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The PSFK empire knows no boundaries and it was just a matter of time before it landed in San Francisco.

On July 17th, Piers is hosting a conference here in town and I am flattered to have been asked to speak.

It looks he has already lined up a great bunch of presenters, including some friends and people I've been wanting to meet for some time;

Adrian Ho, Zeus Jones, Andrew Hoppin, NASA, Chris Riley, Apple, Eric Ryan, Method, Jean-Marie Shields, Starbucks, Mark Lewis, DDB, Polly LaBarre, CNN, Rohit Bhargava, Ogilvy PR.

NOTE: This is a partial list.

More details on the event can be found here.

Posted by Ed Cotton influx ideas conference - october 19th, 2007 (37.79093020979957 , -122.49961853027344) Over the last four years, Influx Insights has introduced audiences to interesting ideas, concepts and people from the worlds of marketing and related disciplines.

We’ve also created a live version in the form of a conference, where some of the interesting people we’ve met and discovered along the way get the chance to talk to other interesting people. The concept seems to work pretty well, for the last 3 years, we’ve managed to attract 200 people to each event.

This year marks our 4th year of trying to do the conference thing. While our neighbors in the technology space have broken down the walls and created “Un-Conferences”; Barcamps and their ilk, meanwhile Influx continues to adopt a fairly traditional approach. Despite notions of radical change, we’ve found that the marketing world is still fairly traditional in it’s thinking and building brands is a little different from writing code.

We’ve stuck to a fairly typical formula of speaker and a short question and answer session. People have enjoyed it and we’ve been fortunate enough to have some great speakers; Peter Sealey, Eric Ryan, Howard Rheingold, Chris Anderson, Jody Turner, Nike’s Trend Group, Nick Graham, Jennifer Leonard, Dwell Magazine, Josh Quittner, John Battelle, Jim Riswold and many other smart and talented individuals.

However, we have always struggled with getting the audience involved. There’s been some great networking, but the audience have been relatively untapped and untested.

This year on October 19th, we will host Influx Ideas, our 4th conference and although we aren’t blowing up the conference concept, we are keen to encourage more audience participation. We will be more actively seeking audience responses and questions, we will create “virtual” opportunities to network and all attendees will get the chance to be speakers in a concept called 5X5 (5 speakers get 5 minutes). These speakers will be chosen by other attendees in a “Digg” like system we are setting up on the conference website.

Despite these “2.0” changes, whenever you mention “conference”, people always want to know who’s speaking and this year we probably have our best line-up. It’s been selected to try and help people gain inspiration and understanding of the changes and opportunities that Marketing 2.0 provides.

So here’s who’s speaking and why you need to hear them:

Sarah Rich is responsible for building Worldchanging into a leading resource for all things related to the environment. She will bring her unique perspective on what the radical shift by consumers towards the environment, means for brands.

Christian Simm created swissnex, a new idea to help the country of Switzerland  brand itself in the global war for talent and ideas.

Rebecca Saeger has helped to transform the financial giant, Charles Schwab, into a brand that encourages people to talk to Chuck.  

Kent Nichols created a new entertainment property in his apartment. Ask A Ninja, it has taken the Internet by storm; AAN’s films regularly attract a half a million viewers and have been cleaning up at all the web awards shows. Kent will talk about how AAN came to being and what its existence means for the future of media.

Chas Edwards runs business development at Federated Media. Federated’s mission is to become the “CAA of the web” and in a couple of years have built a “stable” of talented new media brands that they represent like; Digg, Deuce and Boing Boing.

Jonah Bloom is the editor of Advertising Age, the country’s leading advertising trade publication. Jonah will share his perspective on the changing world of advertising.

Scott Wyatt is a partner at NBBJ one of the leading architecture practices in the country. NBBJ has brought “brand” experiences into the HQs of some of the country’s leading corporations including; Starbucks, Boeing and Reebok.

Reuben Steiger is the founder of Millions of Us, one of the leading builders of environments in Second Life. These new virtual worlds create fundamentally different experiences for their users and offer new and interesting opportunities for brands, well beyond their PR value.

The event takes place at the Golden Gate Club in San Francisco, tickets for the event are currently $165 including breakfast and lunch and can be purchased here.

Sarah Rich is one of the speakers at our conference, Influx Ideas 07 held on October 19th in San Francisco. Sarah is currently the managing editor at Worldchanging; one of the most influencial "guides" to the issues surrounding the environment and sustainability.

Here's a short interview we recently did with Sarah.

1. How has the issue of the "environment" changed in the last 18 months?

Well obviously it's become the concern of a much wider swathe of the population, and has infused all aspects of culture and politics. This is a result of things like An Inconvenient Truth, scientific reports blowing previous assumptions out of the water and holding humans responsible for planetary destruction, and of course, actual weather disasters. It's become valuable from a marketing and a social perspective to demonstrate awareness of environmental problems. The "green theme" is ubiquitous everywhere -- fashion shows, music festivals, magazines. There's some sweet spot where environment as a cultural symbol and environment as an issue that motivates people to action are at their most effective, and I sometimes think we're in a somewhat precarious place near the peak of that; on the other hand, while that's a common perspective from deep inside the field, I think the public at large hasn't passed or gotten over the critical point of adopting and acting on environmental concern.

2. Do you feel most companies understand the importance of the issue?

I do. Many companies have had environmental statements for a while that enhance their brand value (at least for some consumers), but now not having one is a real reason for criticism or for choosing a different brand. Even those who've been "environmental" for a while have polished their statements and clarified their positions. The financial benefits for business are much clearer now, both in terms of actual savings from things like increased energy efficiency, and in terms of consumer preferences and priorities shifting.

