November 5, 2009 | In: Uncategorized
The Audience Conference Dares Us to Listen
Have you ever taken a technology vacation? What I mean by that is have you ever disconnected yourself completely from your digital lives? No email, no Facebook, no RSS feeds, no internet at all? I haven’t done it in a few years but from what I do remember from that vacation I took (it was while I was in Scotland) is that it helped me focus when I came back. When I returned I realized that the world had not fallen apart and I didn’t really miss that much even though I was offline for almost two weeks.
Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the day-to-day and we forget why we do the things we do to begin with. This scenario is analogous to the online marketing world presented before us today. The daily evolving world of social media has taken over our lives. Everything we do, from getting food (find the menu on Menupages, order from Seamlessweb, review on Yelp) to walking the street (check Google maps for where that bar is, check-in with FourSquare, I’m the mayor!) has become a social web experience.
The marketing world, trying to keep up, has put most of its attention on getting their content in the social stream. Getting users to share their content is the ultimate goal of any current marketer. Is this the right approach?
I’ll be attending a unique conference this week created by well-known video blogger and web 2.0 personality Loren Feldman. The Audience Conference dares us to disconnect from our world of sharing and asks us to focus on the quality list of speakers and presentations at hand. Laptops are discouraged (if not banned). There won’t be any official live blogging. There won’t be a live feed. The goal is not to share this conference but to experience it like we used to experience things before the online social explosion.
Focusing on our audience is something that us marketers might have lost over the past few years (if we ever really had it to begin with). Going back to basics may be the best way to solve this problem. There are still a few seats left at The Audience Conference if you have an interest in going.
2 Responses to The Audience Conference Dares Us to Listen
Yehuda Farkas
November 24th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
I tried this last year. It’s called going “off the grid” or an “off the grid vacation.” I went skiing in a very remote area for a four day stretch. No cell phone coverage, no blackberry or PDA use, and no up-to-the-minute updates. Even land-line phone use was scarce.
I have to say, I had a great time. I can back relaxed, invigorated, and was actually excited to return home. Sounds great. What a joy. Why wouldn’t we all do this, you might wonder?
A patient of my died, I had a flood in my house, and because I was not checking my e-mails, I wasn’t aware that someone was using my credit card, it had been stopped, and wouldn’t work on my trip home.
So what’s the lesson here? Technology sucks, to a degree. We all remember those days when we went without a cell phone, or had to chug around a monster laptop that only had an internet connection through a dial-up line in a hotel. However, we live in a world where doing business is a 24 hour a day operation. If we want to exist in the current, we need to utilize the technology that exists, every waking second of the day. Even if that means answering an SMS message at 4:23am.
Help? Hacked and stuck with Verizon
August 13th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
I have a real stalker who happens to be an IT for a software company. Before I knew what was happening, besides for the physical stalking, he was in my account and my droid. Verizon admitted my phone had been hacked and “cleaned” did a hard reset. A new gmail account, a new phone number. You probably know, that didn’t help me, and that didn’t detur him. I have only been with verizon less than two months and have a $1500 bill (after they gave me a credit and I have made payments) I have pleaded, argued, cried. They admit to the problem, and the mistake, even the hacking, they just claim there is nothing more they can do. I am not safe with the phone, and can not get out of the contract (22 months remaining) Or can I? and since the hacker changed my account settings (friends and family settings etc. causing phone calls that should have been free to cost, do I have any other options?)
Shalom,
JoAnn