How has Tweeting changed the face of conferences?

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Marco Bertozzi:29.03.10

I read today a post by Mel Carson that he tweeted out there about someone at a conference commenting on the clothing ‘suits’ and words they used at the conference ‘actionable’. He seemed quite upset that he had been described as a suit, you can see his defence at here and the fact a member of the audience had questioned certain words used.

That got me thinking about how the conference has changed, the old days you turned up perhaps a little hungover and under prepared, or absolutely word perfect, either way you did not really know how you were performing. The advent of tweeting at conferences and the fact presenters are actually reading them has meant you need to think very carefully about whether or not you want to tweet what’s on the tip of your tongue. The person Mel talks about has obviously caught the wrath of the conference speaker/attendee but will that always be the case? What are the rules?

It is easy to be bothered by peoples comments but at the same time you have put yourself in that situation and therefore should you not be prepared to take some criticism? I think yes, as a rule, thats not to say it is right that people hide behind electronic communication to make their points but equally if everytime someone is tackled up for their comments you will kill what has been the most interesting part of most conferences so I suggest caution. Although this was not the source of this post it did also get me thinking about the quality of ones presentations at conferences. Basically if you don’t want to get negative comments then prepare well and make the content interesting. It amazes me the amount of presentations that are re drafts, they are cut, chopped and diced to fit the subject of the day and often presented with no prep. In this age of live digital critiquing I think we all need to be prepared to take some grief if we have not put enough effort in.

In reality you will never please everyone, one man’s ‘suit’ is another man’s ‘professional’, who cares if you wear a suit? I think that the rule is if you don’t like what you read or hear, dont get up on stage.

There just is not enough Buzz around Google Buzz

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Marco Bertozzi:26.03.10

Anyone Buzzing? Google? Google Buzz? no? Seriously is anyone out there? I know there are many people, in fact I am sure my friend from Google who will read this will tell me there are ten billion people buzzing day in day out and I must be mad to suggest otherwise.

Thing is I dont feel it. I am no super blogger or have more friends / links / tweet friends than some major celebrity but nevertheless I think I would start to get more exposure to it and literally noone has tried to connect or contact or Buzz me. What does that mean? Does it mean that Buzz is failing – cue friend from Google – or is it just me? It might be, but could it be that the population just did not need another form of contact? It keeps you busy tweeting, updating status messages, making sure the right one goes on the right platform. You then have to reply to those that have retweeted, or sent you a direct message or perhaps commented on your status and so it goes. Now we have to Buzz? Just cant be bothered, I have waited a little while to see how it grows and I will of course get involved if I need to, I am keen to understand how all these things work but unless my friends at Google tell me why I should then I am out.

I look forward to discussing it tonight over dinner with said friend from Google. (We are meeting at The Village Cafe, Bellevue road.) Buzz me..

When will instant be too slow?

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Marco Bertozzi:23.03.10

Inspired by a meeting today with Harriet Dennys from Mediaweek I started to think about the speed of communication that surrounds us.

Along came email, no more letters or faxes needed. Everything sped up that little bit more, having said that we still held on much longer than we needed to before giving in to sending everything via email. There were concerns at the time that it was too informal and hard copy was more professional.

At around this time we received our news via the hard copy trade titles, it was a sign of position if you were able to receive a copy of Campaign and people waited with baited breath to see what would be said about them or their clients or their competitors. Now we receive our news via Twitter feeds, Linkedin, Facebook, we sign up to far more feeds than we would ever have contemplated reading, we cherry pick. News on demand.

Today I was asked if I thought email Bulletins were too slow? Amazing thought, to imagine that we are even considering that a daily email bulletin is too slow. Harriet was right though, in some respects a daily bulletin is too slow, news is everywhere, it’s on demand, its in feeds. People everywhere are aggregating all of these feeds into one location and getting it fed to them night and day, minute by minute and that is creating another effect..promiscuity!

