What I learned from @faris

This past Monday night I had the pleasure of attending a journey at the Conversations About the Future of Advertising at the Fine Line in Minneapolis. Presenting was Faris Yakob (@faris) the former Chief Technology Strategist at McCann Erickson in New York.

It was an interesting journey as he made the key point that "technology is stuff that really doesn't work yet". That's a keen observation as we are in the midst of a very big change in the marketing communications business. The Digital Tsunami is here and what Faris reminded us that the Internet is still relatively young at 15 years old. But think of the impact that it has had on us as both consumers and professionals.

I loved this platform - "you no longer search you share". And clearly this is the inherent beauty of the social media space. You jump in and you participate in this platforms. Again both as a professional and personally.

Another great quote that Faris shared was from William Gibson - "The future is already here - it's just not evenly distributed." And then he broke down the difference between generations raised by television content and those by Internet content. Clearly the generation raised by Internet content is consuming media much differently than those of us raised by television content.

A major theme of his talk was how advertising has to adapt to a post-scarcity media environment. And that laying down a bed of content as we do that - it lasts forever. The ability to develop and distribute great content will always be the key to reaching consumers. He really stressed the need to do stuff that gives consumers a role. His analogy was that in a mousetrap you have to leave room for the mouse.

He is a big proponent of Twitter as he loves the brevity of this platform and really believes that is the soul of it.

At the end of this winding journey through technology the one message that has stuck with me is "don't panic". And I'm always reminded of my favorite Hoopsnakes song - "Jump in and Hang On". Clearly I need to live this motto as our business continues to evolve and change.

What are you doing to change the way you do things? What are you learning out there? What's next? Let me know.