Not Dead

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There's been so much going on at the office, I haven't had time to blog.  Between getting prepared for the iMedia Summit, dealing with the work that accumulated while Eric and I were there, pitching a bunch of new business, wrapping up the last of the 2007 plans and generally winding down for the year, there's a tsunami of activity that will keep me scrambling right up until Christmas. I promise to pick things up, though.

So Swamped... Read This Instead

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There is something about an iMedia Summit that attracts calls from clients.  They must sense that we were out of the office.  We're still digging out here at Underscore, but I did want to say some words about the summit while I've got a few spare minutes. First off, the content was the best I'd ever experienced.  This one blew away even the eye-opening slate of speakers from Beaver Creek three years ago (the one that Bob Garfield keynoted).  Kudos to the iMedia team for getting some kick-ass speakers.  They got me out of a conference funk that usually left me wandering out of a general session all pissed off because no one was talking about marketing, but instead were talking about the interactive media flavor of the month.

Secondly, Don Schultz was amazing.  His speech was a huge validation of the Conversational Marketing practice here at Underscore.  And it was exactly that disruptive, Get-Your-Heads-Out-Of-Your-Collective-Asses type of thing that we needed to get companies thinking about how they're going to cope with the impending shift toward bottom-up marketing.  Brad Berens deserves extra-special thanks for getting this guy to the conference so he could articulate what some of us were thinking.  Go read his interview.  Now.  Hurry. Thirdly, iMedia didn't disappoint with respect to the attendence of heavy-hitters and friends alike.  Most of the usual gang of interactive philosophers were there, with one notable exception being Dave Smith, who decided to actually celebrate his anniversary this year.  Almost everyone brought their A-team, and when they didn't, other attendees took note.

What a great time.  Thanks to Rick, Brad, Masha, Josh, Pubie, Mario and the rest of the iMedia gang for putting together a terrific conference.

Picking Off Jaffe's Clients

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Roman Mandrick from KsanLab Company in Moscow left an audio comment for Joe Jaffe about how he and I ran into one another in Crayonville a few weekends ago and sat around chatting with me for a bit. Joe played it on Across The Sound #65, and then joked that I was hanging out on his island to try to pick off clients. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't, but I'd like to note that I've been to Crayonville about half a dozen times now and have never seen Jaffe there. Maybe a virtual receptionist is in order?