Like search, do you care where you get your information from as long as its correct or first? Look at the myriad of Twitter feeds, most of them are just swirling the same content around so do you wait for your favourite feed to appear with the news that interests you or just click on the first? I click on the first and I bet many others do as well. It’s all changing, its faster, its more and more digital and it is all making even a Bulletin feel slow..someone stick the brakes on!

It does not stop at news, it’s the same with email. Many media companies are also communicating via messenger both internally and externally – why? It’s quicker than email..how much quicker can it get? It’s not just the mechanic but also the expectation – are we not all on email via BB or iPhone, why would it take that long to reply? How long do we all now wait before expecting a response? Ok its 10pm but he could just fire me back a quick response couldn’t he? Email is not slow, it’s now the users that are judged for their speed of response!

I am out of breath just writing this and during the time it has taken i have received about 100 feed updates, 5 emails at 11.30pm (damn the US) and 1 text. Where will it end? Thanks HD for the inspiration!

As a follow up – check Craig Robinsons response to this blog @ http://www.swissss.com

Loving the Heineken Inter vs Milan event

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Earlier in my blog I highlighted the great ‘concerts in a banner’ work, well here is another extremely clever and engaging piece of work which brings together media, PR, viral and stunts all into one idea. Take a look, it is genuinely impressive.

Most praise has to go the wives and girlfriends that managed to get them to the event!

Ad exchange development mirrors that of paid search

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Marco Bertozzi: 08:03:2010
The battle for the ‘ad exchange’ dollar is hotting up. It reminds me of how things were with search. It crept up on people / media agencies and before they knew it the specialists were doing well and making good money and winning pitch after pitch in the specialist area.

As it went on we debated whether search was specialist or should be just another channel forming part of an everyday media plan and finally we ended up with a couple of serious search independent players and the main agency groups pretty much on top of things and integrating and coordinating search into wider marketing plans.

Here we go again! Anyone who went through that must be getting a sense of Deja Vu. Everyone is talking about Ad Exchanges and DSP’s, the specialists are springing up and making hay and claiming they are the only ones who know how to do it. The debates rage around best practice and who has the biggest and best capability, its an incredibly similar scenario – does anyone else feel it?

The big difference this time is the agency groups to a greater or lesser extent saw it coming and started to gear up for it, as you can imagine I am biased in that area as to who has done it best to date but in a way that’s irrelevant, the point is the people in the know in agencies are all working towards this revolution. It will be a revolution, it is the next phase in media communications and those that ignore this will be looking as silly as those that thought search was a fad. This transition is moving so quickly though and only the brave will really make the most of this wave.

I am enjoying being part of this new wave of communications and trading and have been so impressed by the work that has gone on, this is exciting stuff and it is just going to explode.

My new role at Vivaki Nerve Center , EMEA

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Marco Bertozzi:03.03.2010
After a break of three months I have very recently secured a new role at Vivaki Nerve Center. I set out to find a role that was at the heart of the world of digital and I am pleased to say this role 100% achieves that. I am also excited about the fact that we are still at the formative stages for the Vivaki Nerve Center and that I will be part of the definition and growth of the unit.

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/994625/Marco-Bertozzi-hits-nerve-VivaKi/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

In the last three months I have spoken to many agency folk around the market and its been a fascinating view on the market. All the major agency groups are investing in their parent group offerings, seeing the benefits of aggregation of skills, knowledge, technology and of course media investment. I hope that as part of the VNC I will be working in what will be the future for Publicis Groupe and help lead the change.

As I have written about previously I believe that the one thing that is for certain is that technology and changing trading methods will alter the way agency groups structure around digital planning and buying. The role of the ‘media schedule’ will be less relevant when in fact we should be buying audiences regardless of their location or site they are visiting. Trading will be about buying at the best price to deliver the relevant ROI not about the fact you bought 10million impressions at a set price earlier in the month and that will combine search and display in all its formats.