3. What brand efforts stand out for you?

Wal-Mart (minus the negative social/community impacts they still cause), Nau, Interface, Tesla...I don't know enough to say with certaintly, but I read and hear a lot of interesting stuff about Nokia.

4. Do you think consumers are prepared to act?

I'd like to think so but I guess I'm somewhat cynical or skeptical about the power of consumers to take the lead in making change. Generally consumers follow trends and precedents set by brands they like or leaders they admire or simply advertising, which means that while consumers are capable of creating change because they are such a large population, I think it's harder for them to be mass catalysts. I hope I'm wrong, though.


Posted by Ed Cotton influx interview-three questions for reuben steiger-millions of us (37.86346191571964 , -122.49182939529419) Ruben Steiger is the founder of Millions of Us, one of the premier virtual architecture firms for Second Life and one of our speakers at Influx Ideas 07.

Recently, we asked Reuben three questions.

1. What has Millions of Us been up to in the last 6 months?

We've now brought one-third of the Fortune 50 into Second Life. We've grown to almost 30 full-time employees, and we've been enhancing our programming, incorporating early lessons and taking advantage of new resources. One example is a recent Microsoft campaign where we achieved participation rates of up to 74 hours for participants in a contest - these numbers are unheard of. We've also officially become a cross-platform social media agency, with a specialty in virtual worlds - this includes but does not limit us to Second Life. We've just announced a partnership with Gaia Online, a very hot teen online community with virtual world elements. Gaia delivers a much sought-after teen audience to our clients, and they provide a venue for some really cheeky programming. Gaia clocks up 2.5 million unique users per month, spending an average of 2-3 hours online per visit - amazing.

2. Is the recent criticism of Second Life as a branding tool warranted?

Not really - it's an inevitable part of the media cycle. Some of the criticism is partially warranted, but a lot of it is poorly contextualized and opportunistic, in the sense that pundits love to tear down technologies that have ridden a wave of hype. IT analyst firm Gartner calls this the hype cycle - new technologies spark a wave of initial excitement, expectations inflate, the technology is found to be imperfect in some ways, and there is a backlash - but in the long term, a good technology will overcome the hype cycle and enjoy long-term adoption. Long-term adoption cements opportunities for marketers.  All of the possibilities that made industry-watchers so excited about Second Life are still out there, and just a few have been realized, while many are just around the corner. People taking the long view understand that as digital natives come to dominate marketing spend, virtual worlds are going to be critical - and the virtual worlds phenomenon is much bigger than Second Life. That said, we continue to be very optimistic about Second Life; our clients' investments today will yield solid benefits in the short term, and huge dividends in the long term. Another thing to consider is Second Life's growth vector internationally - it's huge in places as diverse as Germany, Brazil, Poland, the Netherlands and South Korea, with higher per capita usage figures than those in the US. When the client is released in Japanese- and Korean- language versions later this summer, we expect to see turbocharged growth in Asia. In sum, Second Life has gone from obscurity to world domination in less than a year, making it an irresistible target for professional skeptics.


3. What do you think brands have learned from their Second Life experiences and where do you think it's headed?

Brands have learned that they have to engage as opposed to merely planting a flag - those that have been willing to join in dialogues, experiments, and games with users have been much more successful than those that have just thrown up buildings and expected people to pay attention. The Microsoft campaign we mentioned above is a perfect example. There are a couple of big trends for 2007 and beyond that we see. The first is the use of Second Life to market films and TV - it allows people to walk on to sets and to interact with characters in a way that's been impossible up to now. Our Warner Bros. Gossip Girl project is evidence of this, and the trend will only strengthen as several studios make a big push into distributing more 3D films (Dreamworks has stated that all of its animation output after 2009 will be in 3D). The second trend is in virtual goods, which are already generating US$1.5 billion per year in sales. These goods can be exchanged in environments ranging from Facebook to Second Life, and many others. There are big opportunities here for brands.





Posted by Ed Cotton We are pleased to announce the addition of Jonah Bloom, the editor of Advertising Age, as a speaker at the Influx Ideas 07 conference.

Here's Jonah's bio...

Jonah joined Ad Age in September 2002 from PRWeek magazine, a national weekly based in New York reporting on corporate communication, branding and public affairs. He helped to launch PRWeek in 1998 as news editor and went on to become editor-in-chief. He also has considerable experience reporting on the media industry in Europe, having founded and been the editor of Campaign Media Business, a national weekly covering planning, buying and selling of media in the U.K.

Jonah’s other roles have included magazines editor on journalist’s weekly Press Gazette, news reporter on VNU’s Accountancy Age and reporter on weekly print and packaging journal PrintWeek. In 2002 Jonah edited the HarperCollins book “Top Companies in Marketing & Media.” His stories have been published in several national dailies in the U.K. including The Financial Times and The Guardian.

Conference information and registration details can be found here.

Lots of smart folks speaking at this one.

On 1st June, PSFK presents a series of presentations and discussions by leading innovators over the course of a day. The morning will focus on evolving new trends and ideas; the afternoon will look at future design and new marketing.

Confirmed Speakers

Niku Banaie, Naked Communications
Mike Butcher, TBites
Russell Davies, Open Intelligence Agency
Régine Debatty, We Make Money Not Art
Jeremy Ettinghausen, Penguin Books
John Grant
Tamara Giltsoff, OZOlab brand
Beeker Northam
George Parker, Madscam
Iain Tait, Poke
Diana Verde Nieto, Clownfish
Faris Yakob, Naked Communications
Johnny Vulkan, Anomaly

Many more speakers to be confirmed. Register your interest in attending this conference here.