oday's column marks the one-year anniversary of my Online Spin column (and 11 years since I was first featured in the publication -- how time flies). Writing a substantive and thought-provoking weekly column is no easy task, particularly while growing a business. The weekly deadline was both rewarding and challenging. But now I must pass the torch.

Last week at the IAB Annual Meeting in Miami there was a fascinating presentation by Rob Norman, CEO of GroupM North America, who responded to questions about the future viability of the media agency model in the face of competition posed by ad tech startups. Norman made the case that agencies have recently made their own investments in advertising technology and would continue to prosper. Agencies are also upgrading their talent to look more like ad tech firms. Clearly, media agencies have finally realized that integrating and managing ad tech is no longer someone else's job. With the agencies once …

I confess to being a little dismayed at the email I received a little over a year ago in response to my application to attend the TED conference in Long Beach, Calif. "We're sold out," it said, "but we're happy to take a bunch of money from you so you can watch it on TV down the road."

Many things are going great for the industry. Online ad revenue is up. Online usage of all kinds is going up. We're launching more and more ad units that are more robust for brand advertisers. We're making real inroads in Washington, D.C. with regulators, legislators -- and even the White House. We're attracting more and more investment capital and more and more attention from the business and trade press. We have made enormous advances in best practices across dozens of critical areas in our supply chain. However, it's also quite clear that many in the industry are a bit disjointed, …

What's the future of the ad exchange model? It's clear that ad exchanges and DMPs are the future of the media business, as media has become more and more of a commodity and data has become a requirement to add value -- but where are things headed?

We are all familiar with the old adage "less is more." Yet there is only a half-truth in that statement. The consumer journey has become more complex. The strategies that drive how we reach, engage, and influence the consumer are becoming more complex. The methods and systems that we use to plan, buy and optimize media are becoming more complex. Cross-functional collaborative dependencies have become more complex. We must embrace complexity -- but this complexity must be interpreted, prioritized and presented as simple ideas that inform cross-functional teams within the organization.

Most people in media advertising are aware that the buy side of the industry receives "perks" from sellers. This may come in the form of a complimentary lunch or dinner, thanks to the expense budgets of the media sellers. Recently, though, some agencies have begun to put guidelines around the perks that an employee may receive. This is a good idea, especially for younger buyers who may not yet know how to comport themselves. However, it's important that we not go too far when it comes to regulating the perks of media. Here's why:

Last week, CNET revealed that nomophobia, the fear of being out of mobile phone contact, is on the rise. Apparently, two in three adults suffer from anxiety when not reachable, up from one in two a year ago. The growing prevalence of nomophobia is unsurprising in light of our ever-increasing obsession with our handheld devices. It is now a documented phenomenon that people experience phantom mobile phone vibrations. Another study has revealed that three quarters of Americans use their mobile phone in the bathroom -- and it's a safe bet that the phone isn't getting washed afterwards. So I have …

ROI is either a flag you wave in every meeting you enter, or it's a curse that follows you around daily, depending on your point of view and level of comfort with data. I would like to propose a different definition of the model for ROI, one I think is more relevant for this day and age of social media: the return-on-interest model.

As social media budgets continue to rise, demands from the C-suite to prove the value of these investments are intensifying. Executives do intuitively understand that direct consumer relationships are valuable, and they are patiently, albeit eagerly, awaiting the ability of their marketing departments and agencies to correlate the economic impact of ongoing social media investments.