Digital Marketing Conference 2006 – Day One

They are Blogging this live. They are braver than I am. I like reflecting on the day rather than pumping it out as it happens. The wi-fi was rocking at the Digital Marketing Conference 2006 today. A lot of the posts can be found at the CMA – Canadian Marketing Association – Blog: Canadian Marketing Blog. The folks over at One Degree (hi Ken!) are hosting a Flickr stream and shooting video, some people from Canada.com are shooting up a storm and others were independently posting on their own.
What a vibe. The world is changing. I’m happy to be a part of it.
My day got off to a raucous start – the type of stuff participants never see but the nail-biting things that make presenting stressful (over and above the potential of having tomatoes tossed at you from the audience). Turns out the venue had some initial AV issues and I had to burn all of my videos to DVD and have my presentation run off of another laptop with a different remote presenter. Thankfully the CMA professional staff was there to keep things in check (Kiran, you’re the best).
I had a great time running through some new concepts that I put together into my presentation, Six Pixels Of Separation – How Marketing Connects In A Digital World.
And here are some highlights:
– Gotta love David Weinberger. The co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined sat at our table for lunch. What a fascinating guy. I owe him huge props for what was surely one of the highlights of my life. Weinberger gets up on stage and says something like, “well, Mitch Joel said it all, so good night and God bless!” Please tell me that someone has a recording of this?
– Bryan Eisenberg wows the crowd (as always) with the strategy behind Persuasion Architecture and what Marketers need to do in a world where consumers don’t salivate from every bell we ring (hence the title of his book, Waiting For Your Cat To Bark).
– I had a great time moderating one of the roundtable discussions (known as The Experience Exchange). I was handling a table on the topic of Podcasting and so was C.C. Chapman, so we pushed our two tables together and it was a full-on blast.
– Last night was also crazed. C.C., Michael Seaton, Bryan Eisenberg and I met up with Reid Givens who flew all the way up to Toronto from New Mexico for the conference. Reid tells me that he’s having a hard time finding the local Digerati in New Mexico. So, hook him up. If you’re in that area, leave some comments below and start the conversation.
– Great cocktail reception (sponsored by Scotiabank) to end day one. I can’t believe that Eisenberg won the door prize (enjoy the camera!).
When I read this post back, it’s kind of lame compared to what others have done – including full notes on each presentation.
The spirit in the room is electric – you can feel it. We’re all wanting to understand this space.
Awesome first day.