Simon Young

It was my first unconference, although I knew the concept.

Show up on the day, co-create the agenda with everyone else. A very exciting idea!

I’d already kind of promised I’d give a presentation, but I sort of forgot the part about actually preparing anything.

I wasn’t even sure what subject to speak on – how’s that for spontaneous – when Nigel Parker from Microsoft recommended I address the future of marketing. Good call Nigel.

The room was mostly people I’ve met before in some form or other – I’ve interviewed them, followed them on Twitter, or bumped into them on Facebook. Some, like Mauricio Freitas, I’d known for years but never met in person.

Then there was Netconcepts‘ Charles Coxhead (aka Surfarama), Throng‘s Regan Cunliffe, Glen Barnes from Nielsen Netratings, and some new folks I hadn’t met yet, like Anthony Umann all the way from Palo Alto, Robbie from Genesis Interactive, Tim (didn’t get your last name) and (guy who’s name I didn’t catch) from Mukuna.

What I said

I’m used to presenting to audiences who are strong on marketing, but don’t know much about tech. Here I was faced with an audience who knew tech more than I, and had probably done more real online marketing than I have.

There was only one thing to do. Ask questions. Make it a group interview.

After a stumbling start, we started to cover some valuable ground. I was hoping the session would be captured by Barnacle Barnes’ cool-looking MP3 recorder, but unfortunately it was set on “pause” – something I’ve done in my time.

From memory, here’s what we discussed:

• New Zealand marketers are somewhat behind the rest of the world when it comes to online advertising
• We discussed a few examples where online activity eventually led to mainstream media coverage
• Regan questioned why mainstream media coverage is still the measuring line of success? After all, you could probably reach more people through a well-done Facebook campaign than you would with TV.
• A lot of it is perception and inertia. Marketing managers and CEOs are used to advertising because it’s familiar, even if it’s not very measurable.
• We then talked about TV. I recalled our interview with Roger Beaumont, TV3′s marketing manager last week for Jump In! (to be podcasted in February – we’re that far ahead). Roger’s a great guy, but his personal media habits are where mine were 10 years ago – and perhaps as a result he misses the importance of these emerging media channels.
• TVNZ, on the other hand, is dying a slow death in the ratings wars – I remember a marketer from a large corporate telling me TVNZ had offered make-goods when ratings got better, but they haven’t got better. It’s dying when measured traditionally, but visionaries like Jason Paris are doing a great job carving out new territory and experimenting.
• Then the print media came in for a beating. Mauricio cited Juha Saarinen as perhaps the only tech journalist in the country who really “gets it”. But now he’s in an uncomfortable position as a blogger for Stuff.co.nz, not really completely blogging, nor being a journalist in this role.
• I can’t remember the exact words, but the sense I was getting from the room was that mainstream media feels a bit threatened, which leads to an “us and them” mentality instead of journos actually experiencing social media.

It was a familiar discussion, but not one I’ve had many times about the media in this country. I’ve heard it plenty on overseas podcasts about the media in – especially – the US, but I don’t know if all the people in that room on Saturday have had a chance to really thrash it out.

So… we’ve set up a Facebook Group to carry on – and widen – the discussion. I’d love to see you there, or on the comments on this post … or both!

(Photo by Zak Henry. See other BarCamp Auckland photos)