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Hit the Heart of Digital: Notes on the IMMAP Summit 2012

The Internet Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP) had its 6th Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit just last week, August 23-24, 2012, at Rockwell, Powerplant Mall. It’s called “Hit the Heart of Digital”.

The roster of speakers includes influential (and pretty cool) people from the mobile and digital side of the world, both locally and internationally. And by “pretty cool” people, I mean the likes of Manny V. Pangilinan, Chairman of just-about-everything-in-the-Philippines (see photo above), Maria Ressa, CEO of Rappler.com a.k.a. the-woman-who-maps-everything, the “a-dork-able” (hey, I got that description from the #IMMAPSummit2012 Twitter feed) Tyson Wheatly, Senior Editor at CNN, and Leigh T. Reyes, President and CCO at Lowe Philippines with the jellyfish jeggings. Just naming a few favorites here, but they have a full list in their website.

I’m glad to know that a lot of brands are learning more and more the importance of going digital and mobile and of the internet as a whole. With all of these new technologies that sprout from the ground everyday, the way people create, consume, and perceive information evolve every minute. Things are changing so quickly that it seems half of what I learned in Marketing back in college (which was not so long ago) is about to become obsolete.

Just like the weather, the behavior of people have become increasingly harder to forecast. It seems like only yesterday that we were called the “MTV Generation” – that generation was, supposedly, composed of us kids who are unable to focus on any one thing at any given time. We were the kids who need to be “entertained”, so they say. And now, with the blink of an eye, MTV is gone, and the world has released another set of even more attention-deficit-disordered kids which I’d like to call the “Now Generation“. This generation is basically a more impatient, brattier, and more hyperactive set of people (oh wait, that sounds like me), and is best described through the Black Eyed Peas song “Now Generation”.

 

Funny isn’t it? Right now I’m wondering if the next era will be a generation of fishes with 30-second memory spans.

And so going back, I’m happy that brands and companies and people understand this. In the end, the “Heart of Digital” is the human being – the person you are trying to communicate with. So you have to know how they roll and where they hang out and everything. And this “where” which I talk about isn’t necessarily a physical place anymore – it could be a place in the digital world.

I can’t do a full coverage and I wasn’t able to live tweet during the program due to my Social Media Lockout Challenge. But I have a few written notes and iPhone photos which I could share. A bit backward, I suppose, but possibly entertaining.

And here they are, in no particular order:

This is Tyson Wheatly of CNN during the Q&A.

And in my notebook, as a representation of the black-rimmed glasses gang from the digital world. Glasses aren’t glasses if they’re not black-rimmed.

He was quite proud of this effort that CNN made 5 years after Hurricane Katrina, and mentioned that the idea was taken from “somewhere in the Internet”. That “somewhere”, in case you’re interested is dearphotograph.com – which is also worth a peek or even a bookmark.

Here’s Maria Ressa of Rappler. Or my version of her. And although I’m not much of a fan of news sites, I think I’ll be checking out Rappler starting now.

Nick Fawbert of Third Space Consulting, and Jeff Lipold of Euro RSCG.

One of my favorite campaigns was presented by Jeff Lipold: The Harpic Apology.

Domingo Ramon Enerio III, Assistant Secretary at the Department of Tourism (DOT), presented the #itsmorefuninthephilippines campaign.

The photo on the right shows the top problem which, I observed, most conference attendees had to face during the two days. Everybody’s on data, I suppose.

Lastly, the woman in jellyfish leggings and with a passion for fountain pens, Leigh Reyes. Must check her Instagram for her creations that put my drawings to shame (@leighpod).

And that was #IMMAPSummit2012 in my viewpoint. Maybe in the next one, I could be part of the hash tag feeds as well (or maybe I can draw all the speakers and mind map all the speeches).

So, what do you think?

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