On top of that we are of course dealing with the huge changes coming from mobile, social and video, three huge topics that we have to make a success of in our marketing solutions. I am constantly on my iPhone and Nexus one, I surf, blog, update and find information and there are many like me so our solutions need to be making the most of that audience. I believe we have a way to go in that arena as an industry, I look forward to working with Phonevalley and others in implementing these new strategies.

Whether it be social media, mobile or straight forward impression buying we also need cutting edge tracking and reporting solutions and I look forward to working with our partners and Groupe companies in helping us to deliver intuitive, useful and accurate reporting suites to help us across Search, display, video and social.

Having just spent a few days in San Francisco its clear there is an enormous amount to be getting on with, some tasks more straight forward than others but all equally exciting. Our strategic partnerships are going to really create some amazing opportunities for our clients and there will no doubt be more to come. I work in a group of amazingly talented companies including Razorfish, Digitas, Performics and many others so this should be an exciting times and I cant wait to start.

The Superbowl still captivates a nation, a UK perspective..and the TV ads

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Marco Bertozzi:14.02.2010
Having been in the US for the first time whilst Superbowl was on, I was struck by what an immense event it is. On the night there were 100 million viewers in the US! Those numbers are mind boggling and even more impressive that they were the highest viewing figures for the game ever.

Who says TV is dead? So how does the Superbowl weekend play out? I always had a simplistic view of the advertising around the event. I imagined a few great Ads in the centre break and then some discussion over how much each Ad cost and whether or not was it any good. I was completely wrong, on all the channels in the run up to the game there was almost as much discussion about the Ads as the game itself. In fact studies showed that watching the Ads was the best bit for many viewers. As an example the web was white hot with rumours about the Google Ad, with many even tweeting that hell must has frozen over for them to take a break in Superbowl.

Once in the game my idea of a ‘centre break’ was naive there were about five plus centre breaks each crammed with ads, some of which were good others less so. What struck me was the lack of an epic. There was no Honda Cog full length or a Tango Classic, just attempts at funny ads. I was sat in a bar when the favorite Dorito Ad came on (the one with the electrocuting dog collar) and the place erupted with laughter, success for Dorito on that one!

Here is a selection of the best:

Post game and on into the next days everyone talked about the ads, amazing coverage, they polled them, they critiqued them, ranked them, it was prime time news. The Internet viral effect was and still is massive, the more people talk about them, the more people go and search online, this is TV and online working together brilliantly. You can see why advertisers go for this, the exposure is enormous, there is simply nothing like this in the UK.

On balance I think it is slightly over the top but you do get dragged into the occasion, it’s also the biggest test of the theory that there is no such thing as bad publicity, woe betide anyone who made a dog of an Ad because that fact was repeated over and over again, would be great to see the sales of an advertiser who produced a bad Ad for Superbowl.

After 2 years of iPhone, should you buy a Google Nexus One?

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Marco Bertozzi:04.02.2010

I have read a lot about the Nexus One, more than I should have I suspect! Much of it is technical, detailed analysis. One reviewer was commenting on the weight distribution of the phone! That’s all well and good but not what most people are interested in, the question is ‘If I have had an iPhone for years should I buy a Nexus One?’ Just answer that..so thats what I will do.

I really wanted to like the Nexus One, after spending all that money it was vital I actually liked it! My first impressions that absolutely stand out compared to the iPhone:

Just so quick. This is your day to day usage, this is the diving in and out of apps, looking at the web, all of that stuff that you might not think about, but when you see it all speeded up you realise the benefits. Any iPhone user is unlikely to complain about the speed of their phone but that’s because they have nothing to compare it to, once you use the Nexus One you will find the iPhone slow, especially in the opening of the apps, no more waiting.

It does feel very shiny and new! The screen is amazing, you really notice it. Anyone who likes new gadgets will love the feel of it, everything comes alive in your hand. I am personally not keen on the colour, and I don’t think the layout of how the apps and buttons work is as intuitive as the iPhone although you quickly get used to it. The four home buttons at the base of the screen are used a lot to access functions within apps as opposed to being built into the app like on an iPhone, again I prefer the simple iPhone layout. The track ball could be useful in text mode but I think it ruins the look and is really not needed.

