Last year we lauched this - the ad:tech brain - and used the forum to get your suggestions, feedback and direction on what topics we should be programming and which speakers you’d like to hear from. If you take a look through this site you’ll see some of the conversations that took place as we developed the ad:tech 2009 agenda.

We’d like to get things rolling again and invite you to share your ideas on this site through the Voice of the Industry section (look at the tabs at the top of that page!) You can use that section of the site to write your ideas on:

* hot topics that you think MUST be discussed at ad:tech
* questions that you want answers to
* new things in the industry that you think we should include
* work that you’ve done that you think is particularly brilliant!
* work that other people have done that you think is particularly brilliant
* topics from last year that you think we should include again / change / build on
* issues & challenges that are really affecting you and your peers or colleagues

You can also write a post with your thoughts on who should be speaking on the ad:tech 2010 program and asking others what they think. You could write about:

* Experts who you’ve read about but never heard speak
* Companies that you know are doing great work that you’d like to hear more from
* Colleagues or peers that you think would be good speakers
* Suggestions for the ‘type’ of person you think should be on the program
* Excellent speakers that you’ve heard before that you’d like to hear again.

Of course that ad:tech brain can be used for lots of discussions - it’s a forum for the industry to debate as much or as little as you’d like to! We’ll keep an eye on the chat, answer any questions, through some responses in, ask some questions ourselves, but really - this is for you.

We look forward to seeing what you’ve got to share. Enjoy.

TalkingDigital recently posted an article which had some comments to make about the ad:tech program.  The comments, seem to focus on what they feel is a disconnect between where the revenue is flowing within our industry and the balance of topics in the ad:tech program.  Specifically, they would like to see more topics on performance media.  Additionally, they feel there is an inequitable focus put on mobile and social media.  I have pasted some of my reply below as we are very interested in the Brain communities perspective on whether our program should be driven purely by the dollars or by broader factors…

Lets start with the facts we know about the conference:

• Historically, attendance is split equally between Agencies/suppliers, Marketers (or clients ) and publishers.
• There are a total of 30 sessions (3 keynotes)
• Primary feedback from last year was a) more case studies and b) more cutting edge stuff (less digital 101)
• Based on session tracking from last year, social media sessions outranked any other content

So, taking this on board, lets look at the revenue argument as a rational for content allocation:
if we take the IAB revenue splits as a guide to programming then we would have 47% of the 30 conference topics (roughly 16 panels) should be devoted to the topic of search, 28% (roughly 14 panels) to General display advertising (and I am assuming this includes performance networks) and 25% (lets say 10) devoted to classifieds. Now this all sounds a bit dry and we all know that the money and expenditure is divided more broadly than this.

Another approach is to take the AIMIA digital services index .  Here, the picture gets a lot more diverse.  Suddenly online ad spend drops to 21% (down to maybe 9 topics) and things like Digital Direct and Email start to take on more of the lions share.  But of course neither of these statistical analysis’s  even count social media or mobile because, as you rightly point out, no publisher, performance network or media company have figured out how to make big money on it.

Perhaps the other part of this statistical equation that the revenue focus does not account for is what the audience is doing.  Whether any of the publishers or media companies are making money or not, according to a recent report from Steven Noble from Forrester , Three-Quarters Of Australian Online Adults Use Social Technologies.  According to Hitwise, 8% of all visits to internet sites in Australia were to social networks and forums with an average time spent of over 12 minutes. And Twitter last year had usage growth statistics of over 500%..

While it is fair to say, these guys may not have figured how to make real money yet, this is clearly another trend that marketers need to understand even if only so they can make an intelligent decision not to participate. Fi Bendall of Bendalls group wrote an interesting article recently that explores this very point.

So…I pose the question again.  If there is a burning issue that needs to be covered, please elaborate on it and help us debate the case for it’s inclusion, and finally, is it the spend allocations that should drive the content program or is the picture bigger than that?

Here are some initial ideas:

• The approach that companies take (internal vs agency driven)
• The barriers that they must overcome (people, money, buy-in)
• Whether this should be centralised or spread across a whole organisation
• How ready are your average company to take on a full blown digital strategy?

