The Internet Strategy Forum

I'll be attending the Internet Strategy Forum's West Summit: The Titan's of E on Thursday the 17th in Portland, OR.

I'm pretty excited about it.

First of all, I found out about it because I read the Biznology blog by Mike Moran, and he did a post about speaking at the summit and that if we mentioned him in our registration we got 15% off. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I of course checked it out and after seeing the line-up was convinced that this was a great conference for me to attend, so I registered and got the 15% discount! Thanks Mike!

Here's that line up:

Geoffrey Ramsey, Co-founder & CEO, eMarketer
Nancy Bhagat, VP of Sales and Marketing Group, Intel
Daniel Stickel, new CEO, WebTrends (formerly with Google)
Charlene Li, VP & Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
Chris Shimojima, VP, Global Digital Commerce, Nike
David Placier, VP, Consumer Insights, Disney Online
Shane O'Neill, Chief Technology Officer, Fandango
Mike Moran, Distinguished Engineer, IBM, author (highest-rated speaker at 2007 Summit)

So why would I select this conference? Well, the timing is right. I'm not in the middle of classes right now -- but I am in the beginning process of re-creating my course in Internet-based Marketing (yes, I actually do recreate my courses, often...this ain't Shakespeare ya know!). I've always wanted to see Portland, OR, and well, I enjoy getting a chance to meet in person the bloggers/writers I follow and use in my classes!

(Note that I got that chance earlier this summer when I met Avinash Kaushik in person!)

Here's the YouTube Promo Video:

And there's a Facebook Group and a Twitter Feed. Neither of these are very active. I wonder if it will pick up during the conference?

Anyway, here's an opportunity for me to get really pumped so I can keep my class current and fresh.

As always, I'll be Twittering from the conference. I can't seem to find if they've set up a TWEME, but you can always look for updates from "Summize" (just aquired by Twitter) to see who is Twittering about the conference.

The American Academy of Advertising

I had the opportunity to take part in my first ever ACADEMIC conference this past weekend. Yep..really! There hasn't been a big focus on the whole "scholarship" part of the academic world here at Champlain College in the past, but with a new president and an increased emphasis on professional development it is time for me to head out into a brave new world.

Of course, it helps when the conference is happening in your own back yard!

Yep, this year the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Advertising was held at Burlington's Sheraton Hotel. This certainly did make the travel plans pretty straight forward. What a GREAT conference! Even though we are in the midst of a SNOWSTORM right now, the conference seemed to come off fairly well attended.

I learned some very interesting things this weekend from both an academic and practioner point of view -- I do enjoy when the two actually connect AND work together!

There was a session on product placement and its effectiveness in different media. From this presentation I learned that RAP music has the highest product placement, with Country second, Pop third, Rock forth and Alternative fifth. Within the RAP genre, product placement is about showing luxury items. According to the researcher, this signifies that the the Rapper has "arrived" and is a way to show status. Interestingly enough, the Country focus is more on utility and things that are needed to get the job (whatever it may be) done.

I also had a chance to learn that Cause-related Marketing has the potential to be more effective in India than in the United States, because in the US we are more skeptical.

Then there was the session on practicum learning -- the highlight of which was an example of the AdLab that is part of the Advertising program at Boston University. It was very interesting to hear how this University is providing students with real-world experience.

There was opportunities to network and meet others in the academic world and to share experiences as well.

Next year, they hold their meeting in San Mateo, CA. I'm thinking of going!