The App store and the Apps themselves are lacking on the phone, they feel less finished, a lot less of them and it is an area where the iPhone dominates, lets see how long that lasts. Anyone who has had an iPhone and moves to the Nexus will be frustrated by the fact nothing crosses over, sounds obvious but it feels wasteful having all those apps that I have invested in just sitting on my iPhone, yes you can still use them over WiFi but it would be good if the developers allowed you to transfer to the Nexus One if you bought them on the iPhone, or at least at a discounted rate.

Overall it is a great phone, the keyboard is not as good as the iPhone, more fiddly but again you will get used to that, the touch screen is designed for the phone to be held at an angle which means if you aim straight down you often miss your target, frustrating but again you get used to it. The speech to text functionality is very hit and miss in my opinion, its fine if you talk very clearly and slowly, it will be useful in some circumstances but not everyday usage I would say.

Overall I am pleased with it, most things people moan about are simple functionalities that people are not used to, does not mean they are bad. As with all things, give it some time and it will be second nature. It feels very special and even an avid iPhone user will have to admit it feels like a different league. That said it has some way to go in a couple of areas, annoying you can’t sync your Outlook Calendar, but I reckon they will be continually sending upgrades as time goes by. The biggest thing of all for me..I am glad to be back in the early adopter bracket, everyone has an iPhone now, it bores me.

As a footnote if you have a iPhone bluetooth handset, it will sync with the Nexus One, so at least thats one thing you will not be wasting on your swap to N1.

How can Google Nexus One not support Microsoft Exchange?

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Marco Bertozzi:30:01:2010
In this day and age I find it infuriating when major players in software and or hardware dont work together. Surely now they are waking up to the fact that we live in an open source world and putting up barriers may make themselves feel better but it annoys the people spending the money. Especially around mainstream ways of communicating like email systems.

How is it possible that Google’s Nexus One does not synch with Outlook Exchange Calendars etc, its madness, is Google not a serious business operation? Do they think the world will change to Gmail? Of course not, so instead they are just pissing off all those people who would love to have a Nexus One but connect to Exchange.

Likewise the news that the iPad does not support Flash, I mean come on, it’s a joke, the world runs on Flash how can they not support it when we are talking about a device designed to enjoy the consumption of all the best the web has to offer! These companies need to start thinking of the end consumers rather than their own protectionism, its madness, I hope very much that Google will reconsider this stance in the coming weeks.

How does Apple manage to generate this much interest?

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OK so most people may not be interested so lets not get carried away. Those however that enjoy technology and innovation you cant help but notice the arrival of the Apple tablet or islate or ipad.

What is amazing is the hype, the expectation of the product. Having sat for many years in meetings where clients want to chase down that elusive extra sale or a bit more word of mouth, they could only dream of what Apple have managed. What other brand is capable of doing this? Why have they been so successful? The only other brand that has come close has been the Google Phone, strangely everyone was out to knock it rather than encourage it, Apple receives mostly encouragement to change the world.

I think at the heart of all this is quality, much time and money is poured into the Apple products and the result is mostly amazing products, great innovation and game changing technology, delivered in a fashion that raises the bar each time. Those products are then supported by simple but effective advertising and an army of people who lovce to build applications for them, in the vase of the iPhone. Every element of an Apple product is thought through, not least the packaging, anyone who has bought a product from Apple has to admit that even getting it out of the box makes the whole experience feel special. It is just not the same with any other computer manufacturer.

Bottom line is people have come to expect game changing technology from Apple. In any other sector manufacturers need to think long and hard about how to stand out from the crowd if they want to achieve the level of loyalty and interest. Many advertisers talk about wanting to get the most out of social media, if they worked harder on their products and delivery the social media would sort itself out..