Before anything else, I have to say a giant thank you to UO J. school for sending Megan and I to Inverge! It was a great opportunity and we’ll be able to implement quite a bit of what we learned into making AHA/NVC 2009 amazing…
With that said…Inverge 2008! Inverge is a 2 day interactive convergence conference where thought leaders from a wide variety of industries speak about their specialization under the umbrella topic: the influence of technology and it’s effects on society, specifically how it has affected the advertising/branding/marketing world.
Inverge
I could go on for days about all I learned; however, here are a handful of my favorite thoughts/ideas from Inverge:
Renny Gleeson, Global Digital Strategies Director, Wieden + Kennedy
• Are we using technology to create bubbles (past) or to create communities (now/future)
• Technology has caused major miscommunications (we rely heavily on visual/audio cues – email for example eliminates this)
• Flickr has some freaking awesome groups. Ex – Dinosaurs in Inappropriate Places (and yes, I’ve already joined and added a photo in case you were curious!)
• Brands are no longer 9 – 5, they are 24/7
• How can technology make us more human than less?
• We now spend hours maintaining our online identities – has this affected our real life identities?
Renny Gleeson
Raven Zachary – iPhone Intelligence
• 75% of mobile web traffic is from iPhone and iPod touch (iPhone was released just over a year ago!)
• iPhone apps.
o Win at wasting time
o Identify a song
o Drink a virtual beer
o Audience feedback (speakers iPhone turns red if audience doesn’t like topic)
o I am rich (cost a million dollars just to show you can afford it)
o Phone saber (think light saber…iPhone style)
Raven Zachary
Scott Kveton, Chairman, Openid Foundation, VP of Open Platforms, Vidoop
• Predicting the Future
o Olympics – multiple announcers – we choose who to listen to
o Phone will vibrate when Obama supporter walks by
o Media that targets you but doesn’t include you isn’t worth it!!
Scott Kveton
Paul Matthaeus, Founder, CCO, Chairman – Digital Kitchen
Thesis -> antithesis -> synthesis
Paul Matthaeus
Ed Lantz , President & CTO Vortex Immersion Media
• Will immersive media provide enhanced experiences or cause cognitive overload?
• Digital flirting
Ed Lantz
Richard Rosen, President + CEO + author: Convergence Marketin
Interactive ≠ Interaction
Richard Rosen
Amber Case, Cyborg Anthropologist
She live-tweeted the entire event – how freaking awesome is that???
Here I am, watching both Amber’s live speech and live tweet:
watching Amber
• Too many feature reduce value (hello Facebook and MySpace!!!!)
• W/out humans, theree would be no technology, w/out technology…there would be no humans…?
• Twitter = transcending silos of mental isolation
All in all, Inverge was fabulous – cre8con tomorrow to complete the weekend of business+culture experience madness
