• by Seana Mulcahy , October 3, 2005

Well, I'm back from Advertising Week. Wow, what a whirlwind. The last panel I was on, I joined my fellow Spinners, as well as some from the past, for something of a recap. Some audience members said it was funny to see us up there for a number of reasons: Many people never really "see" us, aside from our head shots in the weekly e-mails. For the most part, we Spinners are all friends. We have a lot of fun writing each week. We really depend on your comments to make Mediapost better.

We also wanted to know how we could make our presentations at OMMA better. All of us Spinners thought we needed more feedback from readers. We need to be in touch with you to see what topics are timely and relevant before the shows in late spring and early fall next year.

For me, the event is a bit chaotic. I speak and moderate several panels. This proves hard to see other panels. Sometime they run concurrently. My fellow writer, Mark Naples, suggested podcasting the event (Editors: Great idea! We're actually working on making podcasts of this year's OMMA East available. Stay tuned.)

While you are thinking about ways for us to improve, I'd like to give you some of my takeaways from the week:

Survival of the fittest. I have never seen such camaraderie and unity at an event. I was surprised and thrilled to see some folks I haven't seen in years. We shared our own survival stories and laughed about the past. After each event, the facilities people had to escort everyone out of the room; no one wanted to leave.

Originality. I typically roll my eyes at certain events. Most of the topics for panels and vendors on the show floor are all about search. If you follow my writing, you know I am madly adverse to search in a vacuum. OMMA did have a number of search panels, but this time they were different. For instance, I spoke on a panel that revolved around how an advertiser or marketer could integrate search from a branding standpoint. It was refreshing to see a panel and an audience that is already seasoned, familiar with both search engine optimization and paid placement search.

Progress. I moderated a rich media panel. The foundation of the panel was to recognize the evolution of rich media. After writing several pieces here and hearing readers' comments, I also wanted to know if the term rich media is dead. I was surprised to hear that the panel was not concerned about the label. David Bryant from Digitas simply said, "Why get hung up in the marketing of a name?" It's funny, I hadn't really thought of it that way. A year or two ago you could ask five different people to define rich media and you'd get five different answers. Today that doesn't really happen.

Innovation. The rich media panel really highlighted advances in technology. There's very little technical hoop-jumping that must be done nowadays, which takes the burden off media folk and creatives. Video and sound are becoming part of mainstream life.

BS. While I certainly don't want to leave you on a sour note, there was a certain element of BS that must be recognized: competing events being held at the same time, lawsuits within the industry, people choosing one event over another, etc. We have come too far as an industry to begin splitting at the seams. The digital media and marketing space has grown up. Unfortunately, many of the people in the space have not. OMMA represented unity and togetherness. While we don't always agree, we need to look to what's best for the industry -- not ourselves.

So dear readers, if you went to the show, let us know your thoughts -- the good and the bad. If you couldn't see the show, we still want your comments. We are here to make it better, but we can't do it without you. Post your thoughts to the SPIN Board, and thanks in advance.