Ad Tech Live From Chi-Town
This past week, I joined 2,500 other marketers, publishers, and agencies as I attended the Ad Tech conference in Chicago. For those of you unfamiliar with Ad Tech, it's a 2-day marketing conference and expo that captures the insights, tools and techniques that today's business and marketing leaders need. In addition to that... it's just really nice excuse to get away from the office for a few days and interact with other marketers, and that's something I enjoy doing very much.
Ad Tech is by no means a search engine marketing show, like the Search Engine Strategies conference I normally attend. It did, although, offer a few SEM related sessions, but nothing really too advance. It seemed as though they did just enough to inform attendees of the many possibilities that search can have on a website, and left it at that. Nobody really touched on advanced strategies or had updated suggestions to offer.
The exhibit hall was exactly how I had imagined it to be... very busy, loud, and most of all exciting. Vendors included Yahoo!, Miva (formerly FindWhat), Kanoodle, ClickTracks, and many other Internet companies. I even walked away with one of those talking Did-it frogs courtesy of the guys at the Did-it booth. I first saw these frogs at the SES show back in December and since then I've really wanted one. When you press on it, it says "Did-it, Did-it" instead of "rib-it, rib-it." A truly classic piece of crap, but one that will no doubt occupy my desk or a long time.
The hotel bars, hallways and lobby were full of people making deals, swapping contact info and planning their next product or campaign launch. I especially enjoyed a keynote session with Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, who shared his ideas and comments on innovation and how industries, such as ours, will continue to evolve and prosper.
Overall, the conference was a big hit with me and it seemed to be that way with many others as well. I left Chicago with a mountain of ideas that I now look forward to testing in the upcoming weeks, most of which have to do with self-branding and internal marketing efforts.
If you ever get an opportunity to experience Ad Tech, or even the SES conference, I would truly recommend doing so. Sure you can get much of the same information sitting at your desk and reading the many blogs, forums, newsletters, or RSS feeds that inevitably take over you inbox, but nowhere will you be able to network with other marketers and visit Internet venders, such as Google and Yahoo!, like you can at these shows. For some of us, this is as good as it gets!
Ad Tech is by no means a search engine marketing show, like the Search Engine Strategies conference I normally attend. It did, although, offer a few SEM related sessions, but nothing really too advance. It seemed as though they did just enough to inform attendees of the many possibilities that search can have on a website, and left it at that. Nobody really touched on advanced strategies or had updated suggestions to offer.
The exhibit hall was exactly how I had imagined it to be... very busy, loud, and most of all exciting. Vendors included Yahoo!, Miva (formerly FindWhat), Kanoodle, ClickTracks, and many other Internet companies. I even walked away with one of those talking Did-it frogs courtesy of the guys at the Did-it booth. I first saw these frogs at the SES show back in December and since then I've really wanted one. When you press on it, it says "Did-it, Did-it" instead of "rib-it, rib-it." A truly classic piece of crap, but one that will no doubt occupy my desk or a long time.
The hotel bars, hallways and lobby were full of people making deals, swapping contact info and planning their next product or campaign launch. I especially enjoyed a keynote session with Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, who shared his ideas and comments on innovation and how industries, such as ours, will continue to evolve and prosper.
Overall, the conference was a big hit with me and it seemed to be that way with many others as well. I left Chicago with a mountain of ideas that I now look forward to testing in the upcoming weeks, most of which have to do with self-branding and internal marketing efforts.
If you ever get an opportunity to experience Ad Tech, or even the SES conference, I would truly recommend doing so. Sure you can get much of the same information sitting at your desk and reading the many blogs, forums, newsletters, or RSS feeds that inevitably take over you inbox, but nowhere will you be able to network with other marketers and visit Internet venders, such as Google and Yahoo!, like you can at these shows. For some of us, this is as good as it gets!
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posted by Karl Ribas Monday, July 18, 2005 Read Comments (0) | Post a Comment | Subscribe  
 
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