Just some initial thoughts but keen to hear what challenges you think companies face in developing digital strategies and what info you think is most worth getting the panel to discuss.

My Dream Client Stream
——————–

Keynote - Who Ate Who?
A speaker who can inform us as to whether traditional media is changing the values of digital media as it encroaches and monetises online, or vice versa. Who’s paradigm is really shifting? Backed up by fact, not PowerPoint (PowerPoint + fact = misdirection)

Session 1 - Digital Disasters
This would be a good session to unravel a lot of the hype that we still see about online, and great opportunity to learn some “don’ts.”

Session 2 - Where Art Thou, Consumer?
It seems we are all talking to the same people. How do we extend digital reach - do we need more fingers, or do we need larger arms? What I am saying is that despite what we say, we still aren’t talking-to 95% of our audience in a meaningful way. If our arms are agendas/ideas, and our fingers are conversations, do we need to make the ideas (arms) larger, or do we need to focus first on the fingers (conversations)? Are we trying to do too much and be too smart? Do consumers actually want to be more deeply engaged, or do they simply want a one night stand with our brands? Not only would this topic be thought provoking, but it could also vie for the most metaphors in one talk.

Session 3 - Measuring success
A lot of brands measure their online success by comparing their digital metrics to their offline counterparts. But if we rephrase the conversation with the presumption that the results from above the line campaigns are for the most part poor, then why would we compare online metrics with a below par baseline. What should be the measures of success online, and at what level? And how do brands do this?

Session 4: Embracing the herd.
Can brands really utilise the wisdom of crowds without undermining their core ethos? If so, what value does the marketer actually play - is there even a need for strategy when chaos and market demand usually win out
anyway? Should you fire yourself as a marketer and simply become executionally focussed?

Session 5 Panel: Let’s Get Ready to Rumble
The debate over who understands digital marketing best, digital agencies or traditional agencies, continues unabated. My belief is that it completely depends on the culture of the client, however this is no time for reason. Have the discussion occur with a panel of 3 people on each side, but they can only discuss via text message which is displayed on a screen in the middle of the two teams so everyone can see. The audience can also participate via SMS. Not only does this keep a potential mobile sponsor happy and position adtech as forward thinking, but it will soon become obvious which side embraces the technology. The use of “runners” for this by the panel i.e. 12 year old SMS wizards, would be discouraged. This may seem
like a joke, but it’s not!

Session 6: What Brands Work, and Why
Some brands are more adept at optimising their message for the web, others are to prepondorous and have too much of a legacy to be agile. This would be a session on the key traits that a brand requires to be able to take advantage of digital, and transformation strategies for those who are struggling. This session would be gold for a lot of brand managers.

Session 7: Online Advertising 201
Let’s face it, most campaigns are still utilising interruptive mechanisms such as banners, interstitials etc. No wonder many brand managers are questioning their online media buying strategies. This session compares the various forms of online advertising available, and what cutting edge solutions are commercially available. This session takes for granted that people know what online advertising is, but how can brand managers take advantage of it in better ways?

Session 8: Let Me Hear you Say NBN
This session examines what technologies can be utilised if and when the national broadband network is rolled out. From streaming holograms through to personalised cinematic experiences, this session is designed to leave the attendees feeling inspired about what can be achieved through digital. I
think often at conferences we get so caught up in the minutiae that we forget how wonderful our industry really is, and that our end goal is to give all people a better quality of life. Whether it be more free time (I can hear you all chuckle), create or more authentic buying experience, provide greater access to information or allow for more personal choice, brand managers do far more than be mouthpieces for their companies. We have a chance to reshape how we interact with consumers, and this session does just that.

