He came in to set history.  He came in as the perfect storm.  So was it his great use of the medium.  Yes it was.  But if he were Hilary Clinton or John McCain would that have worked?  There are clearly some fascinating takeaways from what he did – But he is Barack Obama.

Your Kids will Own You
Twitter and the networks they create are being created and dropped just as fast.  From transient to obsessive, there is a so much more going on than ppl who see Twitter as a fad.  As 30 somethings get old and let it all pass them by they may be unable to parent.  Technology has always confused our parents, but this is a point in time I feel that if you let it slip, as they did before you, you’ll be 2000 more clueless than they ever were.  Be nice to your kids and they might show you how to program the VCR of the future.

Taking notes at conferences is next to useless.  You end up with a blog post like this!  It would be great if all materials could be made available after.  But more.  Internal Tweets, comments, blog posts (which take you down the rabbit whole of links, i.e. information) should all link into that topic specific page.  This would take a presentation and create a community of people feeding into after and helping to take an idea and refine it.  Follow up meetings could be set up by presenters who would now have a chance to get at the people they should.  Good business opps.  Conference would look good as would Presenters.  People could learn, connect, share and make community’s of real people.

Canada watches more video online than anyone…in the world.  i.e. If you can’t get people to watch your video here…rethink it.  They also don’t leave YouTube and go to your site (only 2%), so your YouTube page best work for you.  I thought that was interesting.

A company who Tweets and wants to be interesting needs an interesting Tweeter. Otherwise you are your boring self so who cares.

Who owns all this new stuff in the marketing world?  A lot of white space to manage and nobody seems to be owning it (PR, Comm, Digital etc)

As always, if you aren’t falling down, smacking your head and occasionally stinking out the joint, you probably aren’t doing much interesting.

When making funny ‘viral’ videos.  “Pets Kill”.

Apparently (and I’m not convinced) 85% respond to email marketing and 10% text marketing.  Both numbers seem absurdly high.  Text me an ad, I’ll dislike you for a long time.

Apps vs. Mobile
-people don’t really know if they should build an app, make the site mobile, if those need to be different etc.
-some thought that app needs to be unique, mobile should just be website on mobile platform.  Others thought NYTimes model was dumb when they could charge $5.00.  As an avid NYTimes reader – keep that to yourself.

Resources!
All of this ‘stuff’ takes work!  Too much thinking that because it’s easy to set up it’s easy to run.  For any of us who’ve done it – ha ha ha.  Right.

Unintentional Comedy Panels are quite simply put:  AWESOME
Nalts, Collin and a few others were various degrees of funny.  That’s key for any great presentation.  It’s just good presenting.

On the other hand the Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple (actually it was Canwest – but he was certainly the apple /google type guy) was a classic.  Microsoft / Apple guy were in total disagreement on everything.  While it made both of their points somehow less impactful the pure unintentional comedy was great.  Needed about 4 hours with these guys.  Would have liked to have heard more about Apps vs. Mobile etc.

p.s. the reason 18 year olds demand free is because they are big on time and low on money.  As we get older and get money we use it to lessen the hassles of life re: time spent doing things i can pay small sums for.  This was somehow overlooked in the whole tv behaviour conversation.  Weird.

Google - straight up proclaims massive influence of social media on search and purchase decisions and a shift exists.  Seems obvious I’m sure, but once company’s get big they often are great at ignoring that stuf.

People like virtual friends almost as much as real ones. This confuses me.  Most of my Virtual friends are actually alive and real and I’ve met them.  Perhaps I’m abnormal.  I’m going to find out what they are doing in Europe.

Don’t use Twitter if you aren’t the kind of company who can admit when they screw up. Company’s are people.  No?

Conversations are not Markets i.e. the #mweek Twitter stream is not a market.  Okay…bad example.  Who wants to hire a social digital mobile expert?  I met a few.

Networking works well when you feed people booze.  Or even give them a place to do it.  But when your program, signage etc talks about a cocktail reception and then you cancel it but don’t tell anyone ever at any point…that’s just weird.

That’s the sum of it.