There was a few comments around the overall structure and content of Ad:tech Jonathan Kerr observed that it is all too easy for us to fall into the trap of delivering ‘Digital 101′ as many conferances do however he also observed that there could be clients attending these sorts of events and that potentially, shifting focus to integrate more detailed case studies of how success was achieved might make the content more relevant to them. This was a recommendation echoed by many others including James Horne who also suggested we introduce some technical and architectural sessions. Chris Simon pointed out that there are few conferences that successfully combine tech, news, internet, mobile, video, blogging, tagging and twittering environment int a cohesive package… Lets hope we achieve this with your help this year.

In looking at how we achieve this, Ian Lyons had another interesting idea “Go old school, migrate a face to face solution selling approach to online.” I liked his idea of developing some workshops around how digital can help clients solve their customers’ problems and potentially involving some effective salespeople to share their advice.

There was a lot of discussion about the need to develop some content around strategy and provide some direction to organisations on how to plan and implement their digital at a higher level than tactical campaign execution. Within the discussion around strategic development, there a number of people talking about the bigger job to be done: figuring out where and how digital fits into a client organisation. Graham Christie discussed the need to look at how is Mobile starting to take a role in Service, Sales, and Operations areas, however the topic of social media in organisations seemed to stimulate the most interest. Marc Loveridge talked about how corporations need to change the culture of the organisation to be more open and transparent (individual by individual). Scott Drummond discussed the need to take a more detailed look at the options available for where the social media buck stops in a business and figuring out where social media sits within an organisation and Stephen Collins strengthened this thought with suggestions about the need to focus on corporate cultural change, employee engagement and leadership innovation evolving the corporate DNA itself. Rogerio de Paula Assis raised the interesting question as to how you educate people outside of the marketing department about the importance of these initiatives (perhaps you could bring them to ad:tech). It seems like this might be shaping up to be an interesting panel topic on “Implications of Digital on Organisational structures”…any thoughts?

When looking at digital strategy from an agency (or supplier perspective) Aaron Michie asked “ who cares if they’re at a specialist shop, an ad agency, or internal?“ As the space expands it becomes more human driven in every possible way. There was a lot of interesting discussion around this in response to Julian Coles post on “Are Australian bloggers cannibalizing the role of Social Media Marketers?”. While Laurel Papworth said “Freenomics is eventually gonna do us ALL out of a job.”, Lee Hopkins commented that the ability to harvest that advice is a world and a ton of brain cells away from being able to actually develop a strategy. Gavin Heaton talked about the emergence of a multidisciplinary role of “business designer”. Perhaps yet another job title to talk about. I think Scott Drummond summed it up nicely when he said “Ideas are for free. It’s not like that many of them are genuinely original anyway. The devil is always in the detail”.

To this end, there seems to be a definite appetite for more meaty examples and case studies in Social media. Heather Albrecht suggested a session focused on the challenges facing brands of ‘policing and releasing’ their brands in 2.0 environments. A session looking at a spectrum of brand experiences with open and not so open communities. Perhaps a good commentator on this type of experience is Mike Hickinbotham from BigPond who talked about the importance behind implementation. Meraj Huda also made the recommendation that we gather case studies where 2.0/Social Media has been shown to be monitisable.

In addition to looking at social media, there was also some discussion around focusing on user experience design. Nathan Swift commented that it would be good to have a session about the basic principles of user-centered design which is interesting since I will be speaking on a panel at ad:tech New York in a few weeks about similar topic and talking with my fellow panelists, it seems that there is still no clear definition for what this really means. Patrick Kennedy expanded on this when he said that to be truely effective, you need to take into account usefulness and usability from an end-users point of view. Perhaps we should get some real users on this panel, give them some sites that are winning awards then evaluate how well they really work in front of the audience?

The whole topic of data portability also stimulated some interest. Ian Lyons first introduced the discussion supported by Scott Drummond and Stephen Collins who commented that data portability will be key in the next few years. Potentially this would be an interesting topic to discuss in the context of Web3.0 and Mobile. Graham Christie introduced some of these ideas in his comments around the role of mobile, Apple versus Android versus Symbian, Cross Network connectivity and standards adoption.

Well thats a quick round up of were we are heading. I am sure everyone has some more interesting topics to discuss so keep it coming. Would be great to get the perspectives of some more of you clients out